Court Opinion

ID: 9647785
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:50:27.293028+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:53.404562
License: Public Domain

CAVANAUGH, Judge,
concurring:
I disagree with the reasoning employed in the majority’s opinion with respect to the claim of trial counsel’s ineffectiveness in failing to object to the admissibility of Dr. Catherman’s expert testimony, which was based on a hearsay autopsy report not admitted into evidence.
*106No case cited by the majority or the Commonwealth sufficiently distinguishes this case from the Supreme Court’s holding in Commonwealth v. McCloud, 457 Pa. 310, 322 A.2d 653 (1974). McCloud rather clearly states that in a homicide prosecution, evidentiary use, as a business records exception to the hearsay rule, of an autopsy report in proving legal causation of the decedent’s death is impermissible unless the accused is afforded the opportunity to confront and cross-examine the medical examiner who performed the autopsy, absent compelling necessity. Id. The medical examiner in this case was absent from the country, but the Commonwealth did not seek to admit other evidence from which a testifying expert could have drawn conclusions as to the cause of death.
It is true that Pennsylvania courts have in the past permitted experts to testify as to the cause of death based in part on hearsay which reviewing courts felt was either admitted or merely utilized by the expert under a medical records exception. See, Commonwealth v. Daniels, 480 Pa. 340, 390 A.2d 172 (1978); Commonwealth v. Thomas, 444 Pa. 436, 282 A.2d 693 (1971). However, in these cases there was testimony by other witnesses as to critical, facts on which the expert based his conclusions. For instance, the Daniels court was careful to point out that, with the exception of one report, all of the facts on which the expert based his opinion came from the expert’s interviews with individuals who themselves testified to those facts during the case.
The Thomas case dealt with psychiatric expert testimony offered by the Commonwealth to refute a homicide defendant’s claim of insanity. There the expert’s conclusions were based on his own evaluation of the defendant and on psychological testing done by the court psychologist. The psychological tests were admitted into evidence and were used by defense experts as well as by the Commonwealth’s witness. As in Daniels, the court cited the then-emerging rule which permits medical witnesses to express opinion testimony on medical matters based, in part, upon reports *107of others which are not in evidence, but upon which the expert customarily relies in the practice of his profession. Thomas, supra.
Commonwealth v. Smith, 480 Pa. 524, 391 A.2d 1009 (1978), also cited by the majority, is likewise inapposite. In Smith, a pathologist testified to the ultimate cause of death based on an autopsy performed by an individual who was not a physician, but who did have experience performing autopsies. The individual who performed the autopsy did not render an opinion as to the cause of death, but he did testify and described the wounds and the path and location of the bullets in the victims’ bodies. He also excised vital organs and turned them over to the medical doctor who was the Commonwealth’s expert. The expert testified as to the cause of death based on his own examination of the vital organs combined with information received from the individual who performed the autopsy. In Smith, then, there was no underlying hearsay problem, since another witness testified to all of the facts on which the expert based his opinion.
The same is true of Commonwealth v. Haddle, 271 Pa.Super. 418, 413 A.2d 735 (1979), cited by the Commonwealth in its brief. Furthermore, in the Haddle case the records came in only to refute a theory advanced by the defense itself, not to prove an element of the Commonwealth’s case against the defendant, as in the instant appeal.
Moreover, none of those cases, with the exception of McCloud, dealt directly with the Confrontation Clause issue which underlies appellant’s claims.
In the context of this claim of ineffectiveness, however, I perceive that there was a reasonable basis for counsel’s failure to object to Dr. Catherman’s testimony. Autopsy photographs were available which graphically depicted the decedent’s burned and mutilated body. Counsel may have wished to avoid the admission of these photographs as a foundation for Dr. Catherman’s testimony. Thus, appellant *108has failed to demonstrate that counsel was ineffective in not objecting to Dr. Catherman’s testimony.
CERCONE, J., joins.