Court Opinion

ID: 9758812
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 23:47:45.396449+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:56.252917
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING OPINION BY
TODD, J.:
¶ 1 While I agree with the Majority that the conviction for second-degree murder must be vacated, I come to that conclusion by a somewhat different route, and thus concur in the result on that issue. In all *1224other respects, I join the Majority opinion of my esteemed colleagues.
¶ 2 I conclude that the Majority’s analysis, to the degree that it infers specific factual findings from the jury’s acquittal of Appellant on the robbery charge, is not in accordance with Pennsylvania caselaw. Our Supreme Court has been emphatic that “an acquittal cannot be interpreted as a specific finding in relation to some of the evidence,” because consistency in a jury’s verdict in a criminal case is not required. Commonwealth v. Campbell, 539 Pa. 212, 219, 651 A.2d 1096, 1100 (1994) (“We interpret the acquittal as no more [than the jury’s] assumption of a power which they had no right to exercise, but to which they were disposed through lenity.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). That the Majority makes just such factual inferences in the process of analyzing the import of the jury’s acquittal of Appellant on robbery, in my view, departs from this directive. See Majority opinion, at 1221. However logical these inferences may be, I conclude we are prohibited from making them. For example, while the Majority concludes that the acquittal on robbery necessarily implies that the jury found that Appellant did not steal or attempt to steal money from the victims, I note that the jury may have found that money was indeed stolen, but, through leniency or for whatever reason, nonetheless, and illogically, acquitted Appellant of robbery. Under Campbell, this it was free to do.
¶ 3 Under Commonwealth v. Magliocco, 584 Pa. 244, 883 A.2d 479 (2005), I conclude that the only evidentiary finding that may be drawn from an acquittal — and that this is the only exception to Campbell — is that the defendant did not commit a given offense. And where committing that offense is an element of another crime, the jury may not then convict the defendant of that other crime. To allow such a verdict would be to allow the jury to say, in essence, that the defendant both committed and did not commit an offense. While jury verdicts are otherwise allowed to be inconsistent, this gross degree of inconsistency is not allowed under Magliocco.
¶ 4 Thus, unless we can determine, based upon the statutory elements of the offenses, and without looking behind the jury’s verdict of acquittal, that the jury’s acquittal of Appellant for robbery necessarily negates the elements of felony-murder, then the verdict on felony-murder, even if inconsistent, must stand.
¶ 5 I regard such an inference as necessary in this case, however, for the following reasons. Herein, the jury was instructed that there was no such crime as attempted robbery, that robbery subsumed attempted robbery, or, more precisely, attempted theft. Majority Opinion, at 1221 (quoting jury instructions). Although this is not correct as a general proposition, see, e.g., Commonwealth v. White, 295 Pa.Super. 13, 18, 440 A.2d 1198, 1200-01 (1982) (approving jury instruction on crime of attempted robbery), nevertheless, the jury, as instructed, was not free to conclude that Appellant attempted a robbery; by its verdict, the jury necessarily acquitted Appellant of robbery and attempted robbery. Further, I find the definition of the relevant element of the felony-murder statute — “in the perpetuation of [robbery]” — to be so close to attempted robbery that I must conclude the jury’s verdict reveals the gross inconsistency prohibited by Maglioc-co. By finding Appellant guilty of felony-murder, the jury necessarily found that Appellant completed or attempted a robbery; yet, by its acquittal of Appellant on robbery, it also found that Appellant did not complete or attempt a robbery. Because this level of gross inconsistency in the jury’s verdict is not allowed under Magliocco, I agree with the Majority that *1225Appellant’s conviction on felony-murder must be reversed.