Court Opinion

ID: 9692447
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 15:54:29.655049+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:34.602444
License: Public Domain

CASTILLE, Justice,
concurring.
I join the majority opinion, but write separately to address the following points.
I agree with the majority that the jury charge here, considered as a whole, conformed to the rale announced in Commonwealth v. Huffman, 536 Pa. 196, 638 A.2d 961 (1994), governing instructions on accomplice liability in first degree murder cases. The disapproved charge quoted in Huffman contained no elaboration on the basis for finding accomplice liability. Id. at 198-99, 638 A.2d at 962. Here, in contrast, as the majority has correctly noted, the trial court separately and thoroughly charged the jury on accomplice liability — indeed, it did so in an instruction that mirrors the language in the Crimes Code defining accomplice liability. See 18 Pa.C.S. § 306(c). I would also add that the Huffman issue here is not even applicable for several reasons: first, the evidence, including appellant’s confession to a cellmate, amply proved appellant’s guilt as the principal (ie., the actual shooter), not as an accomplice, see Commonwealth v. Wayne, 553 Pa. 614, 633, *147720 A.2d 456, 465 (1998), cert. denied, Wayne v. Pennsylvania, — U.S.-, 120 S.Ct. 94, 145 L.Ed.2d 80 (1999); second, the circumstantial evidence alone proved the shared criminal intent of appellant and his co-defendant Gregory, who jointly pistol-whipped the victim before appellant shot him; and third, appellant was convicted of conspiracy.
The last point is worthy of elaboration. Criminal conduct involving multiple perpetrators often, but not always, involves multiple theories of vicarious liability, i.e., conspiracy liability (which requires an agreement) and accomplice liability (which does not). The theories serve different purposes and have different contours. Commonwealth v. Bachert, 499 Pa. 398, 453 A.2d 931 (1982), cert. denied, Bachert v. Pennsylvania, 460 U.S. 1043, 103 S.Ct. 1440, 75 L.Ed.2d 797 (1983), was a sufficiency of the evidence case which discussed only the level of proof necessary to prove guilt of first degree murder on a theory of accomplice liability. Bachert’s holding that the accomplice himself, and not merely a confederate, must possess the necessary mental state was thoroughly consistent with the Crimes Code’s definition of accomplice liability. See 18 Pa.C.S. § 306(c)(1) (person is an accomplice if, with the intent of promoting or facilitating the commission of the offense, he solicits another to commit it, or aids, agrees, or attempts to aid another in committing the offense) (emphasis added). Huffman was a non-sufficiency case involving a challenge to the propriety of the court’s accomplice liability charge. Relying upon Bachert, the Court disapproved a charge that permitted the jury to convict the accomplice of first degree murder “with no finding of the requisite mental state of ‘specific intent to kill’ ” on the part of the accomplice. 536 Pa. at 199, 638 A.2d at 963.
Two years ago, in Commonwealth v. Wayne, supra, this Court extended the Bachert/Huffman teachings on accomplice liability to first degree murder cases involving conspiracy liability. Although I joined in the Wayne opinion, upon further careful consideration of this recurring point, I am convinced that the Wayne reconfiguration was an erroneous *148intrusion into the legislature’s power to define the substantive criminal law.1
In Wayne, this Court accurately described the general rule of conspiracy liability as follows:
The general rule of law pertaining to the culpability of conspirators is that each individual member of the conspiracy is criminally responsible for the acts of his co-conspirators committed in furtherance of the conspiracy. The co-conspirator rule assigns legal culpability equally to all members of the conspiracy. All co-conspirators are responsible for actions undertaken in furtherance of the conspiracy regardless of their individual knowledge of such actions and regardless of which member of the conspiracy undertook the action. The premise of the rule is that the conspirators have formed together for an unlawful purpose, and thus, they share the intent to commit any acts undertaken in order to achieve that purpose, regardless of whether they actually intended any distinct act undertaken in furtherance of the object of the conspiracy. It is the existence of shared criminal intent that is the sine qua non of a conspiracy.’
Wayne, 553 Pa. at 630, 720 A.2d at 463-64 (citations omitted).
However, the Wayne Court fashioned an exception to this general rule, based upon the perception that first degree murder should be treated differently from, other offenses because of the severity of the punishment. Importing the accomplice liability principles that animated Bachert and Huffman, it reconfigured conspiracy law, essentially holding that the crime of first degree murder would no longer be susceptible to traditional conspiracy analysis. Under the Wayne reconfiguration, a defendant cannot be convicted of first degree murder under a theory of conspiracy liability, even if the killing was in furtherance of the conspiracy, unless the Commonwealth separately proves that the defendant harbored a specific intent to kill. Id. at 630-31, 720 A.2d at 464. I *149disagree with the Wayne reconfiguration and would return to the pr e-Wayne law as it has existed in this Commonwealth. The Crimes Code certainly does not require the Wayne exception to conspiracy liability. Generally, there is no requirement that conspirators must specifically contemplate each particular crime that may occur in furtherance of the conspiracy before liability may attach. I certainly see no principled basis for this Court’s revision of the law of conspiracy simply because the charge involved is first degree murder.
There is a synergy that arises from criminal confederations. People who might not have the individual courage, the ability, or the ill judgment to commit a crime on their own become emboldened when they join with confederates to plan and launch a criminal enterprise. In recognition of the distinct dangerousness of this criminal phenomenon, the legislature has codified conspiracy itself as a separate crime — ie., conspiracy is not just a theory of liability, it is a distinct crime. There is no logical reason to single out first degree murder from other crimes in determining the reach of conspiracy liability.
I would return to the terms of the Crimes Code and the settled pr e-Wayne law recognizing the long-standing principle that, in a conspiracy, “ ‘the least degree of concert or collusion between parties to an illegal transaction makes the act of one the act of all.’ ” Commonwealth v. Strantz, 328 Pa. 33, 40, 195 A. 75, 79 (1937) (citing Chief Justice Gibson in Rogers v. Hall, 4 Watts 359, 361 (1835)). “No principle of law is more firmly established than that when two or more persons conspire or combine with one another to commit any unlawful act, each is criminally responsible for the acts of his associate or confederate committed in furtherance of the common design.” Strantz, 328 Pa. at 40, 195 A. at 79. If one actor in a conspiracy acts on a specific intent to kill, and that act furthered the common design, then conspiracy liability should attach to all conspirators. The rule operates to dissuade persons from entering into criminal confederations that have, as a foreseeable consequence, the killing of another.
*150I see nothing harsh or unfair in this traditional rule. Conspiracy liability will attach only when the prospect of a killing was a foreseeable consequence of the criminal agreement. Furthermore, as a practical matter, the conspirators themselves are in the best position to know and describe the precise contours of the agreement or confederation. If they have a legitimate defense arising from the nature or scope of their confederation, they may forward it and have it assessed by the factfinder.
The traditional rule, moreover, is a practical necessity. The victim is never available in a murder case to testify who, among multiple actors, killed him. In homicides involving multiple actors, there is frequently no doubt at all that the killing was intentional and warrants a first degree conviction (as is indisputably the case here) but (again, as here) there is no independent eyewitness to testify which actor delivered the blow(s) that establish the degree of guilt.2 It is in precisely such circumstances that traditional principles of vicarious liability are essential. As noted in the Dissenting Opinion in Huffman, without such theories,
a jury will always be stuck with the broken record of how to attribute specific intent without identifying the particular roles of the perpetrators. So the killers will walk away from first degree murder and the death penalty. So the people will have been deprived of a fair trial.
Huffman, 536 Pa. at 204, 638 A.2d at 965 (Papadakos, J., dissenting). I would return to first principles and permit conspiracy liability to operate as it always had before, with respect to all crimes.
In summary, in cases involving theories of accomplice and conspiracy liability for first degree murder, I believe that the jury should be instructed on the elements of first degree murder, as well as what is necessary to prove liability as an *151accomplice or conspirator. I would require nothing more than that those principles be adequately conveyed.

. Wayne’s discussion in this regard arguably was dicta, since the appellant there was denied relief based on a finding that any error in the conspiracy liability charge was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

. In first degree murder cases involving non-confessing defendants, it is often the nature of the killing that proves specific intent. Specific • intent, of course, can be inferred from the use of a deadly weapon upon a vital part of the body. E.g. Commonwealth v. Puksar, 559 Pa. 358, 365, 740 A.2d 219, 223 (1999).