Court Opinion

ID: 9544403
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:55:26.518295+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:12:56.109131
License: Public Domain

HUTCHINSON, Justice,
dissenting.
I reluctantly dissent. On this record, I do not believe that the definition of torture articulated by this Court in Commonwealth v. Pursell, 508 Pa. 212, 495 A.2d 183 (1985), has been satisfied. In Pursell, we held that torture encompasses the “infliction of a considerable amount of pain and suffering on a victim which is unnecessarily heinous, atrocious, or cruel manifesting exceptional depravity.” Id., 508 Pa. at 239, 495 A.2d at 196. The Pursell definition requires the pain and suffering imposed on a victim to be unnecessary, or more than needed to effectuate the demise of the victim. Moreover, in Pursell there was circumstantial evidence in the form of mutilation from which an intent to cause unnecessary pain or distress could be inferred. Such evidence is not present on this record. As Mr. Justice Zappala points out in his dissent, the lack of intent does not make the present crime less heinous or horrible. The *319legislature however, has defined the aggravating circumstance in question by the term “torture” instead of the broader and more flexible term “heinous.”
The instant case poses the problem whether the actions of a bumbling murderer, unable to quickly realize his ghastly scheme, constitute torture. Appellant finally stabbed his victim to death after attempts at strangling with his hands, a T-shirt and a cord had failed. Albeit gruesome, the steps taken by the appellant were calculated solely to kill the victim. Accordingly, the Pursell definition of torture, requiring unnecessary pain and suffering, has not been satisfied. The record here excludes mitigating circumstances. The presentation of an improper aggravating circumstance to a jury, required to return a death sentence if aggravating circumstances outweigh mitigating circumstances, necessarily introduces an arbitrary and possibly unconstitutional factor into the determination of death. Commonwealth v. Holcomb, 508 Pa. 425, 456 n. 16, 498 A.2d 833, 849 n. 16 (1985) (Opinion Announcing the Judgment of the Court), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 106 S.Ct. 1804, 90 L.Ed.2d 349 (1986) . I am therefore compelled to dissent.