Court Opinion

ID: 9714634
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:41:53.409927+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:27.333490
License: Public Domain

*451WIEAND, Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the result reached by the majority. However, I write separately to express a different analysis of Issue II. At trial, Stanley Hackney testified that appellant had told him that when appellant and his friends exited the bar and saw the victim coming down the street, appellant called to the victim and asked if he wanted to purchase some marijuana. When the victim did not respond, one of the defendants shot him. The majority holds that the question about the purchase of drugs was properly received because it was relevant to prove motive. I am unable to agree with this reasoning. The killing in this case was not related to a drug sale. The offer of a drug sale was merely a pretext to have the victim stop so that he could be assaulted by appellant and his friends. I would hold that this evidence was admissible, not as evidence of motive, but as part of the same criminal transaction or episode for which appellant was being tried. It was, in my judgment, “ ‘one of a sequence of acts, or ... part of the history of the event on trial, or ... part of the natural development of the facts.’ ” Commonwealth v. Brown, 462 Pa. 578, 591, 342 A.2d 84, 90 (1975), quoting Commonwealth v. Williams, 307 Pa. 134, 148, 160 A. 602, 607 (1932).
I concur in the result.