Court Opinion

ID: 9410790
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-24 16:07:18.053408+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:00.363790
License: Public Domain

J-S06007-23

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT OP 65.37

    COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA               :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
                                               :        PENNSYLVANIA
                                               :
                v.                             :
                                               :
                                               :
    JULIO GONZALEZ                             :
                                               :
                       Appellant               :   No. 714 MDA 2022

                  Appeal from the Order Entered May 5, 2022
                In the Court of Common Pleas of Union County
               Criminal Division at No: CP-60-CR-0000225-2020

BEFORE:      STABILE, J., NICHOLS, J., and STEVENS, P.J.E.*

MEMORANDUM BY STABILE, J.:                               FILED: JULY 24, 2023

        Appellant, Julio Gonzalez, appeals from the May 5, 2022 order denying

his motion to dismiss the remaining charges against him on grounds of Double

Jeopardy. We affirm.

        The Commonwealth commenced this action on September 28, 2020, in

a criminal complaint charging Appellant with two counts of attempted

homicide, seven counts of aggravated assault, conspiracy, and discharging a

firearm into an occupied structure. The charges arose from a June 1, 2020

drive-by shooting of a house, in which Appellant allegedly was the shooter.

Two of the victims—Daevon Bodden and Jaheem Lewis—were sitting outside

on the porch at the time of the shooting and sustained nonfatal gunshot

____________________________________________

*   Former Justice specially assigned to the Superior Court.
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wounds.      Five others present inside the house were unharmed.            The

Commonwealth charged Appellant with one count of aggravated assault for

each of the seven persons present either inside or outside the home at the

time of the shooting. The attempted homicide charges pertained to Bodden

and Lewis.

      The parties proceeded to trial on March 28 and 29, 2022.           During

deliberations, the jury sent several written notes to the trial court. The first

of these pertained to the conspiracy charges. The Commonwealth moved to

nolle prose those charges, and the trial court granted the motion without

objection from Appellant. Eventually, the jurors informed the trial court that

they had reached verdicts of not guilty for five of the aggravated assault

charges but were deadlocked as to the remaining two. Likewise, the jury was

deadlocked as to the two charges of attempted homicide and one count of

discharging a firearm into an occupied structure. The deadlocked homicide

and aggravated assault charges pertained to Bodden and Lewis.          The jury

returned acquittals on the counts of aggravated assault of the five persons

inside the home. In summary, the Commonwealth dismissed the conspiracy

charges, the jury returned acquittals on five of the aggravated assault

charges, and the jury’s deadlock resulted in a mistrial on the remaining

charges.

      Subsequently, Appellant filed a motion to dismiss the remaining counts

on grounds of double jeopardy. The trial court denied that motion without

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finding it to be frivolous.1 This timely appeal followed. The sole issue before

us is whether the trial court erred in finding that Double Jeopardy and

collateral estoppel do not bar retrial on the deadlocked charges. Appellant’s

Brief at 20.

        Appellant presents a question of law for which our standard of review is

de novo. Commonwealth v. States, 938 A.2d 1016, 1019 (Pa. 2007). The

United States and Pennsylvania Constitutions provide that no person may be

tried twice for the same offense. U.S. CONST. amend. V.; PA. CONST. art. I,

§ 10.    The federal and Pennsylvania constitutions are coextensive on this

point. States, 938 A.2d at 1019. Criminal collateral estoppel is a subpart of

double jeopardy protection. Id. at 1020.

        “Collateral   estoppel    …   does     not   automatically   bar   subsequent

prosecutions[,] but does bar redetermination in a second prosecution of those

issues necessarily determined between the parties in a first proceeding which

has become a final judgment.” Id. (quoting Commonwealth v. Smith, 540

A.2d 246, 251 (Pa. 1988)). In other words, criminal collateral estoppel applies

where the jury’s verdict “reflects a definitive finding respecting a material

element of the prosecution’s subsequent case.”                  Commonwealth v.

Buffington, 828 A.2d 1024, 1032 (Pa. 2003).

____________________________________________

1  An order that denies a double jeopardy motion without finding the motion
frivolous is an appealable collateral order under Pa.R.A.P. 313.
Commonwealth v. Gross, 232 A.3d 819, 832-33 (Pa. Super. 2020), appeal
denied, 242 A.3d 307 (Pa. 2020).

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     Pennsylvania courts have employed a three-part analysis in determining

whether subsequent prosecution is barred:

           1) an identification of the issues in the two actions for the
     purpose of determining whether the issues are sufficiently similar
     and sufficiently material in both actions to justify invoking the
     doctrine;

          2) an examination of the record of the prior case to decide
     whether the issue was "litigated" in the first case; and

           3) an examination of the record of the prior proceeding to
     ascertain whether the issue was necessarily decided in the first
     case.

States, 938 A.2d at 1021.

     In employing the three-part test, we are mindful of the following

guidance from our Supreme Court:

           [T]he rule of collateral estoppel in criminal cases is not to
     be applied with [a] hypertechnical and archaic approach … but
     with realism and rationality. Where a previous judgment of
     acquittal was based upon a general verdict, as is usually the case,
     this approach requires a court to examine the record of a prior
     proceeding, taking into account the pleadings, evidence, charge,
     and other relevant matter, and conclude whether a rational jury
     could have grounded its verdict upon an issue other than that
     which the defendant seeks to foreclose from consideration. The
     inquiry must be set in a practical frame and viewed with an eye to
     all the circumstances of the proceedings.            Any test more
     technically restrictive would, of course, simply amount to a
     rejection of the rule of collateral estoppel in criminal proceedings,
     at least in every case where the first judgment was based upon a
     general verdict of acquittal.

Commonwealth v. Jordan, 256 A.3d 1094, 1099-100 (Pa. 2021) (quoting

Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436 (1970)).

     As explained above, the jury found Appellant not guilty of aggravated

assault with respect to uninjured parties inside the home.          They were

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deadlocked on two counts of attempted homicide and two counts of

aggravated assault regarding Bodden and Lewis. The jury sent the following

notes to the trial court:

            The third note read, ‘We have debated and we are
      deadlocked and we have all felt that we have looked at the
      evidence, and no one feels more deliberation will change their
      decision.’ See Court’s Exhibit 2; see also N.T. 3/29/22, p. 189.
      The fourth note read in pertinent parts, the following: ‘[W]e
      don’t have any disagreement with the individual counts as
      to guilt or innocence of the shooter. That is not our issue.
      Our issue is we cannot reach a unanimous agreement that
      [Appellant] was the shooter. We have had intelligent, lively
      discussion and have debated the available evidence, and we
      honestly feel that no amount of further deliberation is going to
      change any of our minds.’ The note then read, ‘We have agreed
      on a not guilty verdict for [five aggravated assault counts relating
      to the five uninjured persons inside the home]. See Court’s
      Exhibit 3; see also N.T. 3/29/22, p. 187.

Trial Court Opinion, 7/11/22, at 3-4 (emphasis added).

      Appellant argues there is no meaningful distinction between the

Commonwealth’s case against Bodden and Lewis and its case against the other

five alleged victims who were inside the house.        Appellant argues that his

retrial and conviction on charges stemming from the alleged attempted

homicide and aggravated assault of Bodden and Lewis could only be the result

of a verdict that is inconsistent with the jury’s verdict in this case.

      We disagree. All seven counts of aggravated assault arose under the

same subsection, which provides that “A person is guilty of aggravated assault

if he […] attempts to cause serious bodily injury to another, or causes such

injury intentionally, knowingly or recklessly under circumstances manifesting

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extreme indifference to the value of human life[.]” 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 2702(a)(1).

The jury’s notes to the trial court make clear that the jury was deadlocked on

the identity of the shooter. The notes also state that the jury was not split as

to the guilt or innocence of the shooter. Thus, the jury believed the shooter—

whoever it was—was guilty of attempted homicide and aggravated assault of

Bodden and Lewis but not guilty of aggravated assault of the five persons

inside the home. Considering the elements of § 2702(a)(1), the jury could

have found, and presumably did find, that the shooter did not attempt to cause

serious bodily injury to the persons inside the house. There is no inconsistency

between that finding and a finding that the shooter attempted to cause or

actually caused serious bodily injury to Bodden and Lewis.

      Thus, Appellant has failed to establish that the jury, in returning

acquittals on five of seven aggravated assault charges, necessarily resolved

all issues pertaining to the remaining two aggravated assault charges. In fact,

that is obviously not the case. The five acquittals pertained to persons who

were unharmed and not visible to the shooter at the time of the shooting. The

remaining charges pertain to Bodden and Lewis, who were outside the home,

visible to the shooter, and sustained gunshot wounds. The jury was unable

to agree on whether Appellant was the shooter. And the disagreement on

that issue also explains the jury’s deadlock on the charges of attempted

homicide and discharge of a firearm into an occupied structure. The doctrines

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of double jeopardy and collateral estoppel pose no bar to retrial on the

remaining counts.

     Order affirmed.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary

Date: 7/24/2023

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