Court Opinion

ID: 9701386
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 22:17:53.080396+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:23.129974
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING OPINION

Justice SAYLOR.
I join the majority opinion, save for the finding of sufficient evidence of vaginal penetration of the victim by Appellant to *594support the aggravating circumstance of killing in the perpetration of an underlying felony, 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(d)(6), here rape. See Majority Opinion, slip op. at 6' n. 4. As the foundation for the aggravator, the majority relies upon the testimony of two detectives to the effect that Appellant confessed to having attempted to have sexual intercourse with the victim. See N.T. Feb. 24 — Mar. 1, 1999, at 194 (relating that “[Appellant] said he attempted to have sex with [the victim], but he could not maintain his erection”), 226 (indicating that Appellant “attempted to have intercourse with [the victim, but] was unable to get an erection.... ”). I believe that it calls for too great an inference, however, to discern the fact of actual penetration from such generalized references.
Nevertheless, the jury was charged that it was not required, for purposes of the in-the-perpetration-of-a-felony aggravator, to conclude that Appellant had personally committed the underlying felony. See N.T., Feb. 24 — Mar. 1, 1999, at 460. Such instruction was consistent with precedent, as this Court previously has held that evidence that a defendant was an accomplice in the rape of a murder ¡victim was sufficient to support a jury’s finding of the Section 9711(d)(6) aggravating circumstance. See Commonwealth v. Lee, 541 Pa. 260, 281-82, 662 A.2d 645, 656 (1995).1 Here, both detectives also testified that Appellant acknowledged that his accomplice engaged in forcible sexual intercourse with the victim during the course of their assault, see N.T. Feb. 24 — Mar. 1, 1999, at 195, 226, thus establishing the necessary foundation under Lee. I am therefore able to join the majority in affirming the convictions and sentences imposed.

. The present situation is distinguishable from that in which the defendant bears only accomplice liability for the killing itself; in the latter case, this Court has deemed the Section 9711(d)(6) aggravator inapplicable. See Commonwealth v. Lassiter, 554 Pa. 586, 593-94, 722 A.2d 657, 661-62 (1998) (holding that the language of Section 9711(d)(6) requires a defendant to have performed the murder himself). Here, as in Lee, the evidence established that the relevant defendant participated in the actual killing. See N.T., Feb. 24 — Mar. 1, 1999, at 194-96, 225-27. Further, sua sponte review of the correctness of Lee is outside the scope of our limited mandate in this case.