Court Opinion

ID: 9757234
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:26:53.834423+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:36.816501
License: Public Domain

NIX, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. While the nature of force used in the instant case supports the finding of specific intent to kill, Commonwealth v. Meredith, 490 Pa. 303, 311, 416 A.2d 481 (1980), a new trial should be ordered and the sentence of death should be vacated for the following reasons.
I.
First, appellant should have been granted a change of venue under the standards enunciated in Commonwealth v. Pierce, 451 Pa. 190, 303 A.2d 209 (1973). In the instant case, the local newspaper articles 1 and broadcasts of July *2421981 were of such inflammatory nature to support the presumption that a jury selected from that locale would be prejudiced against the defendant. One glaring example was the July 28, 1981 front-page newspaper publication of appellant’s prior criminal record. Not to be outdone, local radio and television stations also gave detailed reports of appellant’s past offenses. One television broadcast portrayed appellant as a “weird,” “wild” man who had brandished a gun in the neighborhood and who had served one and a half years in prison for a stabbing.
The sensational and inflammatory nature of the publicity was manifested by headlines such as “How Does It Feel To Be The Mother Of A Murderer?” and “Fear Stalks Lawrence Park Area.” The appellant was frequently targeted to receive greater news coverage than other inmates during his pre-trial confinement. On several occasions appellant was displayed in the newspaper wearing handcuffs.
Most blatant, however, was the direct involvement by the police and prosecutor in the pre-trial publicity. On July 28, 1981, one Officer Krahe called a press conference to announce that appellant had been arrested and charged with murder. At that conference the officer made public that glasses found at the scene of the crime had been identified as appellant’s and that blood was seen on appellant’s shirt on the night of the murder. By broadcasting critical evidence against appellant prior to the courtroom trial the police, in effect, tried appellant through the media to induce a climate conducive to establishing a finding of guilt. See Rideau v. Louisiana, 373 U.S. 723, 726-27, 83 S.Ct. 1417, 1419, 10 L.Ed.2d 663 (1963). Similarly, the Erie County District Attorney stated in a television interview on the night of the arrest that the investigation had completely focused on appellant. The district attorney was also shown on television personally conducting an investigation at the scene of the crime.
As we stated in Commonwealth v. Cohen, 489 Pa. 167, 413 A.2d 1066 (1980), “Legal trials are not like elections, to be won through the use of the meeting-hall, the radio, and *243the newspaper.” Id., 489 Pa. at 177, 413 A.2d at 1072, quoting Bridges v. California, 314 U.S. 252, 271, 62 S.Ct. 190, 197, 86 L.Ed. 192 (1941). The publicity described above was prejudicial per se and was of the type specifically banned by this Court in Commonwealth v. Pierce, supra. There we held:
... [I]n this Commonwealth policemen and members of the staffs of the office of District Attorneys shall not release to the news media: (a) the existence or contents of any statement or confession given by the accused, or his refusal to give a statement or to take tests; (b) prior criminal records of the accused, including arrests and convictions; (c) any inflammatory statements as to the merits of the case, or the character of the accused; (d) the possibility of a plea of guilty; (e) nor shall the authorities deliberately pose the accused for photographs at or near the scene of the crime, or in photographs which connect him with the scene of the crime. See generally ABA Project on Minimum Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to Fair Trial and Free Press. §§ 1.1 and 2.1 (Approved Draft 1968).
We hold that anything short of compliance with these standards can operate to deprive an accused of due process of law, as this type of material did in the instant case____
Id. 451 Pa. at 200, 303 A.2d at 215.
In the instant case, as in Pierce, supra, there was widespread coverage of the crime in the newspapers and on radio and television. This coverage went far beyond factual reporting of the crime and the apprehension of a suspect. Much of the publicity was emotionally charged and inflammatory and conveyed the unavoidable impression of appellant’s guilt.
All the information released by the authorities clearly pointed to Pierce’s guilt, and any prospective juror exposed to this publicity must surely have formed a definite opinion as to Pierce’s guilt or innocence. Moreover, some of the information, such as the accused’s *244past criminal record, was not admissible at trial, but it was available to the prospective jurors through the news account.
Id., 451 Pa. at 196, 303 A.2d at 213 (emphasis added).
In Pierce we recognized that we must strike a balance between the right to a fair trial and the equally important right of a free press. Id., 451 Pa. at 193, 303 A.2d at 211. We concluded, however, that when one’s liberty is at stake, the right of a free press is not absolute. We thus mandated that the publication of news accounts cannot interfere with the fair administration of criminal justice. Id., 451 Pa. at 194, 303 A.2d at 212.
Moreover, in Pierce we especially chastised the type of police and prosecutorial involvement exhibited in the case at bar:
Statements such as those of the police and the prosecutor in this case create an even more substantial risk of a denial of a fair trial, because of the position in the community these individuals hold, and also suggest an official disregard of safeguards inherent in a fair trial. Officers of the Commonwealth and the police have a special duty and responsibility to all of the citizens of the Commonwealth. They must never lose sight of the fact that an accused has a right to a fair trial by an impartial jury, that only a jury can “strip a man of his liberty,” and a man is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and that all men are guaranteed basic rights under the Constitution.
Id., 451 Pa. at 198, 303 A.2d at 214 (emphasis in original).
I understand the Pierce ruling to go beyond the specific conduct enumerated therein and to condemn any concerted effort by the Commonwealth to prejudice the community against the defendant through the media and thereby deprive the accused of the opportunity of being tried by a fair and impartial tribunal. Thus although only two of the types of statements specifically condemned in Pierce were publicized here, all of the police and prosecutorial activities, taken together, had the effect of actively demonstrating *245appellant’s guilt through the media in a blatant and deliberate attempt to render a fair trial impossible.
The majority concedes that there was sensational reporting over a three-day period (July 28, 29 and 30, 1981), but concludes that a six-month “cooling off period” was sufficient to dissipate the prejudice. I cannot agree with that conclusion. That six months elapsed is not controlling. Here the original publicity was “inherently prejudicial” and had saturated the community. Commonwealth v. Romeri, 504 Pa. 124, 130 n. 1, 470 A.2d 498, 501 n. 1 (1983), cert. denied, 466 U.S. 942, 104 S.Ct. 1922, 80 L.Ed.2d 469 (1984); Commonwealth v. Casper, 481 Pa. 143, 154, 392 A.2d 287, 293 (1978). Although the publicity dissipated somewhat following the three-day period in July, 1981, it continued up to and intensified when the trial began. As stated in Commonwealth v. Casper, supra, “The critical factor in the finding of presumptive prejudice ... is the recent and pervasive presence of ‘inherently prejudicial’ publicity, the likely effect of which is to render a fair trial impossible”.2 Id., 481 Pa. at 154, 392 A.2d at 293 (citations omitted). It has been held that “[wjhere the nature of the pre-trial publicity is so ‘inherently prejudicial,’ appellant need not show a nexus between the publicity and actual jury prejudice.” Commonwealth v. Pierce, supra 451 Pa. at 195, 303 A.2d at 212.
However, in this case we do not have to rely upon the presumption of the pervasiveness of the inflammatory coverage. That fact is clearly demonstrated in the record of the voir dire. Only eight (12%) of sixty-six prospective jurors stated that they knew nothing about the case. Of *246the sixteen jurors actually chosen, fourteen (87%) had seen or heard the sensational reporting during July, 1981.3 Thus relief under this assignment of error is justified on the theory of the inherent prejudice of the pretrial publicity or predicated upon a finding of actual prejudice.
II.
Second, the display of prosecutorial misconduct evidenced in the district attorney’s summation necessitates that the death sentence be vacated. Similar to the situation in Commonwealth v. Pfaff, 477 Pa. 461, 171, 384 A.2d 1179 (1978), here the prosecutor impermissibly expressed his belief that the jury must return a verdict of death:
... Ladies and gentlemen, under these circumstances, it is your duty — your sworn duty — to represent the people of this Commonwealth and to impose the death penalty on the defendant, Alan Lee Pursell. Were it not so, had these circumstances not existed, you would not be required to do so, but now you find these circumstances to be true and that they have been shown to you and this death is one which qualifies as a torture/murder under the law because of the way it occurred, you must — you must — return a verdict against the defendant of death because of the way Christopher Brine died and because of the laws of this Commonwealth. January 26, 1982, pp. 144-145.
The above language constitutes reversible error because “the unavoidable effect of such comments would be to prejudice the jury, forming on their minds fixed bias and hostility toward the defendant so that they could not weigh the evidence objectively and render a true verdict.” Commonwealth v. Van Cliff, 483 Pa. 576, 582, 397 A.2d 1173, 1176 (1979) (citations omitted). Cf. Commonwealth v. Beasley, 504 Pa. 485, 475 A.2d 730 (1984) (prosecutor’s *247remarks were in response to a direct attack upon his integrity); Commonwealth v. Tabron, 502 Pa. 154, 465 A.2d 637 (1983) (prosecutor’s remarks merely made jury aware of the effect of its verdict on the community).
The majority maintains that these statements must be viewed in context with an earlier statement during the summation by the prosecutor which set forth the jury’s obligation to determine and weigh the existence of aggravating and mitigating circumstances. As I read the record of this closing argument the prosecutor, at the point complained of, argues in such a manner that strongly implies that the existence of the aggravating circumstance is no longer open to question. Instead, the clear implication of this argument amounted to a direction to the jury that their function was limited to the consequence of a finding that the aggravating circumstance outweighed any mitigating circumstance. This argument obscured the jury’s critical function of determining whether an aggravating circumstance had in fact been established by the Commonwealth beyond a reasonable doubt. 42 Pa.C.S. § 971 1(c)(1)(iii). And, in the event the Commonwealth met this first burden, the jury’s obligation was at that point to weigh that aggravating circumstance against any possible mitigating circumstances. 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(c)(1)(iv). This vital portion of the jury’s sentencing responsibility was obfuscated by the argument employed by counsel for the Commonwealth which focused only upon the jury’s obligation to return a death sentence. In my judgment, such a distortion of the jury’s responsibility was a grievous error which clearly tainted the sentencing stage.
Accordingly, for the first assignment of error set forth above, a new trial should be awarded. In any event, the second assignment of error would require a vacating of the sentence of death.

. While the actual articles, as the majority points out, have not been included in the record lodged in this Court, appellant’s omnibus pretrial motion cites and quotes from the articles and describes them in detail. During a hearing on that motion the articles were offered and admitted into evidence. The Commonwealth stipulated at that time that the proffered articles were the ones described in the motion. Moreover, because this is a capital case, the unexplained absence of these exhibits from the record should not preclude appellant from raising this claim. See Commonwealth v. Zettlemoyer, 461 U.S. 970, 500 Pa. 16, 50 n. 19, 454 A.2d 937, 955 n. 19 (1982), cert. denied, 461 U.S. 970, 103 S.Ct. 2444, 77 L.Ed.2d 1327 (1983) (waiver rules relaxed in death penalty cases).

. The majority opinion in Casper concluded that the pre-trial publicity was not inherently prejudicial because the news accounts were factual and objective rather than inflammatory, sensational and inculpatory. Additionally, prior convictions and statements or confessions by the accused were not reported in these accounts. I dissented in Casper because the proper application of law to the facts of that case demanded a contrary result. Likewise, in the instant case where there were reports of prior convictions as well as clearly inflammatory information supplied to reporters by the prosecution, proper application of law to fact requires a determination that there was inherently prejudicial pre-trial publicity.

. The majority attempts to minimize the prejudicial nature of the pretrial publicity by focusing on the veniremen’s lack of awareness of appellant’s prior criminal record. What is significant, however, is the number of potential jurors who were exposed to the overall atmosphere created by the media reports.