Court Opinion

ID: 9732387
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:18:33.101509+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:23:22.896035
License: Public Domain

Justice SAYLOR,
concurring and dissenting.
The majority acknowledges the considerable mitigation evidence available for presentation at Appellant’s capital sentencing proceeding and finds counsel ineffective for failing to identify it and to ensure its consideration by jurors in returning the penalty of death versus life imprisonment. Yet, based on the availability of rebuttal evidence favorable to the Commonwealth, the majority proceeds to find no reasonable probability that, had counsel performed as constitutionally required, the outcome would have been different (i.e., that at least a single juror would have selected life imprisonment).
In discounting the mitigation case that the jurors should have heard in light of the Commonwealth’s potential rebuttal, it appears to me that the majority intrudes into the role that is reserved for the fact- finder under the Pennsylvania death penalty statute.1 In this regard, the testimony of the Com*490monwealth’s own post-conviction expert witness demonstrates how Appellant’s mental-health and life-history mitigation evidence could have been used to confront the Commonwealth’s rebuttal evidence,2 much of which was already before the jury in connection with the significant-history-of-felony-convictions aggravator.
Having recognized the deficient stewardship of trial counsel in his failure to investigate and present to the sentencing authority substantial mitigation evidence, I believe that the Court should remand for the proper jury assessment.
Thus, I concur with regard to the guilt-phase resolution and dissent as to penalty.
Justice NIGRO and Justice BAER join this concurring and dissenting opinion.
APPENDIX
Excerpt from Cross-examination of Dr. Robert L. Sadoff
*491Q: Now in the presentence investigation that you reviewed, they noted—Dr. Stanton noted that Mr. Williams suffered from a schizoid personality?
A: It was part of a mixed personality with schizoid features. Yes, I think at that time ... the disruptive behavior can be seen as schizoid. I wouldn’t argue with that personality disorder on Axis II.
Q: Okay. And they also—the records also reflect, I think, consistently finding of emotional instability?
A: From the environment I would think that would be a reaction that would be expected.
Q: Okay. And that is a reaction to the trauma and the abuse he was enduring?
A: I would think so, yes.
Q: And it’s consistent with the records and affidavits that you’ve reviewed?
A: Yes, it is.
Q: Now, the history we’ve been discussing briefly, you had described that as traumatic?
A: The history as we discussed and that it’s in the affidavit is traumatic, yes.
Q: It’s a history of violence?
A: Yes.
Q: And the type of background that you’ve reviewed in the affidavits in the records is psychologically destructive?
A: Can be, yes.
Q: And the literature is pretty clear that it can have (sic) particularly long-term abuse such as this can have profound psychological impact?
A: It’s something you try not to impose on people because you know that it can be harmful, yes.
Q: And you would agree that’s present in this case?
A: The history is present and his reaction to it because of the records, yes.
Q: His reaction is almost—
*492A: I would agree that that kind of behavior can be harmful. It was harmful to him.
Q: So, Doctor, though we were just discussing his history, his reaction to his upbringing and the abuse and dysfunction is textbook in terms of how a child would react to prolonged subjection to this kind of abuse?
A: As having the kind of adolescent reaction, the depression, the anger, mostly the anger and his rebelliousness ..., yes, these are all classical reactions to that kind of trauma.
Q: As we discussed earlier, it affects ego formation and other developmental processes that have life-long implications?
A: It can and does, yes.
Q: And it’s pretty clear from the record that’s what was going on in this case?
A: He had a lot of that from the records, yes.
* * *
Q: Now the kind of background that Mr. Williams endured can lead to depression?
A: It can, yes.
Q: And poor impulse control?
A: Yes.
Q: Lack of judgment?
A: Yes.
Q: Lack of insight?
A: Yes.
Q: Reasoning deficits?
A: Yes.
Q: And those are all present in the records that we’ve seen in this case?
A: We’ve seen that, yes.
N.T., Dec. 15, 2000, at 71-75.

. Accord Commonwealth v. Ford, 570 Pa. 378, 392, 809 A.2d 325, 334 (2002) (plurality) ("Although th[e] rebuttal evidence is substantial, we simply cannot agree with the PCRA court's conclusion that trial counsel's admitted failure to pursue and present mitigating evidence did not prejudice Appellant. It is the duty of the jury to consider all evidence-*490evidence of aggravating circumstances, evidence of mitigating circumstances as well as rebuttal evidence-in deciding whether or not a defendant should receive the sentence of death. Yet, the jury in the instant case was, in effect, given no meaningful evidence of mitigation to consider in their weighing process even though ... extensive evidence was available.”).
Although I am aware that the United States Supreme Court has ruled that there is no federal constitutional impediment to appellate reweighing of aggravating and mitigating circumstances in at least certain instances involving defects in capital penalty verdicts, see. Clemons v. Mississippi, 494 U.S. 738, 750, 110 S.Ct. 1441, 1449, 108 L.Ed.2d 725 (1990), the Pennsylvania General Assembly has not yet authorized this Court to undertake such function. Moreover, in practice, the appellate reweighing approach as implemented by the Supreme Court in recent cases more closely resembles a traditional prejudice assessment than an independent determination from the perspective of a surrogate factfinder. See, e.g., Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, -, 123 S.Ct. 2527, 2542-44, 156 L.Ed.2d 471 (2003) (affording relief by application of the reweighing standard on the conclusion that had the jury been confronted with this considerable mitigation evidence, there is a reasonable probability that it would have returned with a different sentence).

. An excerpt from the cross-examination of the Commonwealth’s expert, Dr. Robert L. Sadoff, a psychiatrist, is attached to this opinion as an appendix.