Court Opinion

ID: 9727865
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:51:22.804479+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:43.699321
License: Public Domain

PAPADAKOS, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
We have unanimously affirmed the conviction of Appellant for murder of the first degree. I dissent to the majority’s decision to vacate the sentence of death and remand for the imposition of a sentence of life imprisonment.
The Appellant has criminally taken the lives of two innocent persons in two separate incidents. His criminal record includes two felony convictions involving violence to the person. Yet, the majority, again, closes its eyes to one killing and commands the jury to ignore the slaughter of Karen Meeker in determining whether Appellant has a significant history of felony convictions involving the use of threat or violence to the person. (Aggravating circumstance 9, 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(d)(9)).
While the majority concedes that Appellant’s unlawful homicides have put quality in the significance of his history, they will not credit him with enough killings to warrant a sentence of death. The majority relies upon Commonwealth v. Goins, 508 Pa. 270, 495 A.2d 527 (1985), Hutchinson, J., concurring; Larsen, J., concurring and dissenting; Papadakos, J., concurring and dissenting) in which the same majority cavalierly rewrote the statute by inserting the word “prior” in the words used by the Legislature in *544aggravating circumstance 9 in order to justify its desired conclusion.
The word “prior” does not appear in aggravating circumstance 9, yet the majority concludes herein, “... there is only a single prior conviction in this case. Therefore, we must, as we did in Goins, vacate the death sentence.” (P. 1326).
I join in the Dissent of Mr. Justice McDERMOTT. I accept the rationale in the Dissent of Mr. Justice LARSEN. I reaffirm my dissent in Goins.
LARSEN, J., joins in this opinion.