Court Opinion

ID: 9645932
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:40:42.074819+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:33.180927
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice O’Brien :
I must respectfully dissent from the majority’s conclusion that the trial court committed reversible error when it permitted extensive cross-examination of appellant’s friend, Cornell Berry, concerning statements Berry had made prior to trial, at Berry’s own trial, and during a period when Berry was in custody. It might be helpful to recount the events surrounding Berry’s testimony.
Berry had been called to the witness stand by the Commonwealth with the expectation, which the Commonwealth had previously noted in conference, that he would give the same testimony which he had given at his own trial, in which Berry was acquitted, when he had placed the entire responsibility for the murder on appellant. However, when Berry took the stand, he was evasive about whether he had seen appellant at the scene of the crime at the time it occurred or whether he had seen the victim go downstairs at that time. When Berry was asked whether he at any time had seen a knife, after being unsuccessful in attempting to invoke the Fifth Amendment, Berry stated that he did not see the knife. The Commonwealth, claiming surprise, was then permitted to cross-examine Berry concerning whether he had made specific statements to the contrary at his own trial. When confronted with these prior statements, Berry responded, as to each one, “I said what my lawyer told me to say.” The Commonwealth went through much of Berry’s previous trial testimony until he finally was asked whether he had said: “Q. Now, Mr. Berry, ‘Question—you walked in where? Answer—I walked in the second area. Question—into *593the room where the toilets were? Answer—yeah. Question—what did you see? Answer—I seen the knife in [appellant’s] hand.’ Q. Did you say that? A. Yeah, I said that. Q. ‘Question—yes. Answer—so then when I walked in I went to grab [appellant] back I seen the man coughing. 1 said Jack you done cut that man and I walked out, all three of us went upstairs.’ Q. Did you say that? A. That is what I said.” Berry admitted that the above quote was what he said at his own trial, although he had not yet retracted his explanation that his lawyer “had told him to say that.”
The Commonwealth next began to question Berry about the prior occasions when he had seen appellant’s knife. Berry continued to be evasive and hostile to the Commonwealth’s questions. The Commonwealth’s attorney then asked Berry whether he had told the police what had happened. When Berry replied “They knew more than I did,” and claimed he was “sleepy” and couldn’t remember what he had told the police, he was read the portion of his statement which concerned the knife in the appellant’s hands and was asked whether he had said that. Mr. Berry responded: “Like I said, what I said in my statement, and what I said at my trial they put in there how they felt they thought it went.”
Appellant contends, and the majority is apparently of the opinion that the trial court erred in the latitude given the Commonwealth to cross-examine Berry. Admittedly the prior testimony and the statement which Berry made to the police were not limited to neutralization of Berry’s testimony at trial denying that he had seen appellant with a knife at the time of the killing and upon previous occasions, but instead dealt with the entire crime. However, given the facts in this case, I do not believe the Court abused its discretion in permitting such broad cross-examination. When Berry de*594nied, on direct examination, that lie bad seen tbe murder knife in appellant’s band, this denial became a piece of substantive evidence wbicb tbe jury could consider in determining its verdict. Since Berry’s testimony was totally unexpected, in tbe light of tbe testimony at bis own trial, it was perfectly proper for tbe court to permit tbe Commonwealth to confront Berry with bis previous statement for purposes of impeaching tbe credibility of bis denial that be actually bad seen tbe knife.1 If tbe matter bad ended there, with Berry’s admission of bis previous remarks, it might have been error to permit any further cross-examination on tbe subject. However, tbe matter did not end there. Berry next claimed that bis lawyer had told him what to say at bis trial. It was then perfectly proper to permit tbe Commonwealth to confront Berry with all of bis trial testimony and bis substantially similar previous statement to tbe police to attack tbe credibility of his claim that bis lawyer told him what to say at tbe time of bis trial. (After all, Berry could not claim that bis lawyer also told him what to say to tbe police, since bis lawyer was not present at that time.)
Commonwealth v. DiPasquale, 424 Pa. 500, 230 A. 2d 449 (1967), upon which appellant relies, cannot help him because in tbe instant case, unlike tbe situa*595tion in DiPasquale, the court went to great pains to inform the jury that Mr. Berry’s previous statements could only be considered for purposes of impeachment, not as substantive evidence. Moreover, in DiPasquale, the witness was called by the court, at the Commonwealth’s suggestion, after the Commonwealth decided not to call the witness after she had told them she would change her testimony. Thus, in DiPasquale, by cross-examining the recalcitrant witness, concerning the contents of her previous statement, the Commonwealth was attempting to introduce items into evidence which it knew it would not otherwise be able to introduce. In the instant case, on the other hand, the Commonwealth did not know that Berry would change his testimony until he took the stand.
Moreover, I am of the opinion that, even if the court erred in granting the Commonwealth so much latitude in its cross-examination of Berry, under the standard established by the United States Supreme Court in Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18 (1967), such error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. In view of the evidence in this case, particularly appellant’s full and detailed confession, the testimony of various eyewitnesses to the events occurring before and soon after the murder, and the discovery of the murder weapons at appellant’s place of residence, there can be no doubt that appellant would have been convicted even if Berry had not been called to the stand.
Mr. Chief Justice Jones joins in this dissenting opinion.

 This ease is thus distinguishable from Commonwealth v. Dancer, 452 Pa. 221, 305 A. 2d 364 (1973). In Dancer, the Commonwealth’s witness testified on direct examination that she could not see the stabbing because her line of vision was blocked. We held that this testimony did not justify permitting the Commonwealth to impeach its witness because it was not prejudicial or injurious to the Commonwealth’s case. In contrast, in the instant case, Berry, although he admittedly had an unobstructed view, specifically testified that he saw no knife on the appellant, testimony which clearly prejudiced the Commonwealth’s case because it could lead the jury to infer that, contrary to the Commonwealth’s contention, appellant had no knife.