Court Opinion

ID: 9877565
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-27 16:08:49.670883+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:30:53.709773
License: Public Domain

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 NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

  COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA                 :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
                                               :        PENNSYLVANIA
                                               :
                v.                             :
                                               :
                                               :
  RONALD LEE WEISS                             :
                                               :
                       Appellant               :   No. 315 WDA 2022

               Appeal from the Order Entered June 10, 2021
    In the Court of Common Pleas of Indiana County Criminal Division at
                      No(s): CP-32-CR-0000218-1997

BEFORE: MURRAY, J., McLAUGHLIN, J., and PELLEGRINI, J.*

DISSENTING MEMORANDUM BY PELLEGRINI, J.:

FILED: September 27, 2023

       In this case, the record demonstrates that the Commonwealth lied on

multiple occasions to the trial court, defense counsel and the jury about

material consideration it had provided to key witnesses. It then compounded

that misconduct by eliciting false testimony at trial from not only two jailhouse

witnesses, but also from a Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) Trooper involved

in the investigation. All of this in service of obtaining a conviction and the

death penalty in a murder case it had been unable to successfully prosecute

for nearly two decades.

____________________________________________

* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.
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      I agree that “dismissal of charges is an extreme sanction that should be

imposed sparingly and only in cases of blatant prosecutorial misconduct.”

Commonwealth v. Wilson, 147 A.3d 7, 13 (Pa. Super. 2006). This is one

of those rare cases. The Commonwealth’s misconduct prior to and during

Weiss’s trial constituted prosecutorial overreaching so egregious that it should

now be precluded from re-trying him for Brenda Bruzda’s murder. To hold

otherwise would render toothless the protections of Article 1, Section 10 of

our constitution. I respectfully dissent.

                                       I.

                                       A.

      A much fuller explanation of the Commonwealth’s misconduct than

provided by the majority is needed to explain the level of overreaching that

occurred here. Briefly, Bruzda disappeared in 1978 and her body was not

found until approximately five months later. As one of the last people who

had seen her alive, Weiss was an immediate suspect in her disappearance and

the later murder investigation. He repeatedly denied any involvement when

confronted by police and Bruzda’s mother.

      In 1985, Weiss was charged with the murder after his ex-wife, Sharon

Pearson, reported to police that she had cleaned blood out of Weiss’s vehicle

the day after Bruzda’s disappearance and that the quilt Bruzda’s body was

found in had belonged to her and Weiss. They no longer had the vehicle in

question, so law enforcement was unable to examine it. The Commonwealth

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ultimately nolle prossed the charges against Weiss because Pearson could not

testify against him based on spousal privilege. Next, in 1993, an investigative

grand jury was impaneled but did not return an indictment of Weiss. As of

1995, the Attorney General’s Office notified the PSP that it would not proceed

further with the prosecution because it did not believe it could successfully

obtain Weiss’s conviction for the murder.

      The   tides   changed   after   Attorney   J.   Scott   Robinette   assumed

responsibility for reopening the investigation into the cold case. As part of the

investigation, he requested that the PSP speak with individuals who had been

incarcerated with Weiss in the past. Two of those individuals, Kermeth Wright

and Samuel Tribuiani, ultimately told PSP Trooper John R. Tamewitz that

Weiss had confessed to Bruzda’s murder while they were incarcerated

together. Armed with these statements from previously-unknown witnesses,

the Commonwealth again charged Weiss with Bruzda’s murder.

      Trooper Tamewitz first obtained a statement from Tribuiani on April 2,

1996, implicating Weiss in the murder. At that time, Tribuiani did not make

any requests for consideration and Trooper Tamewitz did not make any

promises in exchange for his testimony. The next day, however, Tribuiani

contacted Trooper Tamewitz and requested help with expediting his release

from state prison. He was not yet eligible for parole but was eligible for a pre-

release program to a halfway house.          Trooper Tamewitz contacted the

prosecuting attorney to ask about Tribuiani’s status for release, and in a memo

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dated April 8, 1996, Attorney Robinette wrote that after discussion with a

Senior Deputy Attorney General in his office, he intended to contact the prison

about expediting Tribuiani’s release.        Upon learning that Tribuiani was

awaiting approval for pre-release, he decided to contact interested parties

about Tribuiani’s status.

      He did so the following day, sending letters to the sentencing judge, the

prosecuting attorney and the victim-witness advocate in Tribuiani’s case

requesting that they consider his “valuable cooperation with [this] office if and

when [they] register any response to the Department of Corrections’ proposal

for early release.” Trial Court Opinion, 6/10/21, at 8-9. Tribuiani was blind

copied on the letters.      Attorney Robinette also spoke with the prosecuting

attorney about the matter on the phone. On May 1, 1996, the victim-witness

advocate responded to Attorney Robinette with a letter that stated, “I concur

that we have no opposition to Mr. Tribuiani being released to a halfway house

as part of his pre-release program. I hope this leads to the testimony needed

to get a conviction in the 1978 murder case.” N.T., 1/15/19, at 53. Tribuiani

was released from prison on July 5, 1996, though he was reincarcerated in

June of 1997, prior to Weiss’ trial, due to violating the conditions of his release.

      Wright initially gave his statement inculpating Weiss to PSP Trooper

Jeffrey Witmer in July of 1995 in an interview at his home. At that time, he

told Trooper Witmer, “I’ll never tell, I don’t squeal.”      Id., Exhibit 15.    In

December of 1995, however, Wright was reincarcerated and agreed to speak

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with Trooper Tamewitz about Weiss’s confession to him years earlier.         He

signed the official version of his statement in January of 1996 after speaking

with his wife.     Wright subsequently asked Attorney Robinette or Trooper

Tamewitz to inform the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole (PBPP) of

his cooperation in the case. In December of 1996, Attorney Robinette wrote

a letter to the Chairman of the PBPP, which was blind copied to Wright, in

which he said, “[t]his [o]ffice has promised nothing to Mr. Wright in exchange

for his cooperation. I have explained to him that parole authority in his case

rests exclusively with the [PBPP]. I am writing this letter merely to inform the

Board of Mr. Wright’s cooperation in the investigation and potential

prosecution of a very serious crime.” Trial Court Opinion, 6/10/21, at 9-10.

Attorney Robinette received a response indicating that his letter would be

included in Wright’s file for the PBPP to review in considering his parole.

Additionally, in April of 1997, Wright pled guilty to lying to an employee in

state prison, a fact that Attorney Robinette did not disclose to the defense.

Id. at 10.

      In May of 1997, after Attorney Robinette had undertaken these efforts

on behalf of Tribuiani and Wright, the parties attended a pre-trial hearing on

the defense’s motion for discovery for impeachment information. As the trial

court explained:

      [T]he Commonwealth was ordered to notify the defense of “any
      deals or understandings made between the Commonwealth and
      potential witnesses, Tribuiani and Wright.” In response to direct
      inquiry by the [c]ourt on this matter Robinette stated “[d]eals, we

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     don’t have any deals with them, Judge.” The [c]ourt then stated
     “the motion is granted and the answer is that there are no deals
     or consideration.”

     Later in the pretrial motion hearing of May 16, 1997, Robinette
     stated “I would just like to make on the record we have made no
     threats or promises and the only representation that we have
     made to these witnesses is that we will honestly report the level
     and extent of their cooperation and tell the truth about what they
     do and that is one part of it and we will take reasonable steps to
     protect their safety and those are the only representations that
     we have ever made to those witnesses. [sic]”

     . . . [O]n May 20, 1997, Robinette authored and presented a letter
     to defense counsel stating that the Commonwealth will only report
     the nature and extent of the witnesses’ cooperation whenever
     queried regarding the same. Robinette obviously had already
     written multiple letters on behalf of Tribuiani and Wright at the
     time this letter was submitted.

Id. at 10-11 (numbering omitted, emphasis added). Further, in July of 1997,

Attorney Robinette wrote a letter to the superintendent of S.C.I. Somerset

identifying Wright as a Commonwealth witness and requesting that he be

moved for his physical safety.       He stated, “Mr. Wright has expressed a

preference for S.C.I. Laurel Highlands.” Id. at 12 (cleaned up).

     When Weiss proceeded to trial in July of 1997, Tribuiani and Wright

testified that he had admitted to Bruzda’s murder in conversations in 1993

and 1985, respectively. In response to questioning by Attorney Robinette,

both witnesses testified that they did not ask for or receive anything in

consideration for their testimony.    Trooper Tamewitz likewise testified, on

questioning by Attorney Robinette, that Tribuiani had not been promised

anything in exchange for his testimony. Attorney Robinette made no efforts

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to correct this testimony by any of the witnesses.         The jury ultimately

convicted Weiss of the murder and sentenced him to death.

      Soon after the trial concluded, Attorney Robinette wrote to the PBPP on

behalf of Tribuiani and Wright, asking that it “consider [their] contribution to

this most unusual prosecution when evaluating the propriety of granting

[them] parole.” Id. at 13, 15. In September of that year, he wrote a similar

letter to the superintendent of S.C.I. Graterford requesting his consideration

in commenting about Tribuiani’s release on parole.       Finally, after the trial,

Tribuiani wrote several letters to Attorney Robinette, including one thanking

him for his assistance in expediting his release and parole. Id. at 13-14.

      Upon considering this information in habeas corpus proceedings, the

federal court concluded that “the Commonwealth engaged in a pattern of

prosecutorial misconduct that resulted in a fundamentally unfair trial.” Weiss

v. Wetzel, No. 2:02-CV-01566, 2018 WL 895689, at *1 (W.D. Pa. Feb. 14,

2018).   It issued a lengthy decision detailing its factual findings and the

relevant law and ultimately concluded:

      When prosecutors do secret deals, suppress evidence of them,
      stand by silently when the witnesses they determine to be central
      to their case lie about those deals, and then cover their tracks with
      their own false statements in and to a trial court, all in a way that
      plainly impacts the course and outcome of the trial, both those
      charged with crimes and the public are deprived of the fair trial
      that our Constitution commands, and to which they are entitled
      under the law. And this is obviously even more the case when the
      state seeks, and a defendant is exposed to, the ultimate penalty
      that our legal system may exact in a capital case. For the reasons
      set out above, Weiss was denied a fair trial because the
      Commonwealth materially “corrupted the truth-seeking function

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       of the trial by knowingly presenting or failing to correct perjured
       testimony.” [Haskell v. Superintendent Greene SCI, 866 F.3d
       139, 152 (3d Cir. 2017).]           But so too the citizens of the
       Commonwealth were denied the resolution of Ms. Bruzda’s murder
       that a fair trial can deliver for them. The constitutional errors here
       were manifest, fundamental and material, and wholly avoidable
       had the representatives of the Commonwealth told the truth.

       Weiss has demonstrated that the Commonwealth denied him a
       fair trial by knowingly presenting false testimony at his trial and
       by concealing from the defense and the trial court the evidence
       that would have revealed that false testimony, evidence that
       plainly raised serious questions concerning Tribuiani’s and
       Wright’s motives for testifying and their credibility when they did
       so. Weiss did not receive a fair trial, and the result is that the
       outcome of that trial is unworthy of confidence.

Id. at 20. It, therefore, conditionally granted the writ of habeas corpus and

directed the Commonwealth to commence a new trial.

                                               B.

       After the case returned to the trial court, Weiss filed a motion seeking

to bar retrial under our state Constitution’s double jeopardy clause based on

Attorney Robinette’s prosecutorial misconduct. At the hearing on the motion,

Attorney Robinette remained steadfast in his insistence that he never intended

to violate Brady1 or withhold impeachment evidence. He contended that he

believed at the time that the letters and phone calls he made on behalf of

Tribuiani and Wright were not the type of consideration that needed to be

____________________________________________

1 Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963) (requiring prosecutors to disclose

exculpatory evidence material to guilt or punishment upon defendant’s
request).

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disclosed.2 In assessing the intentionality of the misconduct, the trial court

credited Attorney Robinette’s testimony, albeit somewhat reluctantly. See id.

at 29 (“[T]his [c]ourt believes that Robinette genuinely thinks that his actions

did not and do not constitute prosecutorial misconduct. . . . The [c]ourt finds

Robinette’s convictions regarding his conduct to be extremely flawed and

troubling, but not impossible to believe.”); id. at 31 (describing Attorney

Robinette’s rationalizations as “seriously flawed, but not impossible to believe”

and “erroneous and troubling”); id. at 32 (describing his actions as “more

consistent with a prosecutor who possessed the unenviable pairing of

arrogance and ignorance”).          Thus, it concluded no intentional misconduct

barred retrial.

       Following our remand, the trial court analyzed the record for reckless

prosecutorial     misconduct        in   accordance   with   the   newly-decided

Commonwealth v. Johnson, 231 A.3d 807 (Pa. 2020). It held that much

of Attorney Robinette’s conduct was based on a negligent misunderstanding

of the law. Id. at 38. It identified one area in which it believed Attorney

Robinette’s conduct rose to the level of recklessness:

       However, the [c]ourt finds Robinette’s conduct to be reckless with
       regard to the statement that he would convey the nature and

____________________________________________

2 Attorney Robinette had gone so far as to testify previously at the PCRA
hearing that he did not consider Tribuiani and Wright’s testimony or credibility
at trial to be important “in the big scheme of things,” an assertion that the
PCRA court described as “truly preposterous.” N.T., 3/30/07, at 117.

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      extent of Wright’s and Tribuiani’s cooperation “whenever queried
      regarding the same.”

      As stated above, when questioned about the fact that he wrote
      favorable letters or made favorable phone calls at the request of
      the cooperating witness, Robinette responded as follows:

      “I was asked by Mr. Tribuiani to help him contact the people who
      might have an opportunity to comment on his pre-release. Query
      is a word that’s being used as it to query, being synonymous with
      to ask and that’s the way I was using the word.”

      The [c]ourt finds that decisions made based upon this barely
      believable explanation were made with a conscious disregard to
      the result.

Id. (citation omitted, cleaned up). Nevertheless, it concluded that Attorney

Robinette’s misconduct “[did] not deal with the key piece of physical evidence

leading to the defendant’s conviction,” distinguishing the matter from

Johnson.     Id. at 39 (footnote omitted).        Thus, even though Attorney

Robinette “was reckless in his decision not to disclose the phone calls and

letters,” the trial court concluded that “this reckless decision did not carry with

it a substantial risk that Weiss would be denied a fair trial.” Id.

                                       II.

                                        A.

      I begin with Johnson, as this Court previously remanded to the PCRA

court to consider the impact of that decision on this case.            There, the

Commonwealth and its witnesses made the “unimaginable” error of conflating

two pieces of physical evidence—two baseball hats, one with the victim’s blood

and one with the defendant’s DNA—into one hat, arguing to the jury that the

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defendant’s hat must have been splattered with the victim’s blood when he

committed the shooting. Id. at 827. After the defendant was granted a new

trial during PCRA3 proceedings, he filed a motion to bar retrial based on the

prosecution’s misconduct. The trial court denied the motion, finding that the

Commonwealth’s recklessness in the original proceedings was not the type of

intentional misconduct or bad faith that bars retrial. Id. at 815-16.

       On review, our Supreme Court held:

       Under Article I, Section 10 of the Pennsylvania Constitution,
       prosecutorial overreaching sufficient to invoke double jeopardy
       protections includes misconduct which not only deprives the
       defendant of his right to a fair trial, but is undertaken recklessly,
       that is, with a conscious disregard for a substantial risk that such
       will be the result. This, of course, is in addition to the behavior
       described in [Commonwealth v. Smith, 615 A.2d 321 (Pa.
       1992)], relating to tactics specifically designed to provoke a
       mistrial or deny the defendant a fair trial. In reaching our present
       holding, we do not suggest that all situations involving serious
       prosecutorial error implicate double jeopardy under the state
       Charter. To the contrary, we bear in mind the countervailing
       societal interests mentioned above regarding the need for
       effective law enforcement . . . and highlight again that, in
       accordance with long-established double-jeopardy precepts,
       retrial is only precluded where there is prosecutorial overreaching
       – which, in turn, implies some sort of conscious act or omission.

Id. at 826 (first emphasis added, citation omitted).           In distinguishing

prosecutorial overreaching from other forms of error, the Court explained

“overreaching signals that the judicial process has fundamentally broken down

because it reflects that the prosecutor, as representative of an impartial

____________________________________________

3 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 9541 et seq.

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sovereign, is seeking conviction at the expense of justice,” which is “the very

type of ‘tactic which the double jeopardy clause was designed to protect

against.’” Id. at 824 (quoting Commonwealth v. Starks, 416 A.2d 498, 500

(Pa. 1980)).

      In Commonwealth v. Sanchez, 262 A.3d 1283 (Pa. Super. 2021),

which the majority posits is analogous to the instant case, neither the

prosecution nor the investigating officers received the exculpatory DNA test

results until after the defendant had been convicted and sentenced to death.

Neither entity even knew that the relevant fingernail clippings had been

submitted to a laboratory for testing; rather, the laboratory performed the

testing without the express request of the officer. Id. at 1293. Following an

evidentiary hearing, the trial court found that the Commonwealth disclosed

the report to the defense immediately after receiving it and that the lapse in

communication was merely inadvertent and not the result of a conscious

disregard of the defendant’s right to a fair trial. Additionally, unlike Johnson,

the oversight did not result in false evidence or testimony being admitted at

trial. We credited the trial court’s credibility determinations and agreed that

the late disclosure of the DNA report merited a new trial but was not the result

of prosecutorial overreaching that would compel dismissal of the charges. Id.

at 1294; see also Commonwealth v. King, 271 A.3d 437, 449 (Pa. Super.

2021) (finding that retrial was not barred when prosecutor did not disclose

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exculpatory letter because he did not know that it had been written prior to

the author’s arrest).

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                                      B.

      I do not agree that Johnson is distinguishable or encompasses

substantially more egregious misconduct than the instant case, and, in any

event, I would not find that our Supreme Court intended to create a standard

that only misconduct on the same level as that in Johnson could meet. I do

not hesitate to conclude that Attorney Robinette’s reckless misconduct here

rose to the level of prosecutorial overreaching that deprived Weiss of his right

to a fair trial and was borne of a desire to “seek[] conviction at the expense

of justice.”   Johnson, supra, at 824.        While the trial court distinguished

Johnson in part because the instant case did not rest on “a key piece of

physical evidence,” that difference is not dispositive.     Trial Court Opinion,

6/10/21, at 39 (emphasis added). The Commonwealth clearly believed at the

time of trial that Tribuiani and Wright’s testimony was integral to securing

Weiss’s conviction. By failing to disclose the assistance it had extended to

those witnesses before trial, it prevented the defense from cross-examining

them on their motives and prevented the jury from considering vital

information that very well could have affected its assessment of their

testimony. I believe this recklessness is on par with that in Johnson.

      In the PCRA proceedings, Attorney Robinette attempted to downplay the

significance of Tribuiani and Wright’s testimony in securing Weiss’s conviction.

The fact remains, however, that his office had previously withdrawn the

homicide charge against Weiss in the 1980s based on lack of sufficient

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evidence to proceed, and as late as 1995, the office explained to the PSP that

it was not confident that it could obtain a conviction based on the existing

evidence. It was only after it obtained the jailhouse confessions from Tribuiani

and Wright that the Commonwealth had the confidence to seek a conviction

and the death penalty for Bruzda’s murder. In that context, Tribuiani and

Wright’s credibility on the stand cannot be understated. Attorney Robinette

knew as much, but nonetheless failed to disclose valuable impeachment

material to the defense. I cannot view this as anything less than a “conscious

disregard for a substantial risk” that Weiss would be denied a fair trial.

Johnson, supra, at 826.

      Indeed, the trial court recognized the egregiousness of this prosecutorial

overreach when it concluded that Attorney Robinette’s conduct was reckless.

It found that he elected not to disclose the letters and phone calls he made

on behalf of Tribuiani and Wright prior to trial, even when specifically asked

about any “deals” or “understandings” at a pre-trial hearing. In his letter to

defense counsel and when asked in open court, he disclosed only that “the

Commonwealth will only report the nature and extent of the witnesses’

cooperation whenever queried regarding the same.”         Trial Court Opinion,

6/10/21, at 11.

      Attorney Robinette attempted to argue that his representation about the

agreements with the witnesses was accurate because Tribuiani himself asked

for assistance with pre-release, rendering it a “query” within the meaning of

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his disclosure. As the trial court concluded, this explanation flies in the face

of a plain reading of that language. The letter implied that Attorney Robinette

would respond truthfully when asked by an outside agency, such as the PBPP

or another prosecuting office, about the extent of Tribuiani or Wright’s

cooperation. It does not suggest that he was referring to “queries” from the

witnesses themselves—such a “query” is precisely the type of negotiation for

a “deal” or “understanding” that the defense was concerned with in making

its request for impeachment material. Moreover, the well-documented chain

of events shows that Attorney Robinette made overtures on behalf of Tribuiani

and Wright months prior to the above disclosure, but nevertheless kept that

information from defense counsel and the court.4

          Additionally, I note that the Johnson Court concluded that the

Commonwealth’s conduct constituted prosecutorial overreaching based on

“reckless disregard for consequences and for the very real possibility of harm

stemming from the lack of thoroughness in preparing for a first-degree murder

trial.”    Johnson, supra, at 827 (emphasis added).      It explained that the

____________________________________________

4 While Attorney Robinette testified that he did not believe that this evidence

was considered Brady material at the time, this understanding was plainly
erroneous. See Commonwealth v. Strong, 761 A.2d 1167, 1171 (Pa. 2000)
(citing Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264, 269 (1959)) (“Exculpatory evidence
also includes evidence of an impeachment nature that is material to the case
against the accused.”). While Strong was decided in 2000, the Supreme
Court considered whether Brady was violated “in accordance with the status
of the law at the time of appellant’s trial in 1984.” Id. at 1171 n.4.

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resultant harm “comprises the risk of an erroneous conviction, years spent on

death row, and potential execution predicated on a fundamentally flawed trial.

The harm in this case also includes substantial resources expended in years

of post-conviction proceedings and in litigating the current pre-trial motion to

dismiss.” Id. at 827 n.15. These same injuries have, in fact, resulted here,

as Weiss was convicted and sentenced to death in 1997 after he was unable

to confront vital witnesses with evidence impeaching their motives for

testifying. His case has been winding its way through the state and federal

courts since his conviction and now, 25 years later, has yet to reach a

resolution.

       Finally, I find Sanchez and King easily distinguishable from the instant

matter. In both cases, the trial court concluded that the prosecuting attorney

was unaware of exculpatory evidence at the time of trial. 5     These matters

represent simple factual disputes about the prosecuting attorney’s knowledge

that were resolved in favor of the Commonwealth by the trial court, and it was

outside the province of this Court to second-guess those findings when they

were supported by the record.          See Commonwealth v. Kearns, 70 A.3d

____________________________________________

5 In Sanchez, the evidence in question was a pending DNA test that the
prosecutor did not know had been submitted to the lab, and in King, the
evidence was the date an exculpatory letter had been authored by a key
witness, as well as another witness’s cooperation agreement with the federal
government. See Commonwealth v. Sanchez, 262 A.3d 1283, 1293 (Pa.
Super. 2021); Commonwealth v. King, 271 A.3d 437, 449, 451 (Pa. Super.
2021).

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881, 884 (Pa. Super. 2013). Here, the trial court viewed Attorney Robinette’s

testimony at the hearing on the double jeopardy motion and concluded that

his behavior was reckless and his post hoc rationalizations strained credulity.

Its factual findings are well-supported by the record. As explained supra, I

simply disagree with the legal conclusion that the misconduct here was

distinguishable from that in Johnson and did not carry the risk of depriving

Weiss of a fair trial.

      For the foregoing reasons, I would conclude that the Commonwealth’s

misconduct in litigating Weiss’s trial in 1997 was sufficiently egregious that

Article 1, Section 10 of the Pennsylvania Constitution should bar retrial.

      Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

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