Court Opinion

ID: 9732112
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:08:27.896788+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:23.373426
License: Public Domain

POPOVICH, J.,
dissenting:
¶ 1 Unlike the Majority, I am unable to find that the investigative efforts of the prosecution in this case were either proper or without “prejudice” to the appellant. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
¶ 2 The appellant, Keith E. Snyder, appeals the September 30, 1998, order of the Court of Common Pleas of Luzerne County finding that the reasons the Commonwealth delayed over eleven years to prosecute him for the death of his wife and infant child were valid and that, such being the case, the delay was proper and did not warrant a discharge.
¶3 An examination of the record discloses that on July 2, 1982, the appellant’s wife and six-week-old son died of carbon *591monoxide poisoning caused by a fire in their home in Wright Township. The appellant left for work approximately one hour before the fire was reported. An autopsy of Mrs. Snyder revealed barbiturates and a blood alcohol level of .046%.
¶ 4 An investigation was commenced immediately by Wright Township police, the Pennsylvania State Police and the District Attorney’s Office of Luzerne County, but no arrests were made after two years. This was followed by the empaneling of a special grand jury in 1984, but it too ended in 1986 without issuing any presentments.
¶ 5 It was not until 1993 that a newly elected District Attorney reopened the case and filed a criminal complaint on September 8, 1993. Pre-trial motions were filed claiming the passage of more than eleven years violated the appellant’s due process rights under the Constitutions of the United States and Pennsylvania, which rendered exculpatory evidence unavailable and prejudiced the defense (suicide) via witnesses who had died or their memories faded. The trial court held the appellant was not prejudiced.
¶ 6 Following trial, a jury convicted the appellant of arson and two counts of first-degree murder. The trial court sentenced the appellant to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment, with a concurrent five-year term for the arson conviction. This Court affirmed the judgment of sentence (No. 0934 Philadelphia 1995). On alloca-tur, our Supreme Court held “the excessive lapse of time caused actual prejudice to the Appellant”, which necessitated a remand for the prosecution to justify the delay. Commonwealth v. Snyder, 552 Pa. 44, 713 A.2d 596 (1998).
¶ 7 Two days of hearings were conducted wherein three former and present District Attorneys of Luzerne County gave testimony concerning the eleven-year, two-month time lapse between the fire and the appellant’s arrest. To appreciate my view of this case, a detailed review of the evidence is imperative.
¶ 8 The initial District Attorney served from 1982 until December of 1986. During his tenure, the investigation began and included interviews of some seventy witnesses, all of which generated reports.
¶ 9 The District Attorney testified that the Wright Township Police Department was leading the investigation, joined by the Pennsylvania State Police and his office. Over the next several years, the District Attorney’s personnel conferenced constantly with investigators in an effort to secure sufficient evidence to arrest the perpetrator of the arson deaths. Input came from a variety of sources, e.g., Dr. Hudock’s autopsy concluded the deaths were the result of criminal homicide. Other contributions came from a private drug lab (Eli Lilly & Co.), the Fire Commissioner of Philadelphia, the FBI crime lab in Georgia, the National Medical Services Lab and the Pennsylvania State Police Crime Lab.
¶ 10 As far as the District Attorney was concerned, two issues needed to be resolved before an arrest could occur. One, the time lapse between the appellant leaving his home and the fire being detected was sufficient to justify restraint in issuing an arrest. Despite consulting “everybody” to establish the “burn time,” the District Attorney was “frustrated” in his efforts to obtain answers he believed would be acceptable to a jury.
¶ 11 Two, the drug (Tuinal) detected in the decedent’s bloodstream needed to be linked to the appellant. Efforts to accomplish this consisted of police interviews of the appellant’s former wife and former girlfriends. Also, any of his friends who had access to Tuinal were screened through the Drug Enforcement Agency without success.
¶ 12 When conventional investigative tools proved fruitless, the District Attorney empaneled a grand jury in September of 1984 to inquire into the Snyder matter as well as four other cases. Before he left office in December of 1985, ten to eleven *592witnesses were subpoenaed before the grand jury, which sat from time to time as the District Attorney received sufficient evidence to submit on either the Snyder case or the others under review.
¶ 13 After all witnesses were called, the District Attorney concluded there was “insufficient evidence to sustain a conviction or to ensure the conviction of the defendant.” He stated he did not fail to arrest the appellant to gain a tactical advantage.
¶ 14 The next District Attorney had a term from January of 1986 through January of 1988, a period during which the grand jury had all evidence save for hearing from the appellant’s parents. This occurred in August of 1986 and resulted in the issuance of a “Report and Recommendation” that the fire was intentionally set. However, the grand jury held the evidence was legally insufficient to indict the appellant at that time. Nonetheless, it recommended that law enforcement officials “continue to vigorously pursue this investigation.”
¶ 15 In light of the grand jury’s refusal to indict, the District Attorney “made the decision that th[e evidence] was insufficient to approve or recommend an arrest of Mr. Snyder.” Likewise, in the District Attorney’s opinion there was insufficient evidence to sustain a conviction. The District Attorney’s remaining term was consumed with prosecuting other cases, which meant he had a “very busy” schedule that excluded pursuing the appellant.
¶ 16 The successor District Attorney served from January of 1988 until July of 1991. At the start of his watch, he was briefed on the case by the county detective involved in the original investigation, he reviewed the file with his chief detective and other staff members before concluding that “there was insufficient evidence” to arrest or convict the appellant.
¶ 17 A policy existed during this District Attorney’s tenure regarding older, unsolved murder cases: “The policy was if it was basically a police matter, [his office] would be available when the time came to make a decision whether or not to make an arrest. And then once an arrest was approved under the law, then the District Attorney’s office would vigorously pursue it.” Thus, except for a report in June of 1990 from the Pennsylvania State Police disclosing the appellant’s remarriage, no documents were generated by any of the governmental agencies during the remainder of this District Attorney’s term germane to the appellant’s case.
¶ 18 Further, the District Attorney’s office made no demand upon the state and local police departments to take additional action in the Snyder case, and the reason given was that “[i]t would not be the normal policy”. Interestingly, the District Attorney conceded contacting the Attorney General of Pennsylvania for assistance (because of a lack of resources) on one other murder case (Wolsieffer), but he refrained from doing so in Snyder since “[t]hey were in different postures at the time”. Moreover, despite Trooper Martz’s report in May of 1988 “that this [Snyder] crime was solvable”, the District Attorney declined to prosecute. His rationale: a case may be “solvable” but that does not translate into it being “prosecutorial”. Further, the District Attorney testified that: .
... nothing was new from the previous District Attorney ..., and he still had Detective Matt Parrell as a liaison with the police in this matter. And he ethically and morally could not authorize an arrest if in [his] discretion as District Attorney [he] didn’t feel there was evidence.
¶ 19 The fourth District Attorney in this line of succession served from August of 1991 to January of 1992, but he had no knowledge of nor was he directly involved with the Snyder case. His lack of activity in the case was not motivated by a desire to have the Commonwealth gain a tactical advantage.
¶ 20 The last of the District Attorneys to testify was the then current office-holder. His appointment came on January 5, 1992, *593and he met with county detective Jack Hlivia to discuss the Snyder case. The outgrowth of the meeting was Hlivia’s assignment to obtain files from the Pennsylvania State Police, the Wright Township police department and his own office. This process took approximately six months before the District Attorney could digest the reports and the grand jury transcripts.
¶ 21 Moreover, the District Attorney had a series of meetings with a variety of officials (Hlivia, Pennsylvania State Police’s retired fire marshall, the retired member of the Pennsylvania State Police R & I unit and the Wright Township police chief) to discuss their roles in the case. Thereafter, he was of the opinion that it was inappropriate to effectuate an arrest of the appellant. He also testified that he was unaware of the source of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s statement in the Snyder opinion that the arrest of the appellant occurred “because the policies of the Luzerne County District Attorney’s office changed when a newly-elected district attorney took office.”
¶ 22 The District Attorney also took issue with the Supreme Court’s comments that no additional investigation or evidence surfaced after the grand jury convened in 1986. Specifically, he gave a chronology of events since he took office to counter the remark by the high Court of a lack of investigative activity in the case; to-wit:
1) April 5, 1993 — First formal meeting convened at the Pennsylvania State Police barracks in Hazleton. Present were Wright Township police and members of the District Attorney’s office to hear the District Attorney’s view and discuss the feasibility of developing a full-time team to do additional investigation.
a) An investigative team was appointed to review and familiarize itself with the evidence to date;
b) Reinterviewing and locating witnesses was to occur, which was described by the District Attorney as a “mammoth” project;
c) Leads were to be followed and individuals were to be interviewed who had yet to be questioned;
d) All physical evidence gathered by the different agencies was to be placed in a central depository and “chains of custody” were to be created so as to render all evidence admissible in court; and
e) All photographs were to be collected, identified and placed in order.
¶ 23 In May of 1993, the District Attorney met with the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit in Quantico, Virginia. Additionally, the files of Nationwide (the insurance carrier) were reviewed, the medical record of each decedent was examined, meetings were conducted to locate fire experts on the “cause and origin” of the conflagration, and the burn time and burn pattern had to be evaluated. Toward that end, two fire experts were hired.
¶ 24 A forensic pathologist (Dr. Michael Baden) was retained to resolve significant toxicology issues concerning the autopsy. A criminologist hired in 1982 to test for solvents in the Snyder’s carpet was interviewed several times. He indicated an oil and gas residue in the nap of the rug was consistent with a mixture found in the Snyder’s residence.
¶ 25 Discussions were had with Dr. Baden concerning the drug Tuinal, which was found in Mrs. Snyder and the amount of time it would take to affect the victim. Investigators also spent a significant amount of energy locating the source of the drug.
¶ 26 Efforts to bring closure to the case did not end until the District Attorney: 1) met with a theology expert to examine all the ramifications to a Christian (as Mrs. Snyder was) who committed suicide; 2) reviewed a cult movie seen by the victim before her death; and 3) consulted a jury selection expert.
*594¶27 Even after the appellant’s arrest, the investigation continued. The new, additional and different evidence obtained subsequent to 1993 consisted of the following:
1) Janice Braskey provided information “critical” to the District Attorney’s office allowing follow-up interviews of Stephanie Kluck, Carol Maughan and Patricia Brown;
2) Stephanie Kluck told investigators that Mrs. Snyder came to her shop on July 1st (the day before her death) and related the christening of young Brian to occur on Saturday, July 3rd; Mrs. Snyder ordered Tupperware from Ms. Kluck and indicated she would pay her in the future, all of which undermined a defense of suicide; at a second interview on June 15th, Kluck admitted that she had a “significant” sexual affair with the appellant during his marriage; a third interview of Ms. Kluck on July 20th related the cessation of her relationship with the appellant, which established a “motive” for the killings in the District Attorney’s mind;
3) Sandy Miller was interviewed at Ms. Kluck’s urging because Miller read a letter written by the appellant admitting his affection for Ms. Kluck;
4) Carol Maughan was supervised by the appellant and admitted having an affair (“making out”) with him on the job;
5) Elizabeth Warman-Wark disclosed for the first time she engaged in sex with her supervisor/appellant while at work;
6) Grace Winters was also supervised by the appellant and engaged in sexual conduct at work and in the appellant’s home during his marriage;
7) Elizabeth Skuba was Ms. Kluck’s neighbor and corroborated information provided by Ms. Kluck and not known until 1993;
8) Dolores Margistish was a nurse for the doctor treating Mrs. Snyder and her son on June 15th, and the appointment book revealed the two had scheduled July 15th to return for a visit; Mrs. Snyder did not appear depressed. Rather, Mrs. Snyder was “happy” and “thrilled” about her baby;
9) Mary Ann Peeler was the secretary for the church where the baptism was to occur on July 3rd, and Mrs. Snyder phoned on July 1st “to confirm ... the scheduled baptism of young Brian”. Ms. Peeler described Mrs. Snyder as in “good spirits”, “happy”, and “very perky” the day before the fire;
10) Julia Koziel was a friend of Mrs. Snyder who heard the appellant say “he was going to throw darts at his own young infant child”. Ms. Koziel observed her friend being “happy”, “thrilled” and “proud” of the baby, and she was not depressed nor did she drink;
11) Steven Majetski confirmed that Mrs. Snyder did not drink alcohol;
12) Jean Hudock was a friend of Mrs. Snyder and saw her with the baby and she was “proud” of the child;
13) Gladys Moran was employed at the appellant’s store and witnessed, as did Ms. Hudock, mother and child in the thirty-day period before the fire exhibit signs of being “very happy, thrilled with the child”;
14) Ann Marie Banks saw Mrs. Snyder on July 1st and recounted how elated she was to be able to purchase jeans given the Snyders’ financial hardship;
15) Robert Corradini played softball with the appellant on the evening of July 1st and did not notice him limp or ■ sustain an injury that would cause him to limp. Mr. Corradini gave authorities a neighbor’s name (Joe Thomas) who described the appellant having a limp when he left *595the house shortly before the fire was discovered;
16) Kelly Lucas-Carr was a bank teller where appellant did business on July 2nd and described him as “fidgety, nervous, and in a hurry while standing in the line at the bank.”;
17) Ed Goodford was a neighbor who shut off the gas meter during the fire, corroborated and confirmed other information which was helpful in reconstructing the blaze;
18) Wright Township fire chief Gary Smith was first on the scene and corroborated other fire fighters’ accounts that the windows were locked and closed;
19) Bill Spudia provided new information about the mattress on which the bodies were found as to the varying degrees of how the mattress could burn and the effect of the fire on the mattress;
20) Bill Ward was an employee of West-land Oil Company, the manufacturer of the one-gallon can in which the gas and oil mixture was found and linked to the carpeting in the home;
21) Edward St. Hart installed the smoke detector in the Snyder residence and at no time thereafter was he notified it malfunctioned;
22) Stanley Brenner was the inventor of the smoke detector and he testified that it could be de-activated without cutting wires, which was consistent with the charred detector being found with the switch in the “purged” position rendering it inoperable; and
23) Arthur Barnes was the prospective godfather. He saw Mrs. Snyder riding a stationary bike to lose weight.
¶ 28 The District Attorney testified that, excluding experts, over eighty witnesses were questioned as a result of the renewed investigation in 1993, but not all interviewees were called to testify at trial.
¶ 29 Prior to the renewed investigation, the District Attorney refused to arrest the appellant. Only after embarking on a collation and re-examination of the evidence and witnesses was an arrest and indictment of the appellant deemed warranted. The trial court agreed and held that the reasons offered for the delay were valid.
¶ 30 Our Supreme Court remanded this case after concluding that the Commonwealth’s failure to file charges sooner prejudiced the appellant. In particular, the Court wrote:
The Commonwealth’s case against the Appellant was based on circumstantial evidence and the inferences arising from them, and they established that Mrs. Snyder had barbiturates in her system and that someone had ignited a trail of gasoline and oil throughout the house. The Commonwealth’s theory was that the Appellant drugged his wife, started the fire, left the house between 12:15 and 12:20 p.m. and the fire smoldered for approximately one hour before the children discovered it.
At trial, the Commonwealth also sought to counter the Appellant’s defense that Mrs. Snyder was depressed and committed suicide by taking barbiturates and setting fire to the house killing herself and her son. To establish Mrs. Snyder’s state of mind, the Commonwealth introduced extensive evidence including the testimony of twelve lay witnesses who testified that they had contacts with her shortly before death and she appeared happy after the birth of the child.
After the Commonwealth raised the issue of Mrs. Snyder’s state of mind in its case-in-chief, the defense attempted to rebut the evidence with contrary evidence showing she was depressed before death. The Appellant testified on his own behalf and introduced the testimony of three other witnesses who had contact with Mrs. Snyder before she died. Forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht, M.D., also testified as a defense witness, and *596opined that his review of all the available evidence led him to conclude that Mrs. Snyder committed suicide. The Appellant’s toxicologist testified that the barbiturates in Mrs. Snyder’s system could not have been given to her secretly in food or a drink because they had a bad taste.
In addition to the witnesses who became unavailable because of the passing of time[ — e.g., Dr. Berger, a psychiatrist experienced in performing psychiatric autopsies to assess the decedent’s mental state hampered because passage of time resulted in loss of close friends and family members who knew the decedent; Monsignor Nolan, before he died, interacted with Mrs. Snyder because of the upcoming baptism. He commented after seeing the bodies in the home that Mrs. Snyder committed suicide; the appellant’s father was told while alive by the victim’s co-workers that she said “goodbye” the day before the fire; and the victim’s father was told by a family friend (Amy Kochanski) his daughter should not have seen a movie involving the suicide of the characters (mother and child) by fire], the record is replete with instances where prosecution and defense witnesses ... changed their testimony or could not remember specific details when they testified at trial.
* * * *
Because of the developments in the case at trial, the Commonwealth introducing considerable evidence concerning Mrs. Snyder’s state of mind, and the unavailability of key witnesses close to Mrs. Snyder, we conclude that the Commonwealth’s failure to file these charges sooner resulted in actual prejudice to the Appellant in presenting his defense at trial.
713 A.2d at 602-603 (Footnote omitted).
¶ 31 Even though the first prong of the Marion/Lovasco3 criteria (to determine whether pre-indictment delay results in actual prejudice to a defendant) was satisfied, the Supreme Court found it necessary to remand to address the second prong, i.e., were there valid reasons for delaying prosecution? In the absence of satisfying both prongs, a discharge is not warranted. Id.
¶ 32 Initially, I find no support in the record to conclude that any District Attorney of Luzerne County, either prior or present, intentionally postponed prosecution to gain a tactical advantage over the appellant. On the other hand, I, in contrast to the Majority, am unable to discern from the record any valid reason why this case lay dormant from 1986 until 1992 before being resurrected by an administration implementing measures (collating existing data, re-interviewing witnesses for new information and leads, and hiring experts) that were just as extant in 1986 thru 1992 as they were post-1992. If this fervor existed in January of 1992 to reactivate the case, the record is devoid of any reason (either financially or manpower) why this same incentive should not have fueled the “ongoing” tact, as recommended by the grand jury in 1986 of “vigorously” pursuing the case, before 1992.
¶ 33 Query: Why did those in a position of authority wait six years to amass this armada of men and resources? No one was asked nor answered this question, and I would not remand for a second time to have it resolved. See Zappala, J.’s Concurring and Dissenting Opinion in which Flaherty and Cappy, JJ. joined in Snyder, supra (Chastising the Majority for remanding because the Commonwealth had the opportunity to give reasons for delaying in prosecuting the appellant and did not seize the moment at the pre-trial hearing scheduled for just that purpose).
¶ 34 In this light, given the mandate of the Supreme Court to glean whether valid reasons existed for the inordinate delay, I *597conclude that no valid/investigatory reason was given to justify the hiatus in prosecuting this case. When you couple this fact with the Supreme Court’s initial finding that the appellant was actually prejudiced by the delay (with the loss of witnesses and memories waning), the course to pursue is well-lit and should result in vacating the judgment of sentence. Snyder, supra; Commonwealth v. Scher, 732 A.2d 1278 (Pa.Super.1999).
¶ 35 The Majority takes the view the prosecution followed the discovery of substantial new evidence and that the delay was not motivated by the securement of an unfair advantage that prejudiced the appellant. Therefore, the delay is to be sanctioned. I do not subscribe to that position. In fact, quite the contrary is true in regard to the prejudicial ramifications flowing from the Commonwealth’s delay in prosecution of this case. For example, it is to be recalled that our Supreme Court has already concluded that the appellant, in fact, was “prejudiced” by the Commonwealth’s inordinate delay in investigating the two deaths. Snyder, supra.
¶ 36 All that is left for this Court to assess are the reasons for the delay to ascertain if they were valid in origin and purpose. From my assiduous review of the voluminous record, I find that the reasons proffered were neither valid (to forestall Due Process violations) nor devoid of prejudice (as the aftermath of inactivity resulted in the defendant’s witnesses dying and their memories waning) and, certainly, do not merit the imprimatur of this Court as proper prosecutorial behavior.
¶ 37 Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

. United States v. Marion, 404 U.S. 307, 92 S.Ct. 455, 30 L.Ed.2d 468 (1971) and United States v. Lovasco, 431 U.S. 783, 97 S.Ct. 2044, 52 L.Ed.2d 752 (1977).