Court Opinion

ID: 9761061
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:30:33.357646+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:19.897666
License: Public Domain

*579CAPPY, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I join the majority opinion, as to the determination of guilt. I dissent, however, as to the imposition of the penalty of death. I believe the trial court committed error in permitting the jury to consider the appellant’s prior juvenile adjudications of delinquency as an aggravating circumstance during the penalty phase.
Our death penalty statute provides a precise formula for narrowly considering those cases in which the extreme penalty of death should be imposed. Blystone v. Pennsylvania, 494 U.S. 299, 306-07, 110 S.Ct. 1078, 1083, 108 L.Ed.2d 255, 264 (1990). As such it constitutes the most severe penal statute in this Commonwealth. This Court is required to interpret penal statutes in the strictest sense, giving any benefit of liberal interpretation to the accused. 1 Pa.C.S. § 1928.
With these principles in mind we turn to the actual words of the provision at issue. 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(d)(9) sets forth the following aggravating circumstance: “The defendant has a significant history of felony convictions involving the use or threat of violence to the person.” In the instant case, the prosecutor was permitted to use this provision to present evidence of an aggravating circumstance to the jury, when the appellant had no history of felony convictions, but only a history of juvenile adjudications of delinquency.
The introduction of these prior adjudications should not have been permitted within the scope of 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(d)(9). Under our statutes, the terms “felony conviction” and “adjudication of delinquency” are not synonymous. In fact, in the instances when the legislature has dealt with the two terms within one piece of legislation, it has acknowledged the difference to be accorded the two designations. See, 42 Pa.C.S. § 2154 Adoption of guidelines for sentencing; and 204 Pa.Code § 303.7(g) Prior Record Score.
Generally, adjudications are inadmissable in any subsequent court proceeding. A narrow exception to that rule was provided within the Juvenile Act at 42 Pa.C.S. § 6354:
*580§ 6354. Effect of adjudication
(a) General rule. — An order of disposition or other adjudication in a proceeding under this chapter is not a conviction of crime and does not impose any civil disability ordinarily resulting from a conviction or operate to disqualify the child in any civil service application or appointment.
(b) Effect in subsequent judicial matters. — The disposition of a child under this chapter may not be used against him in any proceeding in any court other than at a subsequent juvenile hearing, whether before or after reaching majority, except:
(1) in dispositional proceedings after conviction of a felony for the purposes of a presentence investigation and report; or
(2) if relevant, where he has put his reputation or character in issue in a civil matter.
Within the confines of this narrow legislative scheme, a sentencing judge may consider a defendant’s prior adjudications. The circumstances under which a juvenile adjudication of delinquency can be referred to for sentencing purposes are set out in the sentencing guidelines at 204 Pa.Code § 303.7:
(b) Adjudications of delinquency and other prior convictions.
(1) The offenses scored in this subsection are as follows:
(i) All prior convictions for felonies and all prior convictions for the weapons misdemeanors listed in subsection (a)(3).
(ü) Each prior offense which resulted in a juvenile adjudication of delinquency where:
(A) there was an express finding by the juvenile court that the adjudication was for a felony or one of the weapons misdemeanors listed subsection (a)(3).
(B) the offenses occurred on or after the defendant’s 14th birthday, and
(C) the currently sentenced offense is a felony.
No other juvenile adjudication of delinquency shall be counted in the prior record score.
*581It is obvious from a review of these statutes that the legislature was aware of the difference between juvenile adjudications of delinquency and felony convictions. Otherwise, no valid reason would exist for creating different rules for weighing juvenile adjudications in subsequent criminal proceedings.
Although it can be argued that a death penalty hearing is a sentencing proceeding, and the jury should be informed of all relevant information regarding the defendant, the legislature in drafting our death penalty statute has chosen otherwise.
Jurors in death cases are only given specific limited information, and they are cautioned to consider that information within strict guidelines. Their function may have an impact similar to that of a sentencing judge, but it is accomplished within narrow confines, and without the benefit of broad “judicial” discretion. The legislature chose to limit the jury’s consideration of aggravating circumstance (d)(9) to felony convictions in the death penalty statute. In strictly construing this statute, as is our duty, we must conclude that they purposely excluded juvenile adjudications from the consideration of the jury in death penalty cases.
Without a clear direction by the legislature on this serious question, this Court cannot presume to create an aggravating circumstance not contemplated by the authors of the death penalty statute. We must remember “when the words of a statute are clear and free from all ambiguity, the letter of it is not to be disregarded under the pretext of pursuing its spirit.” 1 Fa.C.S. § 1921(b). Therefore, I am compelled to conclude that juvenile adjudications of delinquency, regardless of the nature of the underlying criminal offense, are not to be considered by a jury in deliberation upon a penalty of death. Thus, I would vacate the sentence of death and remand for a new sentencing hearing.
ZAPPALA, J., joins in this concurring and dissenting opinion.