stating, “Appellant never asked counsel for guidance during opening statements. He cannot now claim he was ineffective or that standby counsel was ineffective because he never sought her guidance.”
How later courts described this case
- stating, “Appellant never asked counsel for guidance during opening statements. He cannot now claim he was ineffective or that standby counsel was ineffective because he never sought her guidance.”
- developing the position that the adoption of an unnecessarily broad construction of the in-perpetration-of-a-felony aggravator, 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(d)(6), is in tension with the requirement of sufficiently narrowing the class of eligible defendants as noted in Zant
- finding that the appellant was not prejudiced by the prosecutor's reference to the victim's religion because the comment was so brief it did not affect the jury's decision
- holding that prosecutorial misconduct does not occur unless the jurors form “a fixed bias and hostility toward the defendant” based on the prosecutor’s comments
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
*387 Justice BAER,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I join the Majority opinion as to its resolution of the guilt phase issues.
I, however, join Mr. Justice Saylor’s dissenting opinion only as to his conclusion that, in the penalty phase of a capital case, the finding of the “in perpetration of a felony” aggravating circumstance, 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(d)(6), should be limited to the six felonies enumerated in Section 2502(d) of the Crimes Code, 18 Pa.C.S. § 2502(d). Here, Appellant was never convicted of any of the felonies enumerated in Section 2502(d); therefore, I agree with Mr. Justice Saylor that Appellant’s (d)(6) aggravator should be stricken and that Appellant should receive a new penalty phase hearing consistent with this determination.