# Commonwealth v. Aulisio

> Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · March 19, 1987 · 514 Pa. 84

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9704844

## Case

- **Full name:** COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Joseph G. AULISIO, Appellant
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
- **Decided:** March 19, 1987
- **Citations:** 514 Pa. 84; 522 A.2d 1075; 1987 Pa. LEXIS 675
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Hutchinson
- **Judges:** Nix, Larsen, Flaherty, McDermott, Hutchinson, Zappala, Papadakos
- **Cited by:** 36 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9704844

## Opinion text

HUTCHINSON, Justice,
concurring.
I join the majority opinion. However, I believe Mr. Justice Papadakos’s dissenting opinion deserves comment. I agree with him that Section 9711 of the Sentencing Code, 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711, does not establish a per se rule requiring this Court to set aside a death penalty where any one aggravating circumstance found by the jury is not supported by the evidence, and there are other mitigating circumstances. If it is clear that the error committed by the jury was harmless, as might occur if the jury states both the aggravating and mitigating circumstances that it found, then I believe we can sustain the death penalty.
*96 I do not believe that the majority opinion is inconsistent with my position. In this case the error cannot be found to be harmless in the face of the mitigating circumstances of defendant’s age of fifteen when he committed the crimes, and the presence of a single proper aggravating circumstance as found by the jury. See Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104 , 102 S.Ct. 869 , 71 L.Ed.2d 1 (1982); Commonwealth v. Holcomb, 508 Pa. 425 , 498 A.2d 833 (1985) (Hutchinson, J., Opinion Announcing the Judgment of the Court).

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9704844. Public record. Not legal advice.