explaining that a "pillar upon which our system of trial by jury is based is that juries are presumed to follow the instructions of the court"
How later courts described this case
- explaining that a "pillar upon which our system of trial by jury is based is that juries are presumed to follow the instructions of the court"
- “In all cases in which the death penalty is imposed, it is this Court's duty to review the record to ensure the evidence sufficiently supports the first degree murder conviction and the finding of aggravating circumstances, and that the sentence was not the product of passion, prejudice, or other arbitrary factors.”
- no reversible error based on challenged question where objection was sustained, no answer was provided, and jury had been instructed that questions were not evidence
- A pillar upon which our system of trial by jury is based is that juries are presumed to follow the instructions of the court.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
*127 Justice SAYLOR,
concurring.
I join the majority opinion, except for its treatment of Appellant’s claim that the prosecutor violated a pre-trial agreement to the effect that one of its witnesses, Angela Sutton, would not be asked to make an identification of Appellant as the shooter.
The majority reasons that Ms. Sutton’s testimony did not implicate Appellant, despite evidencing that Appellant, in the words of the district attorney, had “the same complexion as the shooter [and] the same build as the shooter,” N.T., May 31, 2005, at 153. See Majority Opinion, op. at 118, 987 A.2d at 709. 1 The majority position, however, is contrary to that of the prosecutor at trial, who argued to the jury that “Angela Sutton, without pointing to a person in the courtroom, identifies him (indicating) as the killer.” N.T., May 31, 2005, at 154 (emphasis added). 2 There may be some semantic reason why connecting a criminal defendant’s characteristics with those of a perpetrator does not rise to a full scale “identification,” but the record shows the prosecutor knew well that he was using Ms. Sutton’s testimony to advance the Commonwealth’s identification case.
Some difficulty in evaluating this claim stems from the Commonwealth’s present representation, in its brief, that the prosecutor’s only agreement was to refrain from presenting an “in-court” identification. See Brief for Appellee at 14. In his rejoinders to the defense objection at trial, however, the district attorney took the position that he was not presenting *128 any form of identification. The following passage from the trial transcript is illustrative:
[Defense Counsel]: ... [If Ms. Sutton is] asked and says that she can identify that the person who was brought back was the same person who did the shooting, that’s an identification.
[District Attorney]: She is not. She says he has the same complexion and build with what seems like a different coat.
N.T., May 27, 2005, at 29.
Since the prosecutor overcame the defense objection upon the representation that Ms. Sutton was not offering “an identification,” it was obviously inappropriate for him to later relate to the jurors that Ms. Sutton “identifies [Appellant] as the killer.” N.T., May 31, 2005, at 154. 3
I support the result attained by the majority, based on an application of the review standards governing consideration of a claim of prosecutorial misconduct (since Appellant’s claim is styled as such). Under prevailing law, such a claim requires the proponent to demonstrate that the district attorney’s actions “had the unavoidable effect of undermining the neutrality of the jury so as to preclude the rendering of a true verdict.” Commonwealth v. Kennedy, 598 Pa. 621, 634 , 959 A.2d 916, 923-24 (2008).
As the Commonwealth argues at length, three other witnesses provided eyewitness testimony directly implicating Appellant, and police immediately pursued Appellant from the scene and recovered the weapon used to kill the victim from the location at which Appellant was seized. In such circumstances, it appears to me unlikely that Ms. Sutton’s testimony, albeit clearly bolstering the already strong identification of *129 Appellant as the shooter, was of determinative effect in the finding of his guilt.
. Ms. Sutton’s testimony specifically concerned a comparison of the characteristics of the shooter and a man in police custody; however, there was never any dispute that Appellant was the referenced man in custody. See, e.g., N.T., May 25, 2005, at 186-87 (reflecting trial counsel's comment to the trial court, "My client — how can I deny that my client was brought back in handcuffs? I mean, he was.”).
. With regard to the inconsistency concerning Appellant's jacket, the prosecutor explained that, ”[t]he police have opened up his black jacket by now to search him, remember, when they caught him. When she said ‘black jacket,’ she’s talking about him. When she says ‘gray hoodie,’ she's talking about him.” N.T., May 31, 2005, at 154.
. Even the trial court’s questions of the witness conveyed that Ais. Sutton's testimony represented, at a minimum, a de facto identification. Specifically, Ms. Sutton testified that the shooter wore a white cap, and the trial court initiated the following interchange concerning the cap:
The Court: And did he still have the white skully when you saw him in the car?
[Ms. Sutton]: No.
N.T., May 27, 2005, at 59 (emphasis added).