Com. v. Brogden, K.

CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedNovember 27, 2024
Docket2940 EDA 2022
StatusUnpublished

This text of Com. v. Brogden, K. (Com. v. Brogden, K.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Com. v. Brogden, K., (Pa. Ct. App. 2024).

Opinion

J-S23033-24

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF : PENNSYLVANIA : v. : : : KEVIN BROGDEN : : Appellant : No. 2940 EDA 2022

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered November 21, 2022 In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-51-CR-0001647-2019

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF : PENNSYLVANIA : v. : : : KEVIN BROGDEN : : Appellant : No. 2941 EDA 2022

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered November 21, 2022 In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-51-CR-0001648-2019

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF : PENNSYLVANIA : v. : : : KEVIN BROGDEN : : Appellant : No. 2942 EDA 2022

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered November 21, 2022 In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-51-CR-0001649-2019 J-S23033-24

BEFORE: STABILE, J., KING, J., and COLINS, J.*

MEMORANDUM BY COLINS, J.: FILED NOVEMBER 27, 2024

Appellant, Kevin Brogden, appeals from the judgments of sentence

imposed by the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County in three

criminal cases, CP-51-CR-0001647-2019 (CR-1647-2019), CP-51-CR-

0001648-2019 (CR-1648-2019), and CP-51-CR-0001649-2019 (CR-1649-

2019), following a consolidated jury trial at which he was convicted of two

counts of third-degree murder and one count each of aggravated assault,

carrying a firearm without a license, and carrying a firearm on the public

streets of Philadelphia.1 For the reasons set forth below, we affirm Appellant’s

convictions in all three cases, vacate his sentence for third-degree murder in

CR-1647-2019 and remand for resentencing on that conviction, and affirm his

judgment of sentence in all other respects.

These cases arise out of the shooting of three individuals, Stephanie

Rann (Victim 1), Efrain Rivera (Victim 2), and another woman (Victim 3) in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on January 7, 2019. In the early morning hours of

January 7, 2019, Victim 1, Victim 2, and Victim 3 drove from Delaware to

Philadelphia to purchase heroin from Appellant. Trial Court Opinion at 2; N.T.

Trial, 11/8/22, at 43, 45-49, 59, 98. After they arrived at the place where

____________________________________________

* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.

1 18 Pa.C.S. §§ 2502(c), 2702(a)(1), 6106(a)(1), and 6108, respectively.

-2- J-S23033-24

they were to meet Appellant, Appellant got in the car and gave Victim 1, the

driver, five bundles of heroin. Trial Court Opinion at 4; N.T. Trial, 11/8/22, at

47-52, 101-02, 111. After Appellant gave Victim 1 the bundles of heroin,

Victim 2 and Appellant got into a verbal and physical altercation about money.

Trial Court Opinion at 2, 4; N.T. Trial, 11/8/22, at 52-54, 67-68, 102-03, 111.

Appellant then fired several gunshots that struck Victim 1, Victim 2, and Victim

3 and ran off. Trial Court Opinion at 2, 4; N.T. Trial, 11/8/22, at 43, 46-47,

54-57, 68-69, 112, 178. Victim 3 was able to escape and seek help and was

later treated for a gunshot wound to her left shoulder. Trial Court Opinion at

2. Victim 1, who had been shot in the head, and Victim 2, who had been shot

in the torso, both died from their gunshot wounds. Id. Victim 3 identified

Appellant as the shooter in a photo array on January 11, 2019, four days after

the shooting. Id.; N.T., 10/28/22, at 7-8, 25, 38-40, 49, 54-56, 61-63, 77-

82; N.T. Trial, 11/8/22, at 69-71.

Appellant was arrested on January 14, 2019, and was charged in three

separate criminal informations. In CR-1647-2019, Appellant was charged with

the murder of Victim 1, carrying a firearm without a license, and carrying a

firearm on the public streets of Philadelphia. Appellant was charged with the

murder of Victim 2 in CR-1648-2019 and with aggravated assault for the

shooting of Victim 3 in CR-1649-2019. Victim 3 was unable to identify

Appellant at an in-person lineup on February 25, 2019, but identified him as

the shooter at Appellant’s preliminary hearing on March 5, 2019. N.T. Trial,

-3- J-S23033-24

11/8/22, at 71-73, 160-62. On April 4, 2019, Appellant filed a motion to

suppress Victim 3’s identification of him on the ground that the photo array

was impermissibly suggestive. Following a hearing on October 28, 2022, the

trial court denied Appellant’s motion to suppress Victim 3’s identification.

N.T., 10/28/22, at 96. In August 2022, the Commonwealth moved to

introduce at trial the preliminary hearing testimony of one of its witnesses,

Joseph Volpe, who had died in September 2021. Trial Court Opinion at 44.

Following two hearings on this motion, the trial court granted the motion to

introduce Volpe’s preliminary hearing testimony. Id. at 44-47; N.T., 9/2/22,

at 51-52.

All three cases were tried to a jury from November 7 to November 18,

2022. At trial the Commonwealth presented the testimony of 19 witnesses,

including Victim 3 and Volpe’s preliminary hearing testimony. Trial Court

Opinion at 3. Victim 3 testified to the events surrounding the shootings and

identified Appellant as the shooter. N.T. Trial, 11/8/22, at 43, 45-59, 67-69,

98, 101-03, 111-12, 178. Volpe testified that he bought heroin with the stamp

5050 from Appellant beginning in December 2018, that the phone number

that communicated with Victim 1’s phone immediately before the murders was

Appellant’s phone number, and that on January 7, 2019, after the murders

had occurred, Appellant changed from that phone number to a different phone

number. N.T. Trial, 11/9/22, at 117-18, 120, 124-26, 129. Volpe also

testified that Appellant told him that Appellant changed his phone number

-4- J-S23033-24

because “it was hot and he didn’t want to be tracked by the number” and that

on January 8, 2019, Appellant asked to come and stay with Volpe and stayed

with him for three days because it was “hot” where Appellant lived. Id. at

120-22, 126, 128.

Other witnesses also identified the phone number that communicated

with Victim 1’s phone immediately before the murders as a phone number

that Appellant had at that time, and the Commonwealth introduced evidence

that the communications between Victim’s 1’s phone and that phone before

the murders concerned arrangements to buy drugs. Trial Court Opinion at 8-

9, 12-13, 19. In addition, the Commonwealth introduced other evidence that

Appellant changed his phone number after the murders and evidence that

most of the baggies of drugs found by police in Victim 1’s car on January 7,

2019 had the stamp 5050. Id. at 7-9, 12-13. A statement from Appellant’s

girlfriend was admitted at trial in which she said that Appellant was out of the

house for about 10 minutes around the time of the murders and that he had

a look of fear in his face and did not look right when he returned. Id. at 10.

On November 18, 2022, the jury acquitted Appellant of first-degree

murder, but found him guilty of third-degree murder for killing Victim 1, third-

degree murder for killing Victim 2, aggravated assault for wounding Victim 3,

carrying a firearm without a license, and carrying a firearm on the public

streets of Philadelphia. N.T. Trial, 11/18/22, at 4-9. On November 21, 2022,

the trial court sentenced Appellant to life imprisonment without parole for both

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Com. v. Brogden, K., Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/com-v-brogden-k-pasuperct-2024.