Com. v. Brooks, L.

CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedOctober 19, 2016
Docket2840 EDA 2014
StatusUnpublished

This text of Com. v. Brooks, L. (Com. v. Brooks, L.) 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. Brooks, L., (Pa. Ct. App. 2016).

Opinion

J-S67024-16

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA

v.

LEROY BROOKS

Appellant No. 2840 EDA 2014

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence August 22, 2014 In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-51-CR-0005504-2011

BEFORE: FORD ELLIOT, P.J.E., RANSOM, J., and STEVENS, P.J.E*

MEMORANDUM BY RANSOM, J.: FILED OCTOBER 19, 2016

Leroy Brooks (Appellant) appeals from the judgment of sentence of

sixteen and one-half to thirty-five years of incarceration with four years of

probation to be served consecutively, following a jury trial resulting in his

conviction for three counts of robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery,

burglary, firearms not to be carried without a license, and carrying firearms

in public in Philadelphia.1 We affirm.

In February of 2011, Appellant and an unidentified male forced the

victim, Kendall Worrell, into his Philadelphia dwelling at gunpoint whereupon

they entered. Notes of Testimony (N.T.), 6/16/14 12; N.T., 6/23/14, at 35-

37, 118-19; N.T., 6/24/14, at 13-14. Worrell shared the home with his ____________________________________________

1 Respectively, see 18 Pa.C.S. §§ 3701(a)(1), 903(c), 3502(a), 6106(a)(1), and 6108.

*Former Justice specially assigned to the Superior Court. J-S67024-16

parents, Keisha Green Wade and James Wade, and two young siblings, all of

whom were present at the time of the incident. Id. Though the other male

wore a hood, Appellant’s face was uncovered throughout the duration of the

incident.2 N.T., 6/23/14, at 155. Appellant had a teardrop-shaped tattoo

on his face. Appellant asked Worrell at gunpoint where money was located,

then Appellant and his accomplice searched the basement. N.T., 6/24/14, at

13-18. Appellant then woke up each of Worrell’s parents by tapping or

hitting them with a silver gun and demanding money. N.T., 6/23/14, at 38-

39, 51, 53-54, 119-25. Approximately $600-1,200 was forcibly taken from

the pockets of Worrell’s father. N.T., 6/26/14, at 144. Together, the men

ransacked the house in search of other valuables and eventually left with the

victims’ cell phones, a PlayStation video game system, money, a laptop

computer and a tablet computer. Id. at 64, 126-27, 144. The incident

lasted for two hours, and the police were notified of the incident

immediately.

The victims were transported to a police station where they provided

police with a physical description of the suspects. The next day,

characteristics were entered into a photo imager program on a computer.

The program generated a series of eight photographs to be viewed at once,

and Worrell, who was the first to attempt to identify the suspect, selected

____________________________________________

2 Appellant was tried with co-defendant Cordero Smith, who was acquitted on all charges. Smith’s case was docketed as CP-51-CR-0005665-2011.

-2- J-S67024-16

Appellant out of the photo array.3 The photo of the Appellant was then

added to a photo array featuring seven other males that was shown to Mrs.

Wade. Appellant’s photo was in the first position, and he was one of three

persons who had a teardrop face tattoo in the array. Isolated from Worrell

and her husband, Mrs. Wade identified Appellant within seconds. Mr. Wade

also positively identified Appellant from the photo array independent of the

other two victims.

In June of 2014, Appellant moved to suppress the identifications of the

three victims, which was denied by the trial court following a hearing.

Following trial, the jury found Appellant guilty of the aforementioned

charges. The Appellant was sentenced to five to ten years’ incarceration for

each count of robbery, to be served consecutively; plus one and one-half to

five years’ incarceration each for the burglary and the conspiracy, to be

served concurrent to each other, yet consecutive to the robbery charges;

followed by four years of reporting probation for each violation of the

Uniform Firearms Act, which were to run concurrent to each other.

Appellant filed post-sentence motions, which were denied. Appellant timely

appealed and filed a court-ordered Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) statement. The trial

court issued a responsive opinion. ____________________________________________

3 In the fifteen minutes it took Worrell to positively identify Appellant, he viewed approximately 100 images. N.T., 6/26/14, at 18-20. Based on the records of the photo imager, Appellant’s photograph appeared before Worrell at least four times prior to his positive identification. Id. at 18-20, 164-65.

-3- J-S67024-16

Appellant presents the following questions for our review:

1. Was the evidence presented at trial sufficient as a matter of law to support the conviction for all crimes [for] which [Appellant] was convicted [or…] where the properly admissible evidence of record does not establish beyond a reasonable doubt that [A]ppellant committed those crimes as: there was no evidence corroborating the identification made [by] the complainant(s); the co-defendant also identified by complainant was acquitted by the same jury upon the same evidence; no proceeds of the robbery were recovered; the weapons utilized in the crime were not recovered; no forensic evidence linked [A]ppellant to crimes; and, the circumstances of the identification of [A]ppellant as a perpetrator by the witness renders the identifications unreliable?

2. Is the verdict for all crimes which [A]ppellant was convicted of against the weight of evidence and so contrary to the evidence that it shocks one’s sense of justice in light of the circumstances as set forth in the evidence presented at trial and referenced in the preceding question?

3. Did the trial court err when it denied [A]ppellant’s pre-trial motion to suppress identification?

4. Did the trial court err when it denied the motion to withdraw of [A]ppellant’s trial counsel and did not declare a mistrial of manifest necessity?

5. Is the sentence in this matter unduly harsh and excessive under the circumstances?

Appellant’s Brief at 8-9.

In his first issue, Appellant purports to challenge the sufficiency of the

evidence presented at trial. Appellant offers no analysis of any particular

elements that comprise the charges against him.4 Rather, according to ____________________________________________

4 For example to prove robbery, the Commonwealth must establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Appellant, in the course of committing a theft, (Footnote Continued Next Page)

-4- J-S67024-16

Appellant, the identification of the three eyewitnesses was unreliable and

there was neither forensic evidence nor proceeds of the crime to corroborate

the identification made by the complainants. See Appellant’s Brief at 26-32.

When examining a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, our

standard of review is:

[W]hether there was sufficient evidentiary support for a jury's finding to this effect, the reviewing court inquires whether the proofs, considered in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth as verdict winner, are sufficient to enable a reasonable jury to find every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.

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