Com. v. Fryer, D.

Superior Court of Pennsylvania·Decided February 22, 2023·No. 1750 EDA 2020·Unpublished

Opinion

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF : PENNSYLVANIA

:

v. :

:

:

DEVON FRYER :

:

Appellant : No. 1750 EDA 2020

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered April 28, 2017 In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-51-CR-0009294-2015

BEFORE: BOWES, J., McCAFFERY, J., and SULLIVAN, J. MEMORANDUM BY McCAFFERY, J.: FILED FEBRUARY 22, 2023 Devon Fryer (Appellant) appeals nunc pro tunc from the judgment of sentence entered in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas following his non-jury convictions of aggravated assault, simple assault, reckless endangerment of another person (REAP), and possession of an instrument of crime (PIC).1 Appellant’s convictions stem from a knife attack on his girlfriend, Michelle Walter (Victim). He challenges both the sufficiency and weight of the evidence as well as the trial court’s rulings on the admissibility of evidence pertaining to certain character evidence regarding Victim. We affirm.

On July 9, 2015, around 1:30 a.m., Appellant and Victim engaged in a verbal argument outside of the home she shared with her mother on

Fairmount Avenue in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. N.T. 1/27/17, at 30-31, 54,

1 18 Pa.C.S. §§ 2702(a)(4), 2701(a)(1), 2705, 907(a).

60. The argument turned physical when Appellant pulled a “sheetrock knife” out of his pocket and stabbed Victim several times. Id. at 33. Victim called the police, who arrested Appellant later that night. Id. at 41, 73, 77. He was charged with aggravated assault, simple assault, REAP, and PIC.

This case proceeded to a bench trial on January 27, 2017, where the Commonwealth presented the testimony of Victim and Philadelphia Police Officers Eric Miller and Robert Snyder. The trial court summarized the evidence as follows:

On July 9[, 2015, Victim] picked up [A]ppellant from his home in Lansdowne, [Pennsylvania] to spend the night at [Victim’s] mother’s house [on] Fairmount Avenue. When they arrived[, she] confronted [A]ppellant over his infidelity and lack of financial support for their child. [Victim] took [A]ppellant’s phone out of his hands after he refused to let her look through his text messages[.] Appellant then got angry, calling [V]ictim names while trying to take his phone back. When [Appellant] was unable to get his phone back, [he] pulled a sheetrock knife he used in his construction job from his work . . . pants and started to stab [Victim] with it.

[Victim] testified that the sheetrock knife was about 16 inches, but with “pointy little ridges[,]” making it more difficult to inflict a stab wound. [She] testified that [A]ppellant struck her with the knife “no more than [ten] times,” in her arm, and also once in her left upper thigh. Most of the wounds felt more like “hard hits” that did not break the skin, but one bigger wound to her arm went through the skin and bled a lot.

Appellant ran up the street once [Victim] told him she was calling the police. [Victim] told Officer Miller[, who responded to her 911 call,] that she . . . got into an argument with [Appellant], who had then punched her in the head, cut her with a knife, and stabbed her in the hand.

[Victim] testified that she does usually carry a knife[. However, her] injuries are consistent with the unique nature of [A]ppellant’s sheetrock knife.

At approximately 3:00 [a.m.], nearly two hours after the altercation, Officer Snyder [and his partner] found [A]ppellant walking down the 3900 block of Brown Street. [Officer] Snyder testified that [A]ppellant did not appear to be walking with a limp, but . . . told [the officer] he had been stabbed[. Appellant did not inform the officer “how” he got the stab wound]. Appellant provided . . . his name, at which point he was taken into custody pursuant to the investigation from earlier in the night and taken to the hospital.

Medical records from that night indicate that [A]ppellant had suffered a laceration to his leg, not a stab would that needed “20 stitches[,” as Appellant claimed. Victim] missed “one or two days”

of work due to the injury and felt some pain around the scar when she would touch it at trial.

Trial Ct. Op., 10/20/21, at 2-4 (paragraph breaks added); N.T. Trial (Waiver) Vol. 1, 1/27/17, at 73. Victim also testified that she “never stabbed” Appellant before or on July 9, 2015. N.T. 1/27/17, at 52.

Appellant claimed he acted in self-defense, testifying to the following:

(1) Victim stabbed him in the leg with a pocketknife; (2) Victim’s wound occurred when Appellant attempted to get the knife away from her, causing the knife to “poke[ ] her in the arm[;]” (3) after being stabbed, he “got some alcohol to relieve the pain[;]” (4) he told officers on the night of the incident that Victim stabbed him; (5) he received “20 stitches” for the stab wound, but also he was “not sure” how many stitches he received; (6) he did not intend to cause Victim harm on the night of the incident; (7) prior to this incident, Victim stabbed Appellant “14 times” on other occasions; (8) one of the 14 stabbings resulted in Victim’s arrest where she was charged with attempted murder; and (9) he had further contact with Victim after the incident at issue

in September 2016.2 N.T. 1/27/17, at 80, 91-93, 96-97, 99-101, 110, 112- 13, 119.

At the conclusion of the testimony, the trial court found Appellant guilty on all charges. This matter proceeded to sentencing on April 28, 2017, where Appellant submitted medical documents related to: (1) a chest wound from 2008 he received after Victim stabbed him; (2) an injury he sustained after this incident related to an open matter in Delaware County where Appellant was the victim and Victim was the defendant; and (3) an incident in November 2016 where Victim stabbed him in the arm. N.T. Sentencing Volume 1, 4/28/17, at 3, 24, 40. During allocution, Appellant detailed a history of Victim stabbing him on several occasions both before and after the July 9, 2015, incident. Id. at 35-48. The trial court noted that the information in the pre- sentence investigation (PSI) report did not reflect the same injuries Appellant claimed Victim inflicted upon him. Id. at 52. The trial court then sentenced Appellant to two and a half to five years’ incarceration followed by a term of five years’ probation for his aggravated assault conviction. Regarding his conviction for REAP, the court sentenced him to a term of five years’ probation that was to be served concurrent to his probation for aggravated assault. Appellant received no further penalty on the remaining charges.

2 The details of this further contact were stricken from the record. N.T. 1/27/17, at 110-11.

Appellant filed an untimely post-sentence motion, raising challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence and the discretionary aspects of sentencing, that was denied by operation of law. He also filed an untimely notice of appeal, which this Court quashed. Order, 5/18/18. Appellant then filed a timely, counseled petition under the Post-Conviction Relief Act (PCRA),3 alleging trial counsel was ineffective for failing to file a timely post-sentence motion and notice of appeal. See Appellant’s Amended Petition Under Post-Conviction Relief Act, 9/11/19, at 6, 9-12. The PCRA court granted the petition, allowing him to file a post-sentence motion and notice of appeal nunc pro tunc. Order, 9/10/20. Appellant did not file a post-sentence motion, but did file a timely notice of appeal and complied with the trial court’s order to file a concise statement of matters complained of on appeal pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b).

On appeal, he raises the following claims:

I. Whether the evidence was insufficient to sustain guilty verdicts for aggravated assault[,] simple assault, and PIC where Appellant testified that [Victim] was the aggressor, that he never possessed the alleged weapon, that [Victim]

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