Com. v. Holt, D.

• Court: Superior Court of Pennsylvania
• Decided: May 9, 2025
• Docket: 1927 EDA 2024
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

J-S14038-25

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF : PENNSYLVANIA : v. : : : DONALD HOLT : : Appellant : No. 1927 EDA 2024

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered March 1, 2024 In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-51-CR-0008706-2022

BEFORE: DUBOW, J., BECK, J., and STEVENS, P.J.E.*

MEMORANDUM BY STEVENS, P.J.E.: FILED MAY 9, 2025

Appellant Donald Holt appeals the judgment of sentence entered by the

Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County after a jury convicted Appellant

of aggravated assault and possession of an instrument of crime (PIC). 1

Appellant argues that the trial court abused its discretion in finding the jury’s

verdict was not against the weight of the evidence. We affirm.

Appellant was charged with the aforementioned offenses in connection

with his November 1, 2022 attack on Lamont Greer. The trial court aptly

summarized the factual background of this case as follows:

Lamont Greer lived in an apartment in Wilson Park, a building community in Philadelphia for seniors and disabled residents. During the early evening of November 1, 2022, Mr. Greer sat for a card game of pinochle with Hanifah Abdul-Jabbar and three other players in a communal area of their building near ____________________________________________

* Former Justice specially assigned to the Superior Court. 1 18 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 2702(a)(1) and 907(a), respectively. J-S14038-25

the building’s elevators. As they were getting ready to play, [Appellant] approached the elevators in his motorized wheelchair with his girlfriend. During an encounter the prior week, Mr. Greer had told [Appellant] and [Appellant’s] girlfriend that [Appellant’s] girlfriend should not be dating [Appellant]. They told Mr. Greer to mind his own business.

On the day of the pinochle game, after [Appellant] and his girlfriend entered the elevator and left the communal area, [Appellant] later returned to the communal area by himself. At that time, Mr. Greer made a sound in reaction to the cards he had been dealt. [Appellant] then stood up from his wheelchair and asked aloud, “Somebody got something to say?” When nobody responded, [Appellant] walked over towards Mr. Greer and asked him directly, “Do you got something to say?” [Appellant] and Mr. Greer began cursing at each other. [Appellant] asked Mr. Greer, “Do you want to rumble?” Mr. Greer responded, “Okay.” Mr. Greer suggested that they should go outside.

[Appellant] walked back to his wheelchair and retrieved a knife from a bag. [Appellant] clicked open the knife, brandished it, and made a stabbing motion towards Mr. Greer. In response, Mr. Greer picked up a chair and attempted to shield himself from [Appellant’s] knife. Eventually, Mr. Greer put the chair down and tried to block the knife with his arms and hit back at [Appellant]. However, [Appellant] successfully stabbed Mr. Greer repeatedly, including in the left side of his face, the left side of his eyebrow, and the left side of his chest. [Appellant] also stated to Mr. Greer that he was going to kill Mr. Greer.

After seeing Mr. Greer’s stab wounds, Ms. Abdul-Jabbar started screaming that Mr. Greer was bleeding. Mr. Greer then picked up a cane, and [Appellant] said, “I’m going to still get you.” As [Appellant] tried again to stab Mr. Greer, Mr. Greer used the cane to hit the knife out of [Appellant’s] hand. After [Appellant] dropped the knife, [Appellant] repeated again that he was going to kill Mr. Greer. Mr. Greer then hit [Appellant] in the head with the cane, and [Appellant] fell to the ground. The wooden cane cracked when Mr. Greer hit [Appellant]. Ms. Abdul-Jabbar kicked the knife, and one of the other pinochle players kicked it again into a nearby laundry room. [Appellant] repeatedly asked, “Where is my knife?” Ms. Abdul-Jabbar responded that she threw it in the trash. The incident ended when a security guard for the building arrived and told [Appellant] to leave. [Appellant] left the building through the front door.

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When Ms. Abdul-Jabbar saw Mr. Greer bleeding profusely, she used her cellphone to call her husband, and her husband drove Mr. Greer to the hospital. Police Officer Paul Serwinski later responded to the scene and recovered the knife from the laundry room. At some point, [Appellant] walked back to the area and told Officer Serwinski, “I’m the man you’re looking for, I did the stabbing.” Officer Serwinski then placed [Appellant] in handcuffs.

Mr. Greer was treated at the Penn Presbyterian Emergency Department for stab wounds to his left chest and lacerations to the scalp and forehead. Upon arrival, the stab wound to his chest was bleeding rapidly. Medical staff applied a subcutaneous suture to a vein in Mr. Greer’s chest to stop the bleeding. On the way to a CT scan, Mr. Greer’s blood pressure began to drop, and medical staff supplied a pint of blood to him intravenously, restoring him to normal blood pressure. Mr. Greer received seven stitches on his head wound, three stitches on his chest wound, and three stitches to repair the laceration on his forehead. He was discharged from the hospital the following day. His wounds took between three and four months to heal, and more than a year later he continued to suffer from ongoing pain in his left eye.

Trial Court Opinion (T.C.O.), 12/6/24, at 1-3.

Appellant chose to proceed to a jury trial, at which the prosecution

presented the testimony of Mr. Greer, Ms. Abdul-Jabbar, Officer Serwinski,

and Detective Charles Dougherty. Appellant testified on his own behalf,

asserting that he was acting in self-defense, claiming Mr. Greer was the initial

aggressor in the conflict when he threatened to hit Appellant with a chair.

Appellant asserted that it was only after Mr. Greer had begun attacking him

with the cane that Appellant “made contact” with Mr. Greer with his knife.

On December 15, 2023, the jury convicted Appellant of both aggravated

assault and PIC, but acquitted him of attempted murder. On March 1, 2024,

Appellant was sentenced to an aggregate term of five to ten years’

incarceration to be followed by four years’ reporting probation. On March 7,

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2024, Appellant filed a post-sentence motion, which the trial court denied on

June 24, 2024. Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal on July 22, 2024.

Appellant raises one issue for our review on appeal, claiming the trial

court abused its discretion by denying his motion for a new trial as the jury’s

verdict was against the weight of the evidence. Specifically, Appellant focuses

on the credibility of the prosecution’s witnesses, whose testimony Appellant

claims was “riddled with inconsistencies.” Appellant’s Brief, at 11.

In reviewing Appellant’s challenge to the weight of the evidence, our

standard of review is as follows:

A verdict is against the weight of the evidence only when the jury's verdict is so contrary to the evidence as to shock one's sense of justice. It is well established that a weight of the evidence claim is addressed to the discretion of the trial court, and a new trial should not be granted because of a mere conflict in the testimony or because the judge on the same facts would have arrived at a different conclusion. Rather, the role of the trial court is to determine whether, notwithstanding all the evidence, certain facts are so clearly of greater weight that to ignore them, or to give them equal weight with all the facts, is to deny justice.

In reviewing a challenge to the weight of the evidence, the function of an appellate court is to review the trial court's exercise of discretion based upon a review of the record, rather than to consider de novo the underlying question of the weight of the evidence. Appellate review is limited to whether the trial judge's discretion was properly exercised, and relief will only be granted where the facts and inferences of record disclose an abuse of discretion.

Commonwealth v. Kimmel, 331 A.3d 26, 32–33 (Pa.Super. 2025) (quoting

Commonwealth v. Anderson, ––– Pa. ––––, 323 A.3d 744, 756-57 (2024)).

Additionally, where a weight claim “is predicated on the credibility of trial

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testimony, our review of the trial court's decision is extremely limited.

Generally, unless the evidence is so unreliable and/or contradictory as to make

any verdict based thereon pure conjecture, these types of claims are not

cognizable on appellate review.” Commonwealth v. Lakins, 281 A.3d 1069

(Pa.Super. 2022) (quoting Commonwealth v. Gibbs, 981 A.2d 274, 282

(Pa.Super. 2009) (citations omitted)).

Appellant specifically argues that the testimony of Commonwealth’s

witnesses was inconsistent with their prior statements to police and their

preliminary hearing testimony. Although Mr. Greer and Ms. Abdul-Jabbar

testified at trial that Appellant repeatedly threatened that he was going to kill

Mr. Greer, they did not tell investigators about these threats when giving their

initial statements. Appellant also points out that while Ms. Abdul-Jabbar

testified at Appellant’s preliminary hearing that Mr. Greer had swung a chair

at Appellant, she testified at trial that she did not remember whether Mr. Greer

had defended himself with a chair. Appellant also notes that Mr. Greer did not

testify at the preliminary hearing that he swung a chair or cane at Appellant,

but admitted at trial that he did use these items during the altercation.

Appellant claims these distinctions are key as he acted in self-defense

during the entire incident, which began after the two men engaged in a verbal

altercation. Appellant argues that he had the pocket-knife in his possession

to repair his wheelchair and only defended himself when Mr. Greer attacked

him with a chair and then a cane.

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Our review of the record demonstrates that Mr. Greer and Ms. Abdul-

Jabbar consistently testified that Appellant had initiated an argument with Mr.

Greer, threatened to kill him numerous times, and stabbed him multiple times

with a knife he had concealed on his motorized chair. The prosecution

presented photographic exhibits of the pool of blood left on the floor where

the altercation occurred as well as the stab wounds Mr. Greer sustained to the

head and chest, which are vital parts of the body.

When defense counsel attempted to impeach the prosecution’s

witnesses with the differences between their statements, preliminary hearing

testimony, and trial testimony, both Mr. Greer and Ms. Abdul-Jabbar gave

explanations for the alleged inconsistencies. Mr. Greer admitted at trial that

he had used a chair and cane defensively to fend Appellant off when Appellant

was attempting to stab him and threatening to kill him. Notes of Testimony

(N.T.), 12/13/23, at 161-70. Ms. Abdul-Jabbar also explained that she was in

an upset state when she gave her initial statement to police detectives and

may not have included every detail of her account of the attack, but averred

she had always told the truth. N.T., 12/13/23, at 60-61, 90-95, 104-105.

We also acknowledge that Appellant questioned Mr. Greer’s credibility

by pointing to the fact that Greer’s treatment records from his injuries in this

incident revealed that he was treated for polysubstance abuse and Mr. Greer’s

admission on cross-examination that he had used cocaine at some point prior

to the incident. However, we find no evidence or suggestion in the record that

Mr. Greer was impaired during any point of the altercation or that his admitted

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use of cocaine in the past had any effect on his behavior during the relevant

time period.

We find that the jury had ample opportunity to evaluate the credibility

of Mr. Greer and Ms. Abdul-Jabbar as they were thoroughly cross-examined

by defense counsel on these alleged inconsistencies and Mr. Greer’s admission

of prior drug use. Appellant also presented the jury with his version of the

events at issue as he testified on his own behalf.

In its role as fact-finder, the jury was free to reject Appellant’s claim of

self-defense and to resolve minor inconsistencies in the Commonwealth’s

favor. Our courts have emphasized that “[a] jury is entitled to resolve any

inconsistencies in the Commonwealth's evidence in the manner that it sees

fit.” Commonwealth v. Jacoby, 642 Pa. 623, 650, 170 A.3d 1065, 1080

(2017) (citation omitted). While Appellant asks this Court to reweigh the

evidence and accept his version of the events in question, we may not

substitute our judgment for that of the jury. It is well-established that “[t]he

weight of the evidence is exclusively for the finder of fact, who is free to

believe all, none[,] or some of the evidence and to determine the credibility

of the witnesses.” Commonwealth v. Spence, 290 A.3d 301, 311 (Pa.Super.

2023) (quoting Commonwealth v. Talbert, 129 A.3d 536, 545 (Pa.Super.

2015)). As a result, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion

in denying Appellant’s challenge to the weight of the evidence.

Judgment of sentence affirmed.

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Date: 5/9/2025

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