Com. v. Pal, N.

Superior Court of Pennsylvania·Decided November 9, 2018·No. 1986 MDA 2017·Unpublished

Opinion

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION – SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF : PENNSYLVANIA

v. :

:

NEIL PAL, : No. 1986 MDA 2017 :

Appellant :

Appeal from the PCRA Order, December 1, 2017, in the Court of Common Pleas of Lackawanna County Criminal Division at No. CP-35-CR-0002269-2013

BEFORE: PANELLA, J., MURRAY, J., AND FORD ELLIOTT, P.J.E.

MEMORANDUM BY FORD ELLIOTT, P.J.E.: FILED: NOVEMBER 9, 2018 Neil Pal appeals the order of December 1, 2017 issued by the Court of Common Pleas of Lackawanna County that denied his first petition filed pursuant to the PCRA.1 After careful review, we affirm.2 The relevant facts and procedural history, as gleaned from the PCRA court opinion, are as follows: Appellant and Jason Dominick (“Dominick”) were best friends. (PCRA court opinion, 12/1/17, at 5.) Dominick had a long-time volatile relationship with Keri Tucker (“Tucker”). From March through May 2013, Tucker and Frank Bonacci (“Bonacci”) were involved romantically, while Tucker and Dominick were not seeing each other. On

1 Post Conviction Relief Act, 42 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 9541-9546.

2On April 12, 2018, this court granted appellant’s application to exceed the word limit on his brief.

May 5, 2013, Dominick sent a text message to appellant, which stated, “just so you know, [appellant], I’m cool with your boy [Bonacci], but if he ever gets cocky around me I will just snuff him.” Bonacci and Tucker stopped dating in May 2013 as Tucker and Dominick resumed their relationship. (Id. at 6-7.)

On June 8, 2013, Dominick challenged Bonacci to meet him at Roaring Brook Step Falls (“Step Falls”) and fight following the receipt of a text message from Bonacci concerning Tucker and an incident in which Bonacci bumped Tucker at a bar. Bonacci alerted appellant by text that Dominick wanted to fight him. Appellant went to Step Falls and met Dominick and Tucker. Appellant spoke to Bonacci by telephone and encouraged him to come and fight Dominick. Bonacci did not come to Step Falls. (Id. at 7.)

At approximately 2:30 a.m. on July 20, 2013, Bonacci arrived at a party hosted by appellant. By 6:00 a.m., all of the partygoers had either left or retired for the night except for appellant, Dominick, Bonacci, and Brandon Emily (“Emily”). Appellant told Emily that he was going to drive Dominick and Bonacci to their respective apartments in Bonacci’s Jeep. At approximately 6:50 a.m., Emily heard the Jeep start. A University of Scranton surveillance camera that was located a few blocks from appellant’s residence videotaped Bonacci’s Jeep as it crossed railroad tracks and approached an access road for Step Falls at 6:51 a.m. (Id. at 11-12.)

On July 27, 2013, police located Bonacci’s decomposing body in the front passenger seat of his Jeep at the bottom of a steep embankment in a wooded

area near Step Falls less than one mile from appellant’s residence. The police deduced that Bonacci had not been operating the Jeep when it went down the embankment and 72-foot ravine. As part of the autopsy, Gary Ross, M.D., determined that Bonacci’s cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the head and manner of death was termed a homicide. (Id. at 3-4.) Police arrested appellant on August 1, 2013. (Id. at 21.)

Following a jury trial, appellant was convicted of first-degree murder (accomplice) and criminal conspiracy on June 12, 2014, and was sentenced to an aggregate term of life imprisonment on September 5, 2014.3 (Id. at 23.)

On September 11, 2014, appellant’s trial attorneys withdrew their appearances. Also on September 11, 2014, appellant’s new counsel, William C. Costopoulos, Esq., entered his appearance and filed post-trial motions. On January 9, 2015, the trial court denied the post-trial motions. Appellant timely appealed to this court. (Id. at 23-24.) This court affirmed on November 17, 2015, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied appellant’s petition for allowance of appeal on May 11, 2016. Commonwealth v. Pal, 134 A.3d 496 (Pa.Super. 2015) (memorandum decision), appeal denied, 138 A.3d 3 (Pa. 2016).

On March 7, 2017, appellant filed a timely, counseled PCRA petition and requested a new trial because of the ineffective assistance of counsel, Paul Walker, Esq. (“Attorney Walker”) and Matthew Comerford, Esq.

3 18 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 2502(a) and 903(a), respectively.

(“Attorney Comerford”). Appellant asserted that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to raise objections to his sequestration barring him from speaking with counsel until his cross-examination had concluded, to testimony offered by Detective Michael Schultz (“Detective Schultz”), and to alleged hearsay statements of Dominick.4 (Id. at 24.) Appellant also asserted that his counsel was ineffective because they recommended that he decline the Commonwealth’s offer of a guilty plea to third-degree murder. (Id.)

On June 29, 2017, the PCRA court conducted a hearing. At the hearing, appellant withdrew his claim for ineffectiveness with respect to Dominick’s testimony. (Id. at 25.) On December 1, 2017, the PCRA court denied the petition. The PCRA court completed an extensive opinion that accompanied the December 1, 2017 order. On December 18, 2017, appellant filed a notice of appeal. The trial court did not direct appellant to file a concise statement of errors complained of on appeal.

On appeal, appellant raises the following issues for this court’s review:

A. Whether defense trial counsel were ineffective for failing to know the law and object to the sequestration of appellant from counsel during the overnight break in his testimony and prior to closing arguments, which violated his state and federal constitutional right to counsel?

4 Dominick was tried separately. Dominick was convicted of third-degree murder, 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 2502(c), and criminal conspiracy to commit third-degree murder, 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 903(a). He was sentenced to an aggregate term of 40 to 80 years’ imprisonment. He appealed to this court which affirmed. Dominick appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court which denied his appeal. Commonwealth v. Dominick, 136 A.3d 1025 (Pa.Super. 2016) (memorandum decision), appeal denied, 141 A.3d 478 (Pa. 2016).

B. Whether defense counsel were ineffective for failing to object to Detective Schultz’s extensive testimony regarding his “interpretations” of the text messages, emails, phone calls and Facebook entries by appellant, [Dominick] and other witnesses in this case which were beyond his competence, inadmissible, prejudicial, they spoke for themselves, and counsel compounded the error by then eliciting on cross the detective’s opinions on appellant’s intent, credibility and actual guilt?

C. Whether defense trial counsel rendered appellant ineffective assistance of counsel by failing to affirmatively recommend to him that he accept the third-degree murder plea bargain offered by the prosecution, especially in light of the overwhelming evidence against him and given the fact that according to his own testimony, as prepared by counsel, he could be convicted of third-degree murder as skillfully argued to the jury in closing by the prosecutor?

Appellant’s brief at 6.

We limit our review of a PCRA court’s decision to examining whether the record supports the PCRA court’s findings of fact and whether its conclusions of law are free from legal error. Commonwealth v. Mason, 130 A.3d 601, 617 (Pa. 2015) (citations omitted). We view the PCRA court’s findings and the evidence of record in a light most favorable to the prevailing party. Id.

To be entitled to PCRA relief, the defendant bears the burden of establishing, by a preponderance of the evidence, that his conviction or sentence resulted from one or more of the circumstances enumerated in 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9543(a)(2), which include ineffectiveness of counsel that “so

undermined the truth-determining process that no reliable adjudication of guilt or innocence could have taken place.” 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9543(a)(2)(i) and (ii); see also Mason, 130 A.3d at 618 (citations omitted).

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