Com. v. Payton, J.

CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedSeptember 26, 2022
Docket935 EDA 2021
StatusUnpublished

This text of Com. v. Payton, J. (Com. v. Payton, J.) 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. Payton, J., (Pa. Ct. App. 2022).

Opinion

J-A09030-22

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF : PENNSYLVANIA : v. : : : JARVIS PAYTON : : Appellant : No. 935 EDA 2021

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered April 5, 2021 In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-51-CR-0001864-2018

BEFORE: NICHOLS, J., SULLIVAN, J., and PELLEGRINI, J.*

MEMORANDUM BY SULLIVAN, J.: FILED SEPTEMBER 26, 2022

Jarvis Payton (“Payton”) appeals from the judgment of sentence

imposed after a jury found him guilty of aggravated assault, possession of a

firearm by a prohibited person, and firearm not to be carried without a

license.1 We affirm.

We summarize the facts and procedural history of this appeal from the

record. James Robinson (“Robinson”) rented a room in the home of Syretta

Coleman-Bey (“Coleman-Bey”). In the early morning hours of October 15,

2017, Robinson and Coleman-Bey got into an argument when Coleman-Bey

tried to evict Robinson, and they both called people to come to their aid. See

N.T., 2/11/19, at 57-63. Robinson used his phone to record the argument

____________________________________________

* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.

1 See 18 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 2702, 6105, 6106. J-A09030-22

after the people arrived at the home. See id. at 57, 59. Police arrived at

approximately 1:42 a.m. and settled the argument and then left. After the

police left, Robinson and Coleman-Bey engaged in a brief altercation when

Coleman-Bey grabbed Robinson as he was returning to his room and Robinson

pushed her off him. See id. at 62-64. The other people left the home, and

only Robinson and Coleman-Bey remained in the home. See id. at 62-63.

Robinson was cleaning up his room, when a man arrived at the home, went

to Robinson’s room, and accused Robinson of putting his hands on the mother

of his child. See id. at 65, 107-08. Robinson and the man exchanged words

until Robinson closed the door to his room. See id. at 65. Robinson heard

the man and Coleman-Bey talking outside in the hallway, and then the door

to his room burst open. See id. The man drew a pistol and shot Robinson in

the leg. See id. Coleman-Bey and the man fled down the stairs, and Robinson

climbed out the window of his room to a neighbor’s home where he waited for

police to arrive.

Robinson spoke to police after the shooting. He maintained that the

man who shot him accused Robinson of touching or scratching the mother of

the man’s child and had used a black gun resembling Robinson’s own Glock

40 pistol.2 See id. at 68, 108. Although Robinson initially told police that he

did not know the man, he also stated that he could identify the shooter. See ____________________________________________

2Robinson owned a Glock 40 semiautomatic pistol, which he used for security work. See N.T., 2/11/19, at 68, 118-19. He did not have his gun at the time of the shooting. See id. at 119.

-2- J-A09030-22

id. at 80. Robinson later gave police additional information that led to his

identification of Payton, the father of Coleman-Bey’s child, from a

photographic array on October 27, 2019. See id. at 85-89. Police searched

Coleman-Bey’s home pursuant to a warrant and recovered a bullet from

Robinson’s room, which the Firearms Identification Unit (“FIU”) classified as

either a .38 or a 9-millimeter projectile; however, the police did not find a

fired cartridge casing in the home. See N.T., 2/12/19, at 63-66, 91, 134-37,

139-40.3

Approximately two weeks after the shooting, but before the filing of

charges in this case, police stopped Payton while he was driving with his

paramour, Kim Myers (“Myers”), in Myers’s car. See id.at 118-20, 122.

During the stop, officers saw an unregistered black .38 revolver in the glove

compartment. See id. at 120-21. Officers examined the revolver and asked

the occupants of the car about it, but they did not confiscate the revolver or

pursue criminal charges concerning the gun because Myers had a license to

3 The trial evidence indicated that the FIU classified the bullet as a .38 or 9-millimeter because it could have been fired by a revolver or a semiautomatic pistol. See N.T., 2/12/19, at 146. There was also testimony that a semiautomatic pistol would eject a fired cartridge casing, but a revolver would not. See id. at 136-37. Additionally, the trial evidence established that a Glock 40 is a semiautomatic pistol and would not resemble a .38 revolver because a revolver would have a visible cylinder holding the ammunition. See id. at 92.

-3- J-A09030-22

carry a concealed weapon and Payton told the officers that Myers owned the

gun.4 See id. at 120-22.

In November 2017, the Commonwealth filed charges against Payton for

the shooting. Payton was arrested in February 2018, and Robinson testified

at Payton’s preliminary hearing. In December 2018, a group of men

approached Robinson and his family in a local store and offered him money to

not testify at trial. See N.T., 2/11/19, at 150-51.

The parties litigated motions in limine concerning the offer of money to

Robinson, Payton’s recorded prison phone calls, and the .38 revolver that

officers observed in Myers’s car. See N.T., 2/12/19, at 113-14; N.T., 2/11/19,

at 7-17. The trial court ruled that the offer of money to Robinson was relevant

and that testimony about the .38 revolver was admissible in light of conflicting

evidence about the type of gun that was used. See N.T., 2/12/19, at 114;

N.T., 2/11/19, at 15. The trial court, however, denied the Commonwealth’s

motion to admit evidence of Payton’s recorded prison phone calls, in which

Payton, the Commonwealth argued, used coded language and admitted to

4 Myers, who testified at trial for Payton, stated that the .38 revolver was hers and that she sold the gun in April 2018. See N.T., 2/13/19, at 14-15. She asserted that Payton would not have had access to the revolver without her knowledge. Additionally, Myers testified as an alibi witness for Payton and averred that she drove Payton to Coleman-Bey’s home during the earlier argument between Coleman-Bey and Robinson. See id. at 8. She stated that they left without incident, returned to her home, watched a movie, and went to sleep. See id. at 8-10. She testified that Payton could not have left her house at the time of the shooting because she had activated her home alarm and he did have her alarm code. See id. at 10.

-4- J-A09030-22

attempting to intimidate or influence Robinson’s testimony. See N.T.,

2/11/19, at 7-17; N.T., 2/12/19, at 12.

Robinson testified at trial and positively identified Payton as the

individual who shot him. See N.T., 2/11/19, at 92 (indicating that Robinson

was “100% confident” that Payton was the individual who shot him). At the

conclusion of trial, a jury found Payton guilty of aggravated assault,

possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, and firearm not to be carried

without a license. On April 5, 2021, the trial court sentenced Payton in

absentia5 to an aggregate term of thirteen and one-half to twenty-seven years

of imprisonment. Payton filed timely post-sentence motions, which the trial

court denied. Payton timely appealed, and both he and the trial court

complied with Pa.R.A.P. 1925.

Payton raises the following issues for our review:

1.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Commonwealth v. Moury
992 A.2d 162 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 2010)
Commonwealth v. King
689 A.2d 918 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 1997)
Commonwealth v. Moore
937 A.2d 1062 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 2007)
Commonwealth v. Johnson
838 A.2d 663 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 2003)
Commonwealth v. Christine, J., Aplt.
125 A.3d 394 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 2015)
Commonwealth v. Clay
64 A.3d 1049 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 2013)
Commonwealth v. Stokes
78 A.3d 644 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 2013)
Commonwealth v. Tobin
89 A.3d 663 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 2014)
Com. v. Delmonico, M.
2021 Pa. Super. 85 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 2021)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
Com. v. Payton, J., Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/com-v-payton-j-pasuperct-2022.