Commonwealth v. Colavita

920 A.2d 836, 2007 Pa. Super. 51, 2007 Pa. Super. LEXIS 265
CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedFebruary 27, 2007
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 920 A.2d 836 (Commonwealth v. Colavita) 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
Commonwealth v. Colavita, 920 A.2d 836, 2007 Pa. Super. 51, 2007 Pa. Super. LEXIS 265 (Pa. Ct. App. 2007).

Opinion

OPINION BY POPOVICH, J.:

¶ 1 Appellant Christian Colavita appeals the order entered on December 16, 2005, in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County, that denied his first petition brought pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA), 42 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 9541-9546. Upon review, we reverse and remand for a new trial.

¶ 2 The relevant factual and procedural history of this case were set forth fully by the PCRA court, in its opinion filed on May 25, 2006, as follows:

I. HISTORY

[Appellant] was convicted of Third Degree Murder and [was found] not guilty of Possessing a Criminal Instrument due to the shooting death of Nicole Feehan on December 10,1999.
[Appellant] and decedent had been dating for a few weeks at the time of the shooting incident. They had been partying together with friends during the early morning hours prior to the date and time of the shooting incident.
In the early morning hours of December 10, 1999, [Appellant] and Feehan had been partying together with friends at the house of Rui DaSilva. Eventually, the couple left and went back to Ms. Feehan’s apartment. Shortly thereafter, at approximately 6:00 a.m., Nicole Feehan’s roommate, Dan Raz, heard a loud noise sounding like something “falling on the floor,” followed by a male’s voice, which said, “Oh shit, Nicole, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”CFNi;i When Raz left the apartment around 8:00 a.m., Nicole’s bedroom door was closed. Upon his return at 8:00 p.m., Nicole’s friend Seli-na was waiting on the outside doorstep ringing the bell, but no one was answering. Raz and Selina entered the apartment and observed the door to Nicole’s room open and her body on the floor.
[FNi]petective Joseph Bamberski testified that he conducted a “Voice Line-Up” and that Mr. Raz could not see who was speaking over the intercom, but was able to identify # 5, [Appellant], as the male he heard speaking the night of the killing saying, "Oh shit, Nicole, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Nicole Feehan had suffered a single intra-oral gunshot wound to her mouth and had blood splatter on her right hand. No gun was found at the scene. [Appellant’s] friends were unable to contact [him] thereafter, and [Appellant] could not be located at his residence. [Appellant’s] mother, Mrs. Colavita, testified regarding her conversation on the telephone with her son [on] the morning of the killing. [Appellant] told her that he was going away for the weekend. After several phone calls, her son did not come home for a few weeks. The police arrived the following Monday, and a family friend, Mr. Mineri, told Mrs. Colavita that her son needed a lawyer. When [Appellant] finally returned home, Mrs. Colavita asked her son what was going on, and he replied that he could not talk about it, because his lawyer said not to. [Appellant] owned numerous firearms, often carried a firearm, and has a firearm license. A later search of [Appellant’s] residence revealed no firearms and an empty gun case.

Testimony of Rui DaSilva and Paula Fagulha was presented to show that [838]*838[Appellant] always carried a gun on his person. Two weeks prior to Feehan’s death, DaSilva and Fagulha were both in DaSilva’s apartment, along with [Appellant] and Feehan, when [Appellant] took his gun and pointed it toward Feehan’s mouth, which startled her. DaSilva took the gun and put it in his safe.[FN2] [Appellant] had many other guns.

[FN2]pau¡a Fagulha and Rui DaSilva were recalled in rebuttal. They testified that, two weeks prior to this incident, while the group was partying at DaSilva's house, [Appellant] put his gun in Nicole’s mouth and that the gun was not in the holster, as [Appellant] had testified. N.T. 2/27103, at 174-76; 184-85.

Officer Avon testified about the crime scene[, and he] stated that the victim was shot in the mouth and that the bullet exited the back of her skull and landed on the dresser with bone fragments. He concluded that the bullet was fired from a semiautomatic weapon. Since no shell casing was found at the scene, he concluded that “someone had removed the casing.” He further testified about the blood splatter and lack of residue on [the] decedent’s hand, which led to his conclusion that it could not have been a self-inflicted wound. Medical examiner Dr. Edward Leiberman also testified that the decedent’s hand was not holding the gun when it was fired inside her mouth. The soot from the gunshot was found inside her mouth. Lacerations on the lips indicated that the gun [discharged] inside her mouth. Toxicology results revealed decedent had a potentially lethal dose of ecstasy, along with cocaine and alcohol in her system.

The defense presented Professor Herbert Leon MacDonald, a Corning, New York Criminologist. He qualified as an expert in Forensic Pathology. He testified that, “I cannot say if it was accidental or a suicide, but, in my opinion, [Fee-han] held the gun as it was fired.” Dr. Jonathan Arden, a Medical Examiner from Washington, D.C., was also called by the defense. In his opinion, the muzzle was inside Feehan’s mouth, and, in this case, the mouth was closed at the time the gun was fired. There was no blood splatter on the left hand, but some was found on the right hand. Finally, [Appellant] took the stand and testified that he had joked around with his gun on prior occasions, and, on the night in question, both he and Feehan had been drinking heavily and using cocaine. [Appellant] stated that Feehan took Ecstasy, and he took a tablet as well, and the two began to kiss on Feehan’s bed. [Appellant] customarily put his gun under the bed when he and Feehan were together, but, on the date of this incident, Feehan reached under the bed and took out the gun. [Appellant] said Fee-han pointed the gun at him and told him to remove his clothes. He took it from her and removed the bullets from the clip and placed the gun on the floor before turning around to put the bullets in his jacket pocket. When [Appellant] turned back around, he testified that Feehan had the gun, and she said, “[T]his is how I want to suck ...” and put it in her mouth, at which time, the gun went off. [Appellant] drove to New York, disposed of the gun over the side of a bridge, and the next day he met with a lawyer. [Appellant’s] testimony was that he did not put the gun in Feehan’s mouth, and he did not pull the trigger.

II. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Jury selection in [Appellant’s] trial ultimately began before the [trial court] on February 24, 2003. On March 3, [839]*8392003, [Appellant] was found guilty of third-degree Murder and acquitted of Possessing an Instrument of Crime. [Appellant] was represented by John McMahon, Esquire, at trial.

On June 18, 2003, [Appellant] was sentenced to seven and a half (7}£) to fifteen (15) years incarceration. Post-sentence motions were denied on June 26, 2003. [Appellant] filed a direct appeal, and on July 2, 2004, [this Court] affirmed [Appellant’s] Judgment of Sentence.CFN3]

[FN33The sole claim that [this Court] did not address was [Appellant’s] ineffectiveness of counsel claim, the same claim that was at issue in [Appellant’s PCRA petition].

[Appellant] filed the instant petition for relief on April 4, 2005. After review of the proper statutes, case law, and submissions of the parties, notice of dismissal within (20) days, pursuant to Pa. R.Crim.P.

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

Related

Com. v. Smith, W.
Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 2019
Commonwealth v. Colavita
993 A.2d 874 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 2010)
Commonwealth v. Lettau
955 A.2d 360 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 2008)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
920 A.2d 836, 2007 Pa. Super. 51, 2007 Pa. Super. LEXIS 265, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-colavita-pasuperct-2007.