Commonwealth v. Dupre

866 A.2d 1089, 2005 Pa. Super. 12, 2005 Pa. Super. LEXIS 10
CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedJanuary 11, 2005
StatusPublished
Cited by104 cases

This text of 866 A.2d 1089 (Commonwealth v. Dupre) 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. Dupre, 866 A.2d 1089, 2005 Pa. Super. 12, 2005 Pa. Super. LEXIS 10 (Pa. Ct. App. 2005).

Opinion

OPINION BY TAMILIA, J.:

¶ 1 Tracy Dupre appeals the December 10, 2002 judgment of sentence of life imprisonment without parole and a consecutive aggregate six (6) months to nineteen (19) years incarceration imposed after a jury convicted her of first degree murder,1 aggravated assault,2 simple assault,3 endangering the welfare of a child,4 concealing the death of a child,5 criminal conspiracy to conceal the death of a child;6 abuse of a corpse,7 hindering apprehension or prosecution,8 and criminal conspiracy to hinder apprehension or prosecution.9

¶ 2 The conviction arose from the discovery of an infant corpse in a trash compactor at a waste station. An investigation led police to appellant. After initially denying she had been pregnant, she admitted she gave birth to the child in the bathtub. She told police the baby was born alive and that she allowed it to drown. She placed the baby in a garbage bag and kept her in the kitchen. When Scott Kinney, who was appellant’s boyfriend and the baby’s father, came home, appellant told him where the baby was. The trash was taken to a dumpster a few days later.

¶ 3 The forensic examiner who performed the autopsy concluded that the baby had taken several breaths before she died. She also found tightly wadded tissue in the back of the baby’s throat. Based upon the location and size of the wad, she determined that it was intentionally placed there. She concluded the cause of death was asphyxiation due to the wadded tissue or due to drowning.

¶ 4 A jury convicted appellant as indicated above. Appellant filed post-sentence motions which were denied. This timely appeal followed in which appellant, imprudently, enumerates seventeen very verbose issues, typed in a small font, and spanning two pages of her brief. See Appellant’s brief at 3-4. We remind appellant that the effectiveness of appellate advocacy may suffer when counsel raises numerous issues to the point where a presumption arises that there is no merit to any of them. Commonwealth v. Davidson, 2004 Pa. Super 396, 860 A.2d 575; see also, U.S. v. Hart, 693 F.2d 286, 287 n. 1 (3d Cir.1982). The Commonwealth urges this Court to dismiss the appeal for appellant’s failure to comply with the Pennsylvania Rules of Appellate Procedure. Rule 2116 provides “[t]he statement of the questions involved ... should not ordinarily exceed 15 lines, must never exceed one page, and must always be on a separate page, without any other matter appearing thereon. This rule is to be considered in the highest degree mandatory, admitting of no exception.... ” Pa. R.A.P. 2116(a). “Failure to conform briefs to the requirements of the Rules of Appellate Procedure may result in the quashing or dismissing of an appeal where the defects in the brief are ‘substantial.’ ” Davidson, supra, citing Ami-[1097]*1097cone v. Rok, 839 A.2d 1109 (Pa.Super.2008); see also Pa.R.A.P. 2101.

¶ 5 Although appellant lists seventeen issues, she omitted argument on two of them. Four of her issues, moreover, are challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence, four are challenges to the weight of the evidence, and two are challenges to the trial court’s failure to suppress statements she made to police. We find the defects in appellant’s brief are not so substantial as to preclude appellate review and, therefore, we decline to dismiss or quash the appeal. See Davidson, supra (declining to quash appeal where the appellant’s two-page statement of questions presented did not impede our ability to review the issues in the case, and, thus, we considered all six issues raised). To facilitate our review, however, we have rephrased the issues she raised as follows:

1. Whether the verdicts on all charges were obtained in violation of the corpus delicti rale?
2. Whether the evidence was insufficient to support the verdicts on all charges?
3. Whether the verdicts on all charges were against the weight of the evidence?
4. Whether the trial court erred in sending a sketch of an adult-sized larynx to the jury room?
5. Whether the trial court erred in not providing the defense a post partum expert and limiting the defense to a Pennsylvania expert?
6. Whether the trial court erred in not suppressing statements appellant made to police?
7. Whether the trial court erred in not granting a change of venue or a change of venire?
8. Whether the trial court erred in not sentencing the defendant within 90 days of conviction pursuant to Pa. R.Crim.P. 704?

See Appellant’s brief at 3-4. We address these issues seriatim.

The corpus delicti rule is a rule of evidence. Our standard of review on appeals challenging an evidentiary ruling of the trial court is limited to a determination of whether the trial court abused its discretion.

Commonwealth v. Verticelli, 550 Pa. 435, 441, 706 A.2d 820, 822-823 (1998) (citations omitted).10

The corpus delecti [sic] rale places the burden on the prosecution to establish that a crime has actually occurred before a confession or admission of the accused connecting him to the crime can be admitted. The corpus delecti [sic] is literally the body of the crime; it consists of proof that a loss or injury has occurred as a result of the criminal conduct of someone. The criminal responsibility of the accused for the loss or injury is not a component of the rule. The historical purpose of the rule is to prevent a conviction based solely upon a confession or admission, where in fact no crime has been committed.

Commonwealth v. Rivera, 828 A.2d 1094, 1103-1104 (Pa.Super.2003), appeal denied, 577 Pa. 672, 842 A.2d 406 (2004), citing Verticelli, at 441, 706 A.2d at 822-823. “The corpus delicti in a homicide case consists of proof ‘that the person for whose death the prosecution was instituted is in fact dead and that the death occurred un[1098]*1098der circumstances indicating that it was criminally caused by someone.’” Commonwealth v. Meder, 416 Pa.Super. 273, 611 A.2d 213, 217 (1992), appeal denied, 533 Pa. 643, 622 A.2d 1375 (1993), quoting Commonwealth v. Davis, 308 Pa.Super. 204, 454 A.2d 92, 97 (1982) (emphasis in original). The Commonwealth need not prove the existence of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt as an element in establishing the corpus delicti of a crime, but the evidence must be more consistent with a crime than with accident. Commonwealth v. McMullen, 745 A.2d 683 (Pa.Super.2000), appeal denied, 563 Pa. 700, 761 A.2d 549 (2000).11

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
866 A.2d 1089, 2005 Pa. Super. 12, 2005 Pa. Super. LEXIS 10, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-dupre-pasuperct-2005.