Commonwealth v. Jerry

401 A.2d 310, 485 Pa. 95, 1979 Pa. LEXIS 550

• Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
• Decided: May 1, 1979
• Docket: 48 and 52
• Status: Published

Opinions

OPINION

LARSEN, Justice.

In a joint trial, appellant Bernard C. Jerry was convicted of murder of the first degree and appellant Gary Robinson was convicted of murder of the second degree. Additionally, the appellants were convicted of robbery, conspiracy, and various other offenses. Post-verdict motions were denied and the appellants were sentenced to life imprisonment. In this appeal, the appellants (individually or in conjunction) raise the following contentions, all of which are without merit.

1. That the evidence is insufficient to sustain appellant Jerry’s conviction of murder of the first degree¹ and robbery.

2. That the lower court erred in determining that appellant Jerry had waived his right to object to certain inadmissible evidence.

3. That the lower court erred when, during the trial, it discharged a principal juror and replaced said juror with an alternate juror.

4. That the lower court erred in permitting in-court identifications of the appellants (Jerry and Robinson) by four Commonwealth witnesses.

5. That the lower court erred in refusing the appellants’ (Jerry and Robinson) motion for a mistrial after a Commonwealth witness revealed that he had received a threat.

6. That the trial court erred by ruling it would allow the introduction of a portion of the appellants’ (Jerry and Robinson) criminal records if the appellants elected to testify.

Finally, in a pro se brief appellant Jerry contends that trial counsel was ineffective in failing to raise a timely objection to certain inadmissible evidence. We are unable to consider this contention because appellant Jerry’s appellate counsel is the same attorney who represented him at the trial. We will, therefore, remand to the lower court for appointment of new appellate counsel and any hearing deemed necessary by that court.

Judgments of sentence as to Gary James Robinson are affirmed. We withhold final disposition on the judgments of sentence as to Bernard C. Jerry pending the remand on the ineffective assistance of counsel issue.

NIX, J., concurs in the result. MANDERINO, J., filed a dissenting opinion in which ROBERTS, J., joins.

1 . A review of the record reveals that there was sufficient evidence to support the jury’s verdict.