Commonwealth v. Mulholland

702 A.2d 1027, 549 Pa. 634, 1997 Pa. LEXIS 2102
CourtSupreme Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedOctober 10, 1997
Docket65, 66 W.D. Miscellaneous Docket 1997 and 66, 67 W.D. Appeal Docket 1997
StatusPublished
Cited by112 cases

This text of 702 A.2d 1027 (Commonwealth v. Mulholland) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme 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. Mulholland, 702 A.2d 1027, 549 Pa. 634, 1997 Pa. LEXIS 2102 (Pa. 1997).

Opinions

[640]*640OPINION OF THE COURT

FLAHERTY, Chief Justice.

We allowed this appeal under our extraordinary jurisdiction within our king’s bench powers following a mistrial in a criminal case. The issues are whether the defendants may be prosecuted again, and, if reprosecution is allowed, whether venue or venire may be changed and whether the trial court erred in removing the local district attorney in favor of prosecution by the state attorney general.

The following background underlies the issues raised in the appeal. Shortly after midnight, in the early hours of October 12, 1995, Jon E. Gammage was driving his cousin’s Jaguar northbound on Route 51 in the South Hills section of Allegheny County. Lieutenant Milton Mulholland, a twenty-four year veteran of the Brentwood Police Department, was on patrol when, as he states, erratic driving drew his attention to the Gammage vehicle. He radioed first that he was following the car, then that he was stopping the car to check the condition of the driver and requesting backup. After the stop, four more officers arrived in response to the radio calls: first, Sergeant Keith Henderson of the Whitehall Police, then John Vojtas, another Brentwood policeman, Michael Albert, of Baldwin Township, and Shawn Patterson, another Whitehall officer.

From the record it appears that before Albert and Patterson arrived, Mulholland was checking Gammage’s license and registration, and, when he learned that the car was registered to someone else and the registration was expired,1 Vojtas, positioned at the driver’s door, ordered Gammage out of the car. Gammage exited the car with a cellular phone. Vojtas, who later explained that he thought the phone was a weapon, knocked it out of Gammage’s hand with a flashlight. Gammage lunged at Vojtas, who was assisted by Mulholland and [641]*641Henderson, whereupon the four struggling men slid down the driver’s side of Gammage’s vehicle to the ground. During the initial scuffle, Henderson retrieved Vojtas’s flashlight and struck Gammage in the legs. While they were all struggling on the ground, Vojtas attempted to handcuff Gammage. Gammage bit down on Vojtas’s thumb, and Vojtas punched Gammage in the face several times in an effort to free his thumb. Vojtas then left the fray to await the paramedics who were summoned to treat him.

The struggle continued as Mulholland and Henderson attempted to handcuff Gammage. Albert, then Patterson, arrived. Albert used a collapsible baton on Gammage’s chest in an effort to lift him in order to enable the officers to cuff Gammage’s hands behind his back. Finally, the officers decided to cuff Gammage’s hands in front, but Gammage continued to struggle to such an extent that the officers requested the paramedics to restrain his legs with stretcher restraints. Suddenly, Mulholland noticed that Gammage was no longer breathing and notified a paramedic; the restraints were removed and the paramedics initiated CPR. CPR was performed continuously for forty-eight minutes until Gammage was pronounced dead at a hospital emergency room.

A pathologist in the coroner’s office of Allegheny County performed an autopsy. He concluded that Gammage’s death was caused by compression asphyxia and was a homicide. The internal examination revealed evidence of trauma about the upper chest, upper back, and neck, as well as petechial hemorrhaging of the eyes. These pinpoint hemorrhages of the eyes indicated an obstruction of Gammage’s blood and oxygen supplies. All of these findings supported the conclusion that the cause of death was compression asphyxia. The district attorney’s office filed no criminal charges based on the autopsy.

An open inquest was held and a coroner’s jury was empaneled to hear testimony into Gammage’s death. Christopher Conrad, Esq., head of the homicide division of the Allegheny County district attorney’s office, conducted the inquest. Following three days of testimony, the jury recommended that all [642]*642five police officers involved in Gammage’s death be charged with criminal homicide. That recommendation was advisory in nature. Robert E. Colville, Esq., the District Attorney of Allegheny County, together with a team of assistant district attorneys, decided to charge Mulholland and Vojtas with third degree murder and official oppression, and to charge Albert with involuntary manslaughter. No charges were filed against Henderson, Patterson, or any of the paramedics on the scene when Gammage died.

At the officers’ preliminary hearing, the court dismissed the charges of official oppression and third degree murder against Mulholland and Vojtas, but held all three officers on the charge of involuntary manslaughter. Pretrial motions were filed and argued, resulting in a “gag order” prohibiting the parties, their witnesses, and their counsel from making extrajudicial statements about the cases; severance of Vojtas’s trial from that of Mulholland and Albert due to antagonistic defenses; and an order granting a change of venire due to an overwhelming amount of inflammatory pretrial publicity. Pursuant to 42 Pa.C.S. § 8702 and Pa.R.Crim.P. 312(b), this court designated Chester County for summoning, selecting, and impanelling a jury to try Mulholland and Albert.

A jury was selected in Chester County and transported to Allegheny County, where trial began promptly in October 1996. Officer Henderson and all the paramedics at the scene of death were called as Commonwealth witnesses. In addition, the Commonwealth called a tow truck driver who came forward after the inquest and made a series of inconsistent statements to the Commonwealth, one of which was not disclosed to the defense prior to trial. The Commonwealth also called Cyril H. Wecht, M.D., J.D. Prior to being designated as a Commonwealth witness, Dr. Wecht had been retained privately by the Gammage family as an expert witness in a civil lawsuit seeking damages for Gammage’s untimely death. Dr. Wecht had formerly been county coroner for more than a decade and was coroner at the time of trial though he had not been coroner at the time Gammage died. Dr. Wecht conducted a second autopsy on Gammage’s body on behalf of Gam[643]*643mage’s survivors. In addition, Dr. Wecht is also a lawyer and maintains a private law practice.

During the trial, Dr. Wecht testified that he agreed with the coroner’s opinion that Gammage died of compression asphyxia, and stated that death resulted from the combined force exerted by all five of the officers during the struggle with Gammage. On recross-examination, defense counsel asked: “You tell me what my client did. Tell me what my client did from A to Z.” Wecht answered, “No. It’s not for me to tell you what your client did. It’s for the client to tell me, the ladies and gentlemen of the jury, what he did, what he was doing there and why he was participating in this. It’s not for me to cleave out.” This response, which was construed as a comment on Mulholland’s fifth amendment privilege, resulted in declaration of a mistrial.

In contemplation of the retrial of Mulholland and Albert, pretrial motions were filed on their behalf and heard by the trial court. The trial judge’s order disposing of these post-mistrial, pretrial motions is the subject matter of this appeal.

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Bluebook (online)
702 A.2d 1027, 549 Pa. 634, 1997 Pa. LEXIS 2102, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-mulholland-pa-1997.