Commonwealth v. Nunez

459 A.2d 376, 312 Pa. Super. 584, 1983 Pa. Super. LEXIS 2914
CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedApril 15, 1983
Docket2494
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 459 A.2d 376 (Commonwealth v. Nunez) 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. Nunez, 459 A.2d 376, 312 Pa. Super. 584, 1983 Pa. Super. LEXIS 2914 (Pa. Ct. App. 1983).

Opinion

BROSKY, Judge:

This is an appeal from judgments of sentence after convictions in a jury trial for second-degree murder and conspiracy to murder. Appellant contends that: (1) the evidence was insufficient to support the verdict; and (2) the court below erred in not suppressing a statement given by appellant. 1 We disagree with appellant’s contentions and affirm the judgments of sentence.

To evaluate the sufficiency of the evidence, we must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth as verdict winner, accept as true all the evidence and all reasonable inferences upon which, if believed, the jury could properly have based its verdict, and determine whether such evidence and inferences are sufficient in law to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Moreover, it is the province of the trier of fact to pass upon the credibility of witnesses and the weight to be accorded the evidence produced. The fact finder is free to believe all, part or none of the evidence. Commonwealth v. Yost, 478 Pa. 327, 386 A.2d 956 (1978).

*587 Commonwealth v. Tate, 485 Pa. 180, 182, 401 A.2d 353, 354 (1979).

Viewed thusly, the record establishes the following:

In the early morning hours of September 25, 1980, one Edward Tierney, a Philadelphia police cadet was attacked in appellant’s house by her son, Larry Cooper, and two other men. Appellant, who had been asleep, came downstairs and observed one of the men, his hands on Tierney’s neck, stating, “What? Ten dollars? Is that all?” Tierney cried out, “I’m a cop. Help me.” Cooper said, “We can’t let him go.” Appellant then told the men to tie Tierney up and handed them a cord she had pulled off her vacuum cleaner. She also handed them a pot, a knife, a fork and scissors to be used to subdue Tierney who was struggling. At that point, police, who had been summoned by neighbors knocked on the door and appellant said, “[G]et rid of him ... hide him somewhere.” In response, the men took Tierney upstairs and silenced him while appellant answered the door and told the police nothing was wrong. After the police left, the men dragged Tierney out to his car and stuffed him in the trunk. However, he continued to resist and the men struck him several times with a ballpeen hammer in order to close the trunk on him. Appellant, who had accompanied the men outside, told a neighbor, “Go in the house. Mind your own business. I know what I’m doing.” Cooper then drove off in Tierney’s car and dumped him in a creek, where two days later he was found dead with an electrical cord tied around his neck and right wrist, the cause of death being mechanical asphyxia. Appellant cleaned up all the blood in the house with a towel and then gave it to Cooper for disposal. Tierney’s watch was given to appellant’s paramour; his gun was taken by one of the men involved in the attack; and his car was used by Cooper for the next two days.

After a thorough and careful review of the record, we conclude that the opinion of the court below adequately *588 disposes of appellant’s contentions that the evidence was sufficient to support the verdict. 2

Appellant’s next contention is that it was error for the court below to have admitted a statement given by her, where she was not apprised of her Miranda rights, where the statement was given during an alleged custodial interrogation and while she was allegedly reasonably a subject of the investigation. “On review this Court must determine whether the record supports the factual findings of the court below and the legitimacy of the inferences and legal conclusions drawn from those findings. In doing so, we will consider only the evidence of the prosecution witnesses and as much of the evidence for the defense as, fairly read in the context of the record as a whole, remains uncontradicted.” Commonwealth v. Davis, 491 Pa. 363, 421 A.2d 179 (1980) (citations omitted).

On this point, the record establishes the following:

At approximately 11 p.m. on September 26, 1980, the police received information that appellant’s son and his friends had beaten and killed a man at appellant’s residence. The police then visited appellant’s house about midnight in order to determine if the incident had in fact occurred. *589 Appellant confirmed that her son and his friends had beaten a man.

The police then requested that appellant accompany them to the Police Administration Building (P.A.B.) and give a statement. Appellant was initially concerned about the care of her children, but after her paramour volunteered to look after them, she agreed to go with the police. She was not considered a suspect in the crime at that time. Between 12:45 a.m. and 2:45 a.m., appellant gave a statement at the P.A.B. which extensively incriminated her son and his friends. Since she was considered only an eyewitness at the time, no Miranda warnings were administered. Although at some point in the evening, either at appellant’s house or at the P.A.B., appellant had told the police that she had not reported the beating and had lied to the officers who came to her house on the night of the crime, the police testified that she also stated that she had done this because she was afraid of her son and his friends.

After the interview was completed, appellant waited in an office area until she was driven home between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. It was not until almost one month after this interview that the police received information implicating appellant and arrested her.

Appellant’s contention that the suppression court erred in admitting her statement is twofold. First, she argues that the court erred because she was questioned without having been given Miranda warnings while she was reasonably a suspect in the beating and death of Tierney. While the facts as found by the suppression court and supported by the record belie appellant’s contention that she was reasonably a suspect at the time she was first questioned, we need not decide the issue on this basis. For even if appellant was a suspect, “the mere fact that the police investigation has focused on a particular person will not require Miranda warnings before police interviews with that person.” Commonwealth v. Anderson, 253 Pa.Super. 334, 345, 385 A.2d 365, 370 (1978) (citations omitted); See Beckwith v. United States, 425 U.S. 341, 349, 96 S.Ct. 1612, *590 1617, 48 L.Ed.2d 1 (1976). Therefore, even if appellant was reasonably a suspect at the time she gave her statement, that fact would not have been a ground for the court below to have suppressed the statement.

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Bluebook (online)
459 A.2d 376, 312 Pa. Super. 584, 1983 Pa. Super. LEXIS 2914, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-nunez-pasuperct-1983.