Commonwealth v. Simons

492 A.2d 1119, 342 Pa. Super. 281, 1985 Pa. Super. LEXIS 7787

• Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
• Decided: May 10, 1985
• Docket: 3084
• Status: Published

Opinions

CIRILLO, Judge:

We here review a pretrial order denying appellant’s motion to bar retrial on double jeopardy grounds. Such an order is immediately appealable. Commonwealth v. Haefner, 473 Pa. 154, 373 A.2d 1094 (1977); Commonwealth v. Hoburn, 335 Pa.Super. 536, 485 A.2d 24 (1984); Commonwealth v. Arelt, 308 Pa.Super. 236, 454 A.2d 108 (1982); Commonwealth v. Yost, 305 Pa.Super. 316, 451 A.2d 549 (1982).

This case began in July of 1975, when appellant Lawrence Demetrius Simons solicited Wayne Thorpe, Grant Ravenell, and Angelo Casselle to rob Zollie Perry. While appellant and Casselle waited in a car as lookouts, Thorpe and Ravenell, armed with pistols, approached Perry to rob him. Perry was also armed, and shot Ravenell. Thorpe then si ot Perry. The four conspirators fled. Perry died from the shooting; Ravenell lived.

In separate jury trials in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, first Simons, the mastermind, then Thorpe, the triggerman, were found guilty of second-degree murder and robbery. In both trials accomplices Ravenell and Casselle testified for the prosecution. After denying post-trial motions, the Honorable John A. Geisz sentenced both defendants to life imprisonment.

Simons and Thorpe appealed. Each argued on appeal that a new trial should be granted because the prosecutor had concealed from each jury the terms of a plea agreement between Ravenell and the Commonwealth. In Thorpe’s case, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court remanded to the trial court for an evidentiary hearing on this issue. Our Court, which at the time had cognizance of the Simons appeal, followed suit and remanded for a joint hearing with the Thorpe case. Commonwealth v. Simons, 275 Pa.Super. 564, 419 A.2d 44 (1980). After hearing evidence on the issue, Judge Geisz granted new trials to Thorpe and Simons in an opinion and order dated December 3, 1980.

Thorpe and Simons then filed motions to dismiss the charges against them, asserting that retrials would violate their rights not to be placed twice in jeopardy. In an order dated May 14, 1981, the court denied the motions. Simons here appeals from that order.

Appellant asserts his rights under the United States and Pennsylvania constitutions not to be placed twice in jeopardy for the same offense. U.S. Const, amend. V; Pa. Const, art. 1, § 10. The double jeopardy protections afforded by the federal and state constitutions generally are said to be coextensive, Commonwealth v. Hude, 492 Pa. 600, 425 A.2d 313 (1980); Commonwealth v. Gravely, 486 Pa. 194, 404 A.2d 1296 (1979), and our state courts adopt the approach of the United States Supreme Court in double jeopardy cases, Commonwealth v. Beaver, 317 Pa.Super. 88, 463 A.2d 1097 (1983).

Generally it is not a violation of double jeopardy prohibitions to retry a defendant who obtains a new trial on his own motion, even where the motion is necessitated by prosecutorial or judicial error. United States v. Dinitz, 424 U.S. 600, 96 S.Ct. 1075, 47 L.Ed.2d 267 (1976). However, where the prosecutor deliberately commits prejudicial error in order to force the defendant into a “Hobson’s choice” between giving up his first jury and continuing a trial tainted by prejudice, double jeopardy considerations come into play.

The Double Jeopardy Clause does protect a defendant against governmental actions intended to provoke mistrial requests and thereby to subject defendants to the substantial burdens imposed by multiple prosecutions. It bars retrials where “bad-faith conduct by judge or prosecutor,” United States v. Jorn, supra, [400 U.S.] at 485, 27 L.Ed.2d 543, 91 S.Ct. 547 [at 557] threatens the “[h]arassment of an accused by successive prosecutions or declaration of a mistrial so as to afford the prosecution a more favorable opportunity to convict” the defendant. Downum v. United States, 372 U.S. [734] at 736, 10 L.Ed.2d 100, 83 S.Ct. 1033 [at 1034].

Id. at 611, 96 S.Ct. at 1081, 47 L.Ed.2d at 276. Lee v. United States, 432 U.S. 23, 97 S.Ct. 2141, 53 L.Ed.2d 80 (1977).

Based on these cases, our own Supreme Court has delineated two types of prosecutorial “overreaching” that will bar retrial of a defendant: misconduct designed and intended by the prosecutor to provoke a mistrial request, and misconduct undertaken in bad faith to prejudice or harass the defendant. Commonwealth v. Starks, 490 Pa. 336, 416 A.2d 498 (1980).

This Court amplified on the Starks test in Commonwealth v. Clark, 287 Pa.Super. 380, 430 A.2d 655 (1981). There we identified the two types of overreaching that would invoke the double jeopardy bar as: 1) prosecutorial misconduct intentionally calculated to trigger the declaration of a mistrial in order to secure a more favorable opportunity to convict an accused; and 2) prosecutorial misconduct undertaken in bad faith to harass an accused with successive prosecutions or prejudice his prospects for acquittal. This formulation of the test hews more closely to the language of Dinitz and Lee, and to their rationale of preventing the prosecutor from intentionally forcing a mistrial or putting the defendant to that “Hobson’s choice” whether to give up his right to have one tribunal decide his case or whether to go to verdict with a prejudiced jury.

Recently the United States Supreme Court held that only prosecutorial misconduct intended to provoke a mistrial would bar retrial under federal double jeopardy principles. Oregon v. Kennedy, 456 U.S. 667, 102 S.Ct. 2083, 72 L.Ed.2d 416 (1982). The Court thus repudiated the notion that there are two separate types of prosecutorial misconduct that bar reprosecution, and reintroduced an interpretation of double jeopardy principles espoused by a plurality of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Commonwealth v. Potter, 478 Pa. 251, 386 A.2d 918 (1978) (Nix, J., concurred specially). See also Commonwealth v. Gravely, supra (plurality opinion). Consequently, as Mr. Justice Nix observed in his concurring opinion in Commonwealth v. Wallace, 500 Pa. 270, 455 A.2d 1187 (1983), there is no longer a Pennsylvania double jeopardy standard barring retrial in cases of prosecutorial misconduct unless the misconduct was intended to provoke the defendant to move for a mistrial. See also Commonwealth v. Rafalko, 335 Pa.Super. 122, 483 A.2d 986 (1984); Commonwealth v. Riffert, 322 Pa.Super. 230, 469 A.2d 267 (1983).

However, the Superior Court has said that the Kennedy rule applies only prospectively to appeals filed after May 24, 1982, the date of the Kennedy decision. Commonwealth v. Lark, 330 Pa.Super. 225, 479 A.2d 522 (1984); Commonwealth v. Freedman, 317 Pa.Super. 207, 463 A.2d 1158 (1983); Commonwealth v. Beaver, supra; see also Rafalko {Kennedy prospectively applied); Riffert (same); but see Commonwealth v. Arelt, supra (pre-Kennedy appeal; Court iterated Kennedy rule, but found no misconduct). We decline the Commonwealth’s invitation to overrule our prior decisions in order to adopt the Kennedy rule retroactively. As was stated in the case upon which the Commonwealth primarily relies for its retroactivity argument: “Evenhanded decision making requires that similarly situated individuals on direct appeal be treated the same.” Commonwealth v. Cabeza, 503 Pa. 228, 232, 469 A.2d 146, 148 (1983) (quoting Commonwealth v. Brown, 494 Pa. 380, 385, 431 A.2d 905, 908 (1981)). Simons, who filed his appeal in 1981, is situated similarly to those other individuals whose appeals arose in this State before Kennedy, and whose cases were judged by our appellate courts under the pre-Kennedy rule. In the interest of fairness and orderliness in our decision making, we will judge Simons’s case also under the pre-Kennedy rule.

The misconduct claimed to raise a double jeopardy bar is that over the course of Simons’s trial assistant district attorney David Berman concealed a deal between the Commonwealth and its witness, Grant Ravenell. Ravenell already had pled guilty to third-degree murder, robbery, and conspiracy, and was in jail awaiting sentencing. In his opening statement to the jury Berman admitted that the Commonwealth had had to make an agreement for Ravenell’s testimony, but denied that there was a sentencing deal, and stated that sentencing was up to the court. Ravenell, on both direct and cross-examination, stated that there was no sentencing deal, that he had been told the maximum sentence he could receive was fifty-five years, and that he expected to go to jail.

In fact, as it later turned out, the Honorable Armand Della Porta sentenced Ravenell to eleven to twenty-three months in prison, county time, with ten years’ psychiatric probation to follow, on the strength of a Commonwealth sentencing recommendation that Judge Della Porta apparently knew about at the time of Ravenell’s guilty plea. Furthermore, after Ravenell concluded his testimony in the Thorpe trial and the defense attorneys had left the courtroom, Berman moved that Ravenell be released immediately on his own recognizance, and Judge Geisz granted the motion.

After reviewing this case pursuant to our remand order, Judge Geisz found that the available evidence indicated that the Commonwealth did have a sentencing agreement with Ravenell which it failed to disclose at the Simons trial. The judge therefore ordered the new trial which Simons now claims is barred.

It is immediately obvious that the first type of prosecutorial misconduct identified in Starks —that designed to provoke the defendant to request a mistrial — is completely absent from this case. The prosecutor’s very act of concealment evidenced his intention not to provoke a mistrial request, and virtually guaranteed that none would be made.

Appellant maintains, however, that concealment of the deal constituted the second type of overreaching identified in Starks, “prosecutorial misconduct undertaken in bad faith to prejudice or harass the defendant.” 490 Pa. at 341, 416 A.2d at 500. Appellant argues that Berman concealed the deal intentionally, in bad faith, and in order to prejudice the defendant, and that therefore reprosecution is barred. We cannot agree with appellant’s simplistic interpretation of Starks.

Starks must be read in light of the guarantees embodied in the constitutional provision which it interprets. The Double Jeopardy Clause protects against oppressive governmental acts that threaten the individual’s right to be tried only once for one offense; however, it clearly does not establish a general remedy for bad faith misconduct by prosecutors. The task is to determine when prosecutorial misconduct amounts to “overreaching” sufficient to bar retrial on double jeopardy grounds. Commentators on the pre-Kennedy line of cases offer the theory that the Double Jeopardy Clause bars retrial only in those instances where the defendant’s interest in the finality of the proceeding against him is overcome by prosecutorial error that might be used to manipulate that interest. Westen & Drubel, Toward a General Theory of Double Jeopardy, 1978 Sup. Ct.Rev. 81, 92-97. Thus, prosecutorial misconduct runs afoul of the Double Jeopardy Clause only where it gives the prosecutor an opportunity to manipulate the defendant’s right to have his guilt or innocence decided in one proceeding. The prosecutor can create such an opportunity for manipulation by intentionally erring to induce an abortion of a first trial that is not going favorably for the prosecution; or by introducing an error that will force the defendant to have his case decided by a prejudiced fact finder, if the defendant insists on going through with the first trial despite the error.

This theory of double jeopardy protections in the context of prosecutorial error illuminates the meaning of “overreaching” as the Supreme Court used that term in Starks. “Overreaching” is misconduct designed 1) to provoke a mistrial to obtain a more favorable opportunity to convict the defendant; or 2) to harass the defendant with a threat of multiple prosecutions or to prejudice his prospects for acquittal before the first tribunal convened to try him in a way that forces a “Hobson’s choice” between seeking a new trial or proceeding to verdict before a prejudiced fact finder.

In Oregon v. Kennedy, the United States Supreme Court chose to limit the availability of relief under the Double Jeopardy Clause by declaring that only misconduct intended to provoke a mistrial would constitute a bar to reprosecution. Kennedy thus narrowed the scope of double jeopardy review to the first type of “overreaching” identified by the Starks Court. In this regard, the expansive reading of Kennedy advanced in the Dissenting Opinion of Del Sole, J. — that it bars retrial in any case where there has been “intentional misconduct,” At 303-306 is unsupportable. Kennedy quite explicitly decided that only misconduct undertaken with the specific intent to precipitate a mistrial will raise a double jeopardy bar. So much is clear from the plain language of Kennedy ’s holding:

we do hold that the circumstances under which ... a defendant may invoke the bar of double jeopardy in a second effort to try him are limited to those cases in which the conduct giving rise to the successful motion for a mistrial was intended to provoke the defendant into moving for a mistrial.

456 U.S. at 679, 102 S.Ct. at 2091, 72 L.Ed.2d at 427. The conclusion that Kennedy does not mandate double jeopardy relief in every instance of intentional misconduct is also inherent in the Supreme Court’s rejection of the more general “bad faith” prong of the pr e-Kennedy double jeopardy standard. See Black’s Law Dictionary 127 (5th ed. 1979) (“Bad faith”). After Kennedy, the bad faith of the prosecutor in committing prejudicial error is relevant only to establish whether he intended to abort the trial.

Even before Kennedy, however, the. Supreme Court never construed the Double Jeopardy Clause as a general safeguard against intentional prosecutorial misconduct; rather, the focus of the pr e-Kennedy decisions was on that type of misconduct undertaken with the bad faith intent to frustrate the defendant’s right to be tried only once. The Court recognized that even if the prosecutor did not specifically intend for his deliberate acts to abort the trial, he could still compromise the rights secured by the Double Jeopardy Clause by intentionally injecting error into the case to force the defendant to choose between opting for a mistrial or obtaining a verdict from a tainted jury, thereby “harassing” the defendant with the threat of multiple prosecutions. See Dinitz and Lee, supra; see also Oregon v. Kennedy, 456 U.S. at 689, 102 S.Ct. at 2096, 72 L.Ed.2d at 433 (Stevens, J., joined by Brennan, Marshall, and Blaekmun, JJ., concurring in the result) (“a prosecutor may be interested in putting the defendant through the embarrassment, expense, and ordeal of criminal proceedings even if he cannot obtain a conviction____ [WJith the purpose of harassing the defendant the prosecutor may commit repeated prejudicial errors and be indifferent between a mistrial or mistrials and an unsustainable conviction or convictions.”).

Of course, it is not always easy to discern or prove that the prosecutor erred with such a purpose in mind. However, the kind of error that can be used to subvert the defendant’s double jeopardy rights typically will create a positive prejudicial inference against the defendant in the eyes of the fact finder, and will occur under circumstances where its prejudicial impact on the fact finder will be apparent to the defense. Only thus may the prosecutor force the defendant into an untenable choice between asking for a mistrial, thus forfeiting his right to have his guilt or innocence decided in one proceeding, or accepting the prejudicial effect of the error, thus allowing his guilt or innocence to be decided by a fact finder tainted by prejudice. The elements of such a “Hobson’s choice” are consistently present in the Pennsylvania decisions inquiring into the double jeopardy implications of prosecutorial or judicial error. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Virtu, 495 Pa. 59, 432 A.2d 198 (1981); Commonwealth v. Lee, 490 Pa. 346, 416 A.2d 503 (1980); Commonwealth v. Starks, supra; Commonwealth v. Gravely, supra; Commonwealth v. Potter, supra; Commonwealth v. Lark, supra; Commonwealth v. Riffert, supra; Commonwealth v. Freedman, supra; Commonwealth v. Beaver, supra; Commonwealth v. Lafferty, 315 Pa.Super. 241, 246, 461 A.2d 1261, 1263 (1983); Commonwealth v. McClain, 309 Pa.Super. 163, 454 A.2d 1134 (1983); Commonwealth v. Yost, supra; Commonwealth v. Miele, 300 Pa.Super. 197, 446 A.2d 298 (1982); Commonwealth v. Owens, 299 Pa.Super. 1, 445 A.2d 117 (1982); Commonwealth v. Custor, 296 Pa.Super. 235, 442 A.2d 746 (1982); Commonwealth v. Anderson, 294 Pa.Super. 1, 439 A.2d 720 (1981); Commonwealth v. Clark, supra. See also Commonwealth v. Beasley, 505 Pa. 279, 479 A.2d 460 (1984) (condemning “prosecutor’s blatant and inexcusable inattention” in allowing box labeled “Police shooting, homicide of police officer” to be brought into courtroom). We note that in Virtu, supra, one of two cases in which the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found misconduct egregious enough to bar retrial on double jeopardy grounds, the prosecutor had “prejudice[d] the accused in the presence of the jury” by calling a witness to the stand whom he knew would invoke his fifth amendment privilege not to testify. 495 Pa. at 69, 432 A.2d at 203-04. See also Commonwealth v. Warfield, 424 Pa. 555, 227 A.2d 177 (1967) (prosecutor deliberately caused mistrial to appeal question of law to Supreme Court).

We hold that prosecutorial error amounts to “overreaching” so as to bar retrial on double jeopardy grounds only where it is designed to force the defendant into a choice between proceeding to verdict before a tainted fact finder, and giving up his right to be tried only once. It is evident that the prosecutor’s concealment of a sentencing deal with Simons’s codefendant did not force Simons into such an untenable choice. The act of concealment did not prejudice Simons in the eyes of the jury, but was designed only to direct their animosity away from co-defendant Ravenell. Furthermore, the defense remained oblivious to its grounds for a new trial until long after the jury had performed its function. Clearly the prosecutor did not act with the bad faith intent to harass Simons with the threat of multiple prosecutions or prejudice his prospects for acquittal before the first jury in order to force a “Hobson’s choice” between seeking a mistrial or proceeding to verdict before a prejudiced jury. Instead, the prosecutor obviously intended that the defendant should remain unaware of the grounds for a new trial, and that the defendant’s first trial would be his last.

We by no means suggest that concealed misconduct is somehow preferable to blatant misconduct. The prosecutor’s act of concealment was deplorable and certainly such misconduct must be discouraged in a quasi-judicial officer whose sworn duty is to seek justice rather than narrowmindedly pursue convictions. Appellant is entitled to relief, which he received in the form of a new trial. However, in deciding whether we must go that further step and discharge appellant on double jeopardy grounds, we must remember the admonition of the Supreme Court in United States v. Morrison, 449 U.S. 361, 366, 101 S.Ct. 665, 669, 66 L.Ed.2d 564, 569 (1981): “The remedy in the criminal proceeding is limited to denying the prosecution the fruits of its transgression.” See also Commonwealth v. Torrez, 335 Pa.Super. 612, 485 A.2d 63 (1984) (discharge inappropriate remedy for failure of prosecutorial officers to conduct court-ordered lineup). The Commonwealth was denied the fruits of its transgression when the tainted verdict of guilty was struck down by the grant of a new trial. The question before us is not whether the prosecutor’s act was wrong; it has already been decided that it was. The question is whether the prosecutor’s act was of the type which the Double Jeopardy Clause was meant to prevent; this we hold it was not.

The prosecutor did not deliberately overreach the defendant with the threat of multiple prosecutions, nor intentionally subvert the defendant’s right to be tried only once. Accordingly, the extraordinary remedy of discharge is not warranted in this case, and we hold that appellant’s double jeopardy rights would not be violated by retrial. The trial court’s award of a new trial adequately remedies the prosecutor’s wrongful concealment of the deal with Ravenell. See Commonwealth v. Hallowell, 477 Pa. 232, 383 A.2d 909 (1978).

Finally, we are constrained to correct a misimpression created in the Dissenting Opinion by Del Sole, J., that our holding has somehow restricted double jeopardy relief to cases where a mistrial based on prosecutorial misconduct has been granted during the trial. Judge Del Sole states that “if the Majority’s view is adopted, a trial court when faced with a motion for mistrial, might be reluctant to grant same since it would give rise to a double jeopardy claim while a conviction and new trial would not.” At —. This statement reflects a misreading of our opinion. We neither expressly nor impliedly distinguish prosecutorial misconduct met with the immediate declaration of a mistrial from prosecutorial misconduct remedied on appeal from a conviction. Our analysis focuses solely on whether misconduct by the prosecutor was designed to vitiate the defendant’s constitutional protection against double jeopardy. Any fear that trial judges will be loath to grant meritorious mistrial requests because of our holding is therefore completely unfounded. See Commonwealth v. Potter, supra (same double jeopardy standard applies whether or not mistrial is granted).

The pretrial order denying the motion to bar reprosecution is affirmed.

BROSKY, J., joins, but also files a concurring opinion. WIEAND, J., files a concurring opinion. SPAETH, President Judge, files a dissenting opinion. DEL SOLE, J., files a dissenting opinion, in which POPO-VICH, J., joins.