Commonwealth v. Tyrrell

177 A.3d 947
CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedJanuary 17, 2018
Docket2011 MDA 2016
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 177 A.3d 947 (Commonwealth v. Tyrrell) 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. Tyrrell, 177 A.3d 947 (Pa. Ct. App. 2018).

Opinion

OPINION BY

STABILE, J,

Appellant, Jonathan Robert Tyrrell, appeals from the October 4, 2016 judgment of sentence imposing an aggregate 50 to 100 years of incarceration followed by ten years of probation for rape of a child, rape of a child resulting in serious bodily injury, indecent assault, unlawful contact with a minor, and corruption of minors. 1 The victim [“S.B.”] was Appellant’s then eight-year-old daughter.'We affirm.

The offenses occurred on April 2, 2014. Police arrested Appellant on August 26, 2014 after he gave a statement, Appellant filed a pre-trial motion to suppress his statement, but the trial' court denied Appellant’s motion at the conclusion of a May 6, 2016 hearing. After- another pretrial hearing, on May 23, 2016, the trial court granted the Commonwealth’s request to present S.B.’s testimony via closed-circuit television. The trial court also ruled that S.B.’s testimony was not tainted under the standards of Commonwealth v. Delbridge, 578 Pa. 641, 855 A.2d 27 (2003) (“Delbridge I”), and Commonwealth v. Delbridge, 580 Pa. 68, 859 A.2d 1254 (2004) (“Delbridge II ”). A jury trial commenced on July 6, 2016. At the conclusion of trial, the jury found Appellant.guilty of the aforementioned offenses.

In this timely appeal, Appellant presents three issues for our review:

I. Did not the court err in failing to suppress statements that the police obtained from [Appellant] when the statements were pot the product of a free, intelligent, knowing, voluntary, informed and explicit waiver by [Appellant] of his privilege against self-incrimination and right to counsel With prior interrogation?
II. Did not the court err in entering an order under 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 5985 that the trial testimony of the minor complainant be taken under oath or affirmation in a room other than a, courtroom and transmitted by a contemporaneous alternative method?
■III. Did not the court err in finding that the minor complainant was competent to testify when [Appellant] proved by clear and convincing evidence that she had a ‘tainted’ recollection under the standards adopted by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in [Delbridge I and Del-bridge II ]?

Appellant’s Brief at 7.

Appellant first argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress his statement to police. We review that argument as follows:

[An appellate court’s] standard of review in addressing a challenge to the denial of a suppression motion is limited to determining whether the suppression court’s factual findings are supported by the record and whether the legal conclusions drawn from those facts are correct. Because the Commonwealth prevailed before the suppression court, we may consider only the evidence of the Commonwealth and so much of the evidence for the defense as remains uncontradict-ed when read in the context of the record as a whole. Where the suppression court’s factual findings are supported by the record, [the appellate court is] bound by [those] findings and may reverse only if the court’s legal conclusions are erroneous. Where ,.. the appeal of the determination of the suppression court turns on allegations of legal error, the Suppression court’s legal conclusions are not binding on an appellate court, whose duty it is to determine if the suppression court properly applied the law to the facts. Thus, the conclusions of law of the courts below are subject to [] plenary review.

Commonwealth v. Smith, 164 A.3d 1255, 1257 (Pa. Super. 2017).

Appellant argues that he did not give a knowing, intelligent, and voluntary waiver of his Miranda 2 rights. At the suppression hearing,' Appellant testified that he was alone with police officer John Cassidy O’Connor for a minute or a minute and a half prior to the beginning of his recorded statement. N.T. Hearing, 5/6/16, at 56. Appellant testified that, during that time, O’Connor threatened to arrest his wife if he declined to give a statement. Id. at 57-58, Appellant claimed his will was overborne and he agreed to give a statement out of concern for the wellbeing of his wife. Id. at 58-59. O’Connor denied making any such threat. Id. at 63-64.

The trial court addressed this issue as follows:

[T]he recorded interview lasted for over two hours after the alleged threat with Appellant initially denying and then slowly revealing information. In fact, his final statement was not even a confession to rape, it was an admission that there was an accident and [S.B.] was injured. As such, we found that his testimony that he felt threatened by Det. O’Connor to lack credibility. The portions of the interview we viewed at the hearing show a calm interview and Det. O’Connor indicated that his tone remained the same throughout. It is hard to fathom that someone who was so worked up about his wife after such a threat would take more than two hours to finally admit that perhaps an accident occurred that harmed his daughter.

Trial Court Opinion, 2/17/17, at 7-8.

Thus, Appellant’s assertion of an involuntary statement rests largely on a credibility determination and not on a conclusion of law. The record supports the trial court’s finding that no threat occurred. First, O’Connor denied it, and the trial court was entitled to believe him. Further, the record supports the trial court’s finding that the course of the two-hour interview — including Appellant’s early denial of any wrongdoing — is inconsistent with Appellant’s claim that he agreed to speak in order to protect his wife. In summary, the record supports the finding that O’Connor did not procure Appellant’s statement with a threat. Appellant offers nothing else to support a conclusion that his statement was involuntary. Appellant’s first argument lacks merit.

Next, Appellant argues the trial court erred in granting the Commonwealth’s motion to present S.B.’s testimony via closed circuit television. Section 5985 of the Judicial Code governs testimony by a contemporaneous alternative method:

(a) Contemporaneous alternative method. — Subject to subsection (a.l), in any prosecution or adjudication involving a child victim or a child material witness, the court may order that the testimony of the child victim or child material witness be taken under oath or affirmation in a room other than the courtroom and transmitted by a contemporaneous alternative method. Only the attorneys for the defendant and for the Commonwealth, the court reporter, the judge, persons necessary to operate the equipment and any person whose presence would contribute to the welfare and well-being of the child victim or child material witness, including persons designated under section 5983 (relating to rights and services), may be present in the room with the child during his testimony.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
177 A.3d 947, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-tyrrell-pasuperct-2018.