Commonwealth v. Weber

675 A.2d 295, 450 Pa. Super. 32, 1996 Pa. Super. LEXIS 800
CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedApril 11, 1996
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 675 A.2d 295 (Commonwealth v. Weber) 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. Weber, 675 A.2d 295, 450 Pa. Super. 32, 1996 Pa. Super. LEXIS 800 (Pa. Ct. App. 1996).

Opinions

OLSZEWSKI, Judge:

On January 20, 1994, appellant Michael Weber was arrested and charged with numerous counts of rape,1 statutory rape,2 involuntary deviate sexual intercourse,3 aggravated indecent assault,4 indecent assault,5 and corruption of minors.6 These charges stemmed from his daughter’s (Daughter’s) accusations that Weber had continuously forced her to engage him in sexual relations during the ten years following her eighth birthday. The Honorable Jack A. Panella presided over Weber’s four-day trial and the jury returned guilty verdicts on all charges. Judge Panella sentenced Weber to 20-to-64 years imprisonment. In his timely appeal, Weber asks us to the review the following issues:

1. Whether the trial court erred in applying the Rape Shield Law to preclude the defendant from introducing, and commenting upon during summation, testimony concerning a fabrication defense.
2. Whether trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to certain sidebar comments made by the trial court in a voice audible to the jury.
[39]*393. Whether trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to testimony concerning the defendant’s illicit thoughts regarding other minor children.

We find merit in Weber’s first contention and vacate his judgment of sentence and remand this case for retrial. Thus, we need not address his remaining claims of error.

Pennsylvania’s Rape Shield Law reads as follows:

§ 3104 Evidence of victim’s sexual conduct.
(a) General Rule. — Evidence of specific instances of the alleged victim’s past sexual conduct, opinion evidence of the alleged victim’s past sexual conduct, and reputation evidence of the alleged victim’s past sexual conduct shall not be admissible in prosecutions under this chapter except evidence of the alleged victims past sexual conduct with the defendant where consent of the alleged victim is at issue and such evidence is otherwise admissible pursuant to the rules of evidence.

18 Pa.C.S.A. § 3104.

At trial, Weber sought to introduce evidence that Daughter was pregnant and planning an abortion but was afraid that Weber would find out and physically punish her. This evidence, Weber asserts, establishes Daughter’s motive to fabricate the sexual abuse story: a pre-emptive strike to avoid the impending beating.

In arguing that the evidence should have been properly admitted, Weber first contends that Daughter’s planned abortion constitutes a “clinical procedure” rather than “sexual conduct” and, thus, our state’s Rape Shield Law does not apply. We disagree. While no Pennsylvania case has addressed this specific issue, we are mindful that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has demonstrated a preference for broadly construing our state’s Rape Shield Law. In Commonwealth v. Berkowitz, 537 Pa. 143, 641 A.2d 1161 (1994), defendant, who had been charged with rape, sought to introduce evidence that his alleged victim had previously argued with her boyfriend about her fidelity. The defendant, who claimed that intercourse with the victim had been consensual, alleged that the [40]*40proffered evidence was relevant to establish that the victim’s fear of her boyfriend’s jealousy motivated her to claim that sex with the defendant had been forced. In finding that the trial court had properly excluded this evidence, our Supreme Court wrote:

The purpose of the Rape Shield Law is to prevent a sexual assault trial from degenerating into an attack upon the victim’s reputation for chastity. The allegation that the victim and her boyfriend had argued over the issue of her infidelity is so closely tied to the issue of the victim’s fidelity itself that, for the purposes of the Rape Shield Law, they are one and the same. This is precisely the type of allegation regarding past sexual conduct from which the Rape Shield Law is specifically designed to protect victims.

Id. at 151, 641 A.2d at 1165 (citations omitted).

Likewise, we find that the issue of Daughter’s planned abortion is so closely tied to the issue of Daughter’s chastity that, for the purposes of the Rape Shield Law, they are one and the same. In reaching this conclusion, we echo the sentiments of our fellow jurist in Indiana:

A pregnancy which has been aborted can only be the result of “past sexual conduct.” This is what the Rape Shield Statute proscribes. The statute ... should ... exclude evidence of termination of pregnancy. Any reference to a prior abortion inherently contains a reference to past sexual conduct.

Razo v. Indiana, 431 N.E.2d 550, 554-555 (Ind.App.1982) (by Hoffman, J., with two judges concurring). Consequently, we find that evidence concerning a victim’s abortion is properly encompassed within our state’s Rape Shield Law.

The fact that our Rape Shield Law applies, however, does not necessarily mean that the offered evidence must have been excluded at trial. As noted above, the purpose of the Rape Shield Law is to prevent a sexual assault trial from degenerating into an attack upon the victim’s reputation for chastity. Berkowitz, 537 Pa. at 149-51, 641 A.2d at 1165.

[41]*41At common law, and to some extent even today, a rape victim often suffered secondary abuse at the hands of the judicial system through aggressive defense counsel who essentially put the victim on trial. In response to these abuses, the federal government and the states enacted rape shield laws which were intended to end the abuses by limiting the harassing and embarrassing inquiries] of defense counsel into irrelevant prior sexual conduct of sexual assault complainants.

Commonwealth v. Smith, 410 Pa.Super. 363, 368, 599 A.2d 1340, 1342 (1991) (citation and quotations omitted). Thus, our Rape Shield Law is needed to “prevent irrelevant testimony relating to the victim’s past involvement in sexual activities from being presented to the trier of fact in order to protect the victim from being prejudiced because of unwarranted perception as to her moral character rather than based upon the facts of the case.” Commonwealth v. Riley, 434 Pa.Super. 414, 420, 643 A.2d 1090, 1093 (1994).

Pennsylvania appellate courts have also recognized, however, that “[tjhough laudable and long-overdue, Rape Shield [L]aws, if rigidly construed, could impermissibly encroach upon a defendant’s right to confront and cross-examine witnesses which is secured by the United States and Pennsylvania Constitutions.” Commonwealth v. Nieves, 399 Pa.Super. 277, 287, 582 A.2d 341, 346 (1990). In Commonwealth v. Wall, 413 Pa.Super. 599, 609-14, 606 A.2d 449, 454-57 (en banc), alloc. denied, 532 Pa. 645, 614 A.2d 1142 (1992), this Court reconciled these competing interests as follows:

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Commonwealth v. Weber
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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
675 A.2d 295, 450 Pa. Super. 32, 1996 Pa. Super. LEXIS 800, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-weber-pasuperct-1996.