In Re LA

853 A.2d 388
CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedJune 22, 2004
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 853 A.2d 388 (In Re LA) 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
In Re LA, 853 A.2d 388 (Pa. Ct. App. 2004).

Opinion

853 A.2d 388 (2004)

In the Interest of L.A., a minor, Appellant.

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Submitted March 8, 2004.
Filed June 22, 2004.

*390 Rebecca R. Good, Pittsburgh, for appellant.

Michael W. Streily, Deputy District Attorney, Pittsburgh, for Commonwealth, appellee.

Before: MUSMANNO, PANELLA and KELLY, JJ.

OPINION BY MUSMANNO, J.:

¶ 1 L.A. appeals from the disposition Order entered following her adjudication of delinquency for terroristic threats.[1] We affirm.

¶ 2 On March 7, 2003, Jennifer Igims ("Igims") transported L.A. to Juvenile Court for a hearing. At the time, Igims was a teacher/counselor with Family Links Youth Emergency Shelter, where L.A. had been placed. During a several hour wait for the hearing, L.A. became angry and concerned that she would not be permitted to return to her grandmother's home. At that time, L.A. described to Igims a plan that L.A. had developed to kill the caseworker assigned to her by Children Youth and Families ("CYF").

¶ 3 On March 10, 2003, a Petition was filed charging L.A. with the delinquent act of terroristic threats. The juvenile court summarized the evidence presented at the hearing on the Petition as follows:

[Igims] described herself as a teacher/counselor with FamilyLinks shelter. [Igim] testified that on March 7, 2003, she transported L.A. to Juvenile Court for a shelter hearing. She explained that she and L.A. had to wait for several hours and that L.A. became more angry as time passed. In particular, L.A. was concerned that she would not be able to return to her grandmother's home. It was during this time, while [Igims] and L.A. were waiting to be called to a courtroom, that L.A. described her plans to kill her CYF caseworker. [Igims] recounted:
She was going to wait for [the caseworker] to come after work, go to her office. I forget where the office is now. I don't remember where, but she actually said the whole address when she said her office. She said she would wait for her after work and kill her when she would come to her car, because she was upset. And I was talking to her and said, these are serious threats. You can't make these kinds of threats against somebody. And she said, I don't care. I'm going to kill her. I don't care if I get in trouble. She said she would even hire somebody, get somebody to kill her, a man dressed in a black outfit to wait for her behind her silver [N]eon, I believe is the car she said ... she kept saying she didn't care and she would kill her.
[Igims] explained that she subsequently advised the caseworker of the threat.
CYF caseworker Karen Rohaly ("Rohaly") testified to being L.A.'s caseworker and learning from [Igims] that L.A. had threatened to kill her. [Rohaly] stated that she was shocked and threatened "to hear somebody you know tell someone to look for your obituary." *391 She said that she took L.A.'s threats seriously.
[Rohaly] concurred with [Igims] that L.A. was irritated that day because she suspected that she might not be returned to the care of her grandmother.
L.A. testified on her own behalf. She stated that she told [Igims] she would run if the Court returned her to the shelter. L.A. flatly denied making any remarks about her caseworker, and stated "I was never bothered or anything else by anybody else about anything." She also said that she did not speak to [Igims] for very long, and that her grandmother was with her whenever she spoke to [Igims].

Juvenile Court Opinion, 10/14/03, at 2-4 (citations omitted).

¶ 4 The juvenile court subsequently adjudicated L.A. delinquent. On August 14, 2003, the juvenile court entered its dispositional Order, which stated: "Child committed to the [A]cademy with a suspended commitment to VQ Boot & Hat Camp. Child released from Shuman [Detention Center]." Disposition Order, 8/14/03. Thereafter, L.A. filed the instant timely appeal.

¶ 5 L.A. presents the following claims for our review:

I. Is L.A.'s adjudication of delinquency for terroristic threats supported by sufficient evidence?
II. Did the lower court violate 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 6341(b) when it failed to enter on the record the particular subsection that L.A. [had] violated?
III. Was the lower court's disposition focused more on punishment than rehabilitation when it chose to disregard L.A.'s age and lack of a delinquency history and then give inappropriate weight to L.A.'s adherence to the terms of the three continuance orders and her dependency?

Brief for Appellant at 5. We will address these claims in order.

¶ 6 L.A. first challenges the sufficiency of the evidence underlying her adjudication of delinquency for terroristic threats. L.A. asserts that she never directly threatened to commit a crime of violence. According to L.A., even if she did make an indirect threat, it was a "spur-of-the-moment threat resulting from transitory anger" prompted by the caseworker's statement that L.A. would remain in shelter care. L.A. further asserts that the Commonwealth failed to establish that she had the requisite intent to terrorize her caseworker. We disagree.

¶ 7 In a juvenile proceeding, the hearing judge sits as the finder of fact. In the Interest of A.D., 771 A.2d 45, 53 (Pa.Super.2001). The weight to be assigned the testimony of the witnesses is within the exclusive province of the fact finder. Id. In reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, we must determine whether the evidence, and all reasonable inferences deducible therefrom, viewed in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth as verdict winner, are sufficient to establish all of the elements of the offenses beyond a reasonable doubt. In the Interest of J.C., 751 A.2d 1178, 1180 (Pa.Super.2000). The Commonwealth may sustain its burden of proving every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt by means of wholly circumstantial evidence. In the Interest of J.D., 798 A.2d 210, 212 (Pa.Super.2002).

¶ 8 The Crimes Code states that terroristic threats exist when a person "communicates, either directly or indirectly, a threat to commit any crime of violence with intent to terrorize another." 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 2706(a)(1). Thus, to obtain a *392 conviction for making a terroristic threat, the Commonwealth must prove that (1) the defendant made a threat to commit a crime of violence; and (2) such threat was communicated with the intent of terrorizing another or with reckless disregard for the risk of causing terror. Commonwealth v. Kelley, 444 Pa.Super. 377, 664 A.2d 123, 127 (1995). A direct communication between the defendant and the victim is not required to establish the crime of terroristic threats. Id.

¶ 9 In its Opinion, the juvenile court stated the following:

In the present case, the Court accepted as credible the testimony of [Igims] that L.A. recited a detailed plan to kill her caseworker. The fact that L.A. did not threaten [Rohaly] directly does not negate the psychological distress caused by her communications to [Igims].

* * *

The Court also found that when L.A.

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Bluebook (online)
853 A.2d 388, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-la-pasuperct-2004.