HomeMy WebLinkAboutCP-21-CR-1993-2006
COMMONWEALTH : IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS OF
: CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
V. :
:
SHANE ALVIN GEEDY : NO. CP-21-CRIMINAL 1993 – 2006
:
:
IN RE: OPINION PURSUANT TO Pa. R.A.P. 1925
Guido, J., March , 2012
Petitioner is serving a mandatory life sentence for first degree murder as a result of killing his
girlfriend. He has filed this timely appeal from our order of December 30, 2011 which denied his request
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for relief under the Post Conviction Relief Act. On appeal he contends that we should have granted his
petition because of trial counsel’s ineffectiveness in 1) failing to preserve a “constitutional” objection to
the Court’s failure to instruct the jury on voluntary manslaughter and 2) failing to call the defendant as a
witness at trial. We will discuss those issues in the opinion that follows.
DISCUSSION
To be eligible for post-conviction relief the petitioner must plead and prove by a preponderance
of the evidence that (1) he was convicted of a crime under the laws of the Commonwealth and is
currently serving a sentence of imprisonment, (2) his conviction resulted from ineffective assistance of
counsel which, in the circumstances of his case, so undermined the truth determining process that no
reliable adjudication of guilt or innocence could have occurred, (3) the allegation of error was not
previously litigated, and (4) failure to litigate the issue prior to or during trial, during unitary review or
direct appeal was not strategic. 42 Pa. C.S.A. § 9543. “An issue has been previously litigated if the
highest appellate court in which the petitioner could have had review as a matter of right has ruled on
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42Pa. C.S.A. § 9541et seq.
the merits of the issue.” 42 Pa. C.S.A. § 9544 (a) (2). The term “issue” refers to the discrete legal ground
raised and decided on direct review and prevents the re-litigation of the same legal ground under
alternative theories or allegations. Commonwealth v. Collins, 585 Pa. 45, 55, 888 A.2d 564, 570 (Pa.
2005).
A Sixth Amendment claim of ineffectiveness raises a distinct legal ground for the purposes of
P.C.R.A. review under § 9544 (a) (2). The reviewing court should examine such a claim under the
standard articulated in Commonwealth v. Pierce. Id. at 973. Under this ineffectiveness standard, a
petitioner must establish that (1) the underlying claim has arguable merit, (2) the counsel whose
effectiveness is challenged had no reasonable basis for his action or failure to act, and (3) the petitioner
suffered prejudice as a result of that counsel’s ineffective performance. Commonwealth v. Pierce, 515
Pa. 153, 157-159, 527 A.2d 973, 975-976 (Pa. 1987). Failure to satisfy any prong of this ineffectiveness
test requires rejection of the claim. Commonwealth v. Bryant, 579 Pa. 119, 136, 855 A.2d 726, 736 (Pa.
2004).
Failure to Raise a “Constitutional” Objection
Trial counsel did request a charge on voluntary manslaughter which the court denied. The trial
court’s denial of the charge was affirmed on direct appeal. Commonwealth v. Geedy, 474 MDA 2008 at
10. (Pa. Super. 2009). As the Superior Court noted “there was no evidence presented at trial which, in
any way, triggered an instruction for heat of passion voluntary manslaughter. Thus, the trial court did
not err in refusing [Petitioner’s] request for a jury instruction on voluntary manslaughter.”
Commonwealth v. Geedy, 474 MDA 2008, at 10 (PA Super. 2009).
Petitioner argued that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to raise a “constitutional”
objection to omission of the voluntary manslaughter instruction. We were satisfied that this claim had
no arguable merit. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has “repeatedly held that a voluntary
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manslaughter instruction is warranted only where the offense is at issue and the evidence would
support such a verdict.” Commonwealth v. Montalvo, 604 Pa. 386, 412, 986 A.2d 84, 100 (Pa. 2009).
“Only where an instruction is requested and only if the evidence supports ‘heat of passion’ voluntary
manslaughter, is an instruction thereon required.” Commonwealth v. Browdie, 543 Pa 337, 349, 671
A.2d 668, 674 (Pa. 1996). Whether to provide instructions and which instructions to provide to the jury
are matters to be determined by the trial judge. See Pa. R.Crim. P. 647.
Furthermore, we were not persuaded by Petitioner’s arguments that there was a constitutional
basis for a voluntary manslaughter instruction. Petitioner made vague references to the Fourteenth
Amendment’s Due Process Clause and the Sixth Amendment’s right to trial by jury. However, he failed
to articulate a cogent argument and cited no law supporting his contention. Petitioner did not argue nor
could we conclude that the trial court’s failure to instruct the jury on voluntary manslaughter deprived
Petitioner of his right to a jury trial or deprived him of life, liberty or property without due process of
law.
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Petitioner’s assertion that trial counsel should have raised an Apprendi claim was equally
unpersuasive. Apprendi held that any fact, other than prior conviction, that increased the maximum
penalty for a crime must be charged in an indictment, submitted to a jury, and proven beyond a
reasonable doubt. 530 U.S. at 490. The maximum penalty for first degree murder is life imprisonment
or the death penalty. 42 Pa. C.S.A. § 9711. Petitioner was convicted of first degree murder. It is clear
that the jury found each and every element of first degree murder had been proven beyond a
reasonable doubt. The holding of Apprendi has no bearing on the issue raised by Petitioner.
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Petitioner referred to Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000).
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Failure to Call the Defendant as a Witness
Petitioner also alleged that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to have him testify at trial. He
contended that his testimony would have provided sufficient foundation to require a voluntary
manslaughter instruction. He would have told the jury that he killed the victim during an argument after
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she slapped him. He would have also testified that his state of mind was “unsettled” when he shot
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her.
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Trial counsel has been the Chief Public Defender in this county since 1976. He had tried scores
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of jury trials (including six capital cases) and countless non-jury trials during his career. He represented
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the petitioner from shortly after his arrest throughout all stages of the proceedings, including trial. We
found his testimony to be credible.
Trial counsel was aware from the outset that voluntary manslaughter was a possibility. He was
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also acutely aware that it was dependent on the petitioner’s “version of the facts.” He described how
he elicited the facts from petitioner:
I made a point of educating him on all the degrees of homicide, including voluntary
manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter, before I elicited from him what happened. I talked
to him specifically about this would be a different case if he had reasonable provocation to be
enraged when this occurred so that he would know that that was an important fact. Yet when I
did finally elicit all the facts from him, he did not articulate any provocation whatsoever . . .
When it became clear that he had no provocation to articulate, this case went in the direction of
diminished capacity and voluntary intoxication, and we obtained experts to try and support and
give testimony in support of those issues. Mr. Geedy gave long statements to our psychiatrist
and to the commonwealth’s psychiatrist. In those statements as I recall, he did not articulate
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any provocation.
3
Transcript of Proceedings, June 2, 2011, p. 6.
4
Transcript of Proceedings, June 2, 2011, p.7.
5
Transcript of Proceedings, June 2, 2011, p.
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Transcript of Proceedings, June 2, 2011, p. 21.
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Transcript of Proceedings, June 2, 2011, p. 18.
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Transcript of Proceedings, June 2, 2011, p. 22.
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Transcript of Proceedings, June 2, 2011, pp. 22, 23.
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We specifically asked defense counsel whether his client mentioned being slapped by the victim.
He responded that “when he put the gun to his own head so as to kill himself she knocked the gun
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away.” We were satisfied that counsel was not ineffective in concluding that petitioner’s testimony
would not establish a voluntary manslaughter defense.
We were also satisfied that counsel did not interfere with petitioner’s right to testify. As the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court has stated:
The decision of whether or not to testify on one’s own behalf is ultimately to be made
by the defendant after full consultation with counsel. In order to sustain a claim that counsel
was ineffective for “failing to call the appellant to the stand,” the appellant must demonstrate
either that counsel interfered with his right to testify, or that counsel gave specific advice so
unreasonable as to vitiate a knowing and intelligent decision to testify on his own behalf.
Commonwealth v. Uderra, 550 Pa. 389, 402, 706 A.2d 334, 340 (1998). See also Commonwealth v.
Lambert, 568 Pa. 346, 371, 797 A.2d 232, 247 (2001).
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Petitioner conceded that he was aware of his right to testify. However, he contended that
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counsel “discouraged” him from testifying. Based upon trial counsel’s version of the events, we were
satisfied that petitioner’s decision not to testify was voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently made. Trial
counsel recounted his discussions with petitioner as follows:
(N)ear the end of the Commonwealth’s case. . . I went to the Cumberland County Prison
because Mr. Geedy asked me to go to the Cumberland County Prison and talk to him. He told
me he wasn’t sure he could testify. He was concerned that he couldn’t contain his temper if he
did testify.
. . .
He asked me at that time what would be the benefit of him testifying. . . . I did not say
to him you could testify to provocation, because he had never disclosed any to me. I told him
the principal benefit of him testifying would be the jury would get a chance to have a regard for
him as a person, as he sat and told his story, that might affect the way they would regard him as
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Transcript of Proceedings, June 2, 2011, p. 23.
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Transcript of Proceedings, June 2, 2011, p. 9.
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Transcript of Proceedings, June 2, 2011, p. 9.
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the Defendant in the case, because his version was going to come out with the statement that
he gave to the officers and with the statements that he gave to the doctors.
The next night he again asked, and I again went to the prison. I got there at 6:20 to talk
to him about testifying, because the Commonwealth had rested and the decision had to be
made. He said he did not want to testify. He felt he was losing his temper over little things, and
he could not hold his temper under the District Attorney’s questioning. My note to myself was
he may be right.
. . .
I explained that there was evidence that only he could effectively refute and it wouldn’t be
refuted without him. . . . He said he understood that, but, nevertheless, he did not want to
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testify.
Based upon the foregoing we denied petitioner’s request for relief.
____________________ ____________________________
DATE Edward E. Guido, J.
Matthew P. Smith, Esquire
For the Commonwealth
Karl E. Rominger, Esquire
For the Defendant
:sld
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Trial Proceedings, June 2, 2011, pp. 24, 25.
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