Com. v. Stahl, C. , 175 A.3d 301 ( 2017 )

J-A21004-17
2017 PA Super 360COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
PENNSYLVANIA
Appellee
v.
CODY MARK ALAN STAHL,
Appellant No. 203 WDA 2017
Appeal from the Order Entered January 11, 2017
In the Court of Common Pleas of Cambria County
Criminal Division at No(s): CP-11-CR-0001772-2015
BEFORE: BENDER, P.J.E., OLSON, J., and STABILE, J.
OPINION BY BENDER, P.J.E.: FILED NOVEMBER 14, 2017
Appellant, Cody Mark Alan Stahl, appeals from trial court’s order
denying his motion for judgment of acquittal following the court’s declaration
of a mistrial after Appellant’s trial for rape and related offenses. After
careful review, we affirm.
Briefly, the instant matter arises from events which occurred on a
Saturday night in October of 2014. The alleged victim was drinking at
various bars in Windber, PA, and eventually was driven home by Appellant
and Robert Kachur (“Kachur”). The three then engaged in sexual
intercourse together, which the Commonwealth and the victim maintain was
nonconsensual because the victim was either unconscious or unaware to an
extent that rendered her incapable of providing her consent. Appellant
maintains that the victim was conscious throughout the encounter and,
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therefore, she was not only capable of providing her consent, but that she
actually initiated the three-way sexual encounter. After initially being
charged as a co-defendant in this matter, Kachur ultimately entered a plea
deal with the Commonwealth and, in exchange, testified for the
Commonwealth at Appellant’s trial. Nevertheless, Kachur’s testimony largely
supported Appellant’s version of events, both with respect to the victim’s
initiation of the sexual encounter, and her capacity to consent throughout.
The Commonwealth charged Appellant with rape, 18 Pa.C.S. §
3121(a)(3) (unconscious or unaware victim); involuntary deviate sexual
intercourse, 18 Pa.C.S. § 3123(a)(3) (unconscious or unaware victim);
aggravated indecent assault, 18 Pa.C.S. § 3125(a)(4) (unconscious or
unaware victim); and indecent assault, 18 Pa.C.S. § 3126(a)(1) (lack of
consent).1 Appellant was tried for these offenses on December 5-7, 2016.
After determining that the jury was hopelessly deadlocked, the trial court
declared a mistrial. Subsequently, on December 16, 2016, Appellant timely
filed a motion for judgment of acquittal which, if successful, would have
prevented the Commonwealth from pursuing a retrial. Following a hearing
held on January 9, 2017, the trial court denied the motion, see Opinion and
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1
Several other charges initially filed in the original criminal information on
December 2, 2015, were ultimately dropped when the Commonwealth filed
an amended criminal information on October 5, 2016.
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Order (“TCO”), 1/11/17, at 4, leading Appellant to file the instant, timely,
interlocutory appeal pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 311(a)(6).
Appellant filed a timely, court-ordered Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) statement on
February 27, 2017. On March 1, 2017, the trial court issued a statement in
lieu of a Rule 1925(a) opinion, indicating that the court would rely on the
reasoning set forth in its January 11, 2017 Opinion and Order denying
Appellant’s motion. Appellant now presents the following question for our
review:
Whether the Commonwealth's evidence was insufficient as a
matter of law to meet its burden of proving the element of
unconsciousness or unawareness beyond a reasonable doubt,
where one of the Commonwealth's principal witnesses, a
participant in the three-way sexual encounter at issue, testified
that the complainant was conscious and aware throughout the
incident, and, moreover, that the complainant instigated the
sexual activity[?]
Appellant’s Brief at 7.
Instantly, Appellant claims that the evidence was insufficient because
the Commonwealth’s own witness, Kachur, directly contradicted the victim’s
testimony that she had been unconscious or otherwise incapacitated to a
degree that rendered her incapable of consenting to the three-way sexual
encounter she had with Appellant and Kachur. The victim’s purported lack of
consent is a critical element of all of the charges for which Appellant was
tried. If the Commonwealth failed to offer sufficient evidence of the victim’s
incapacity to consent, the trial court should have granted Appellant’s motion
for judgment of acquittal.
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Before we address the merits of Appellant’s claim, we must first
consider whether our standard of review for sufficiency claims is affected by
the procedural circumstances before us. Appellant filed a motion for
judgment of acquittal following the trial court’s declaration of a mistrial due
to a deadlocked jury, pursuant to Pa.R.Crim.P. 608 (A)(2) (“A written motion
for judgment of acquittal shall be filed within 10 days after the jury has been
discharged without agreeing upon a verdict.”). Appellant’s motion
challenged the sufficiency of the Commonwealth’s evidence. See
Pa.R.Crim.P. 606(A)(3) (stating that a “defendant may challenge the
sufficiency of the evidence to sustain a conviction” in “a motion for judgment
of acquittal filed within 10 days after the jury has been discharged without
agreeing upon a verdict”). Under Pa.R.A.P. 311(a)(6), the order denying
Appellant’s motion for judgment of acquittal was appealable by right.
Pa.R.A.P. 311(a)(6) (“An appeal may be taken as of right…” from “an order
in a criminal proceeding awarding a new trial where the defendant claims
that the proper disposition of the matter would be an absolute
discharge[.]”). If successful, Appellant’s motion would have prevented the
Commonwealth from seeking a new trial.
“A motion for judgment of acquittal challenges the sufficiency of the
evidence to sustain a conviction on a particular charge, and is granted only
in cases in which the Commonwealth has failed to carry its burden regarding
that charge.” Commonwealth v. Emanuel, 86 A.3d 892, 894 (Pa. Super.
2014). Therefore, in usual circumstances, we apply the following standard
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of review to sufficiency claims which arise in the context of a motion for
judgment of acquittal:
A claim challenging the sufficiency of the evidence is a
question of law. Evidence will be deemed sufficient to support
the verdict when it establishes each material element of the
crime charged and the commission thereof by the accused,
beyond a reasonable doubt. Where the evidence offered to
support the verdict is in contradiction to the physical facts, in
contravention to human experience and the laws of nature, then
the evidence is insufficient as a matter of law. When
reviewing a sufficiency claim[,] the court is required to
view the evidence in the light most favorable to the
verdict winner giving the prosecution the benefit of all
reasonable inferences to be drawn from the evidence.
Commonwealth v. Widmer, 744 A.2d 745, 751 (Pa. 2000) (internal
citations omitted) (emphasis added).
Appellant emphasizes that the Commonwealth was not the “verdict-
winner” in this case given that the jury was deadlocked, resulting in a
mistrial. Appellant’s Brief at 13. As such, Appellant asserts that while
reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence at issue, this Court may not view
that evidence in a ‘light most favorable’ to the Commonwealth, or give the
prosecution ‘the benefit of all reasonable inferences,’ when the ostensible
predicate for those presumptions – that the Commonwealth was the verdict
winner – is not applicable in this case. Id. Consequently, Appellant
contends that we may not consider only the victim’s testimony, but must
view the entirety of the Commonwealth’s evidence “though a clear lens[.]”
Id. at 16. From this starting point, Appellant argues that the evidence of
his guilt is at best equivocal, because of the conflicting testimony provided
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by Kachur. The Commonwealth counters that Appellant is merely presenting
a weight-of-the-evidence claim disguised as a sufficiency-of-the-evidence
claim.
We are not convinced by Appellant’s arguments that the sufficiency
standard is watered-down in such a manner simply because of the
procedural posture of this case. First, Appellant has not presented any case
law which adopts his arguments either explicitly or implicitly. This fact alone
gives us great pause. At a minimum, Appellant’s claim is completely novel,
and not grounded in any established legal principles.
Second, we do not find that the dissonance between past recitations of
the sufficiency standard, such as was set forth in Widmer, supra, and the
procedural uniqueness of this case (the absence of a “verdict-winner”), are
as significant as Appellant contends. Generally, in the vast majority of
circumstances, this Court reviews sufficiency claims in the context of a
criminal conviction; hence, when the Commonwealth is the “verdict-winner.”
This much is obvious, and conceded by Appellant. Appellant’s Brief at 15.
Accordingly, the language of our case law defining the sufficiency standard
has understandably developed to address the ubiquitous procedural scenario
of a defendant’s appeal from a criminal conviction. Consequently, the term
“verdict-winner” has little significance beyond being a contextual synonym
for the terms ‘government,’ ‘Commonwealth,’ or ‘prosecution.’ Indeed,
there are no circumstances in which a sufficiency claim arises where a
defendant was the “verdict-winner,” as the Commonwealth has no right to
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appeal from acquittals. Commonwealth v. Arnold, 258 A.2d 885, 886 (Pa.
Super. 1969) (“If the order of the lower court [could] be considered an
acquittal, then the Commonwealth has no right to appeal.”).
Third, we find persuasive the standard followed by the 5th Circuit Court
of Appeals, which has been adopted in both North Dakota and the District of
Columbia:
Whether the sufficiency of the evidence is questioned on motion
for judgment of acquittal made at the close of the Government's
case, at the close of all the evidence, or after the return of a
guilty verdict, the test is the same: viewing the case in the light
most favorable to the Government, could a reasonably-minded
jury . . . accept the relevant evidence as adequate and sufficient
to support the conclusion of the defendant's guilt beyond a
reasonable doubt.
U.S. v. Austin, 585 F.2d 1271, 1273 (5th Cir. 1978) (quotation marks,
citation, and footnote omitted); see also State v. Lambert, 539 N.W.2d
288, 289 n.2 (N.D. 1995); U.S. v. Hubbard, 429 A.2d 1334, 1338 (D.C.
App. 1981).
In two of those scenarios, there is no jury verdict and, therefore, no
“verdict-winner.” This supports our theory that the term “verdict-winner” is
merely a synonym for the government/prosecution and has only found its
way into our criminal sufficiency standard by historical accident or, perhaps,
through careless borrowing of terminology from civil law. Nevertheless, our
courts have also routinely recited the sufficiency standard without the use of
the term “verdict-winner.” See Commonwealth v. Duncan, 373 A.2d
1051, 1053 (Pa. 1977) (“The test to be applied in ruling on either a
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demurrer or a claim that the evidence is insufficient to support a conviction
is whether accepting as true the prosecution's evidence and all reasonable
inferences therefrom, it is sufficient to support a finding by the jury that the
defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”); Commonwealth v.
Hankins, 380 A.2d 415, 416 (Pa. Super. 1977) (“The test of sufficiency is
whether, accepting as true all the Commonwealth's evidence plus its
reasonable inferences, and viewing it in the light most favorable to the
Commonwealth, such evidence and inferences, in combination, are sufficient
in law to establish each element of the crimes charged beyond a reasonable
doubt.”). In sum, we reject Appellant’s contention that the sufficiency
standard changes when a criminal trial results in a hung or deadlocked jury.
The standard is not dependent on a jury’s decision, or lack thereof.
Turning to the evidence in this case, we find that it was clearly
sufficient to support a guilty verdict. Appellant conceded that he engaged in
sexual intercourse with the victim, and that she was intoxicated at the time.
Appellant’s Brief at 22. Thus, the Commonwealth had the burden of proving
that the victim was “unconscious or … unaware that the sexual intercourse is
occurring[.]” 18 Pa.C.S. § 3121(a)(3); see also 18 Pa.C.S. § 3125(a)(4)
(requiring a showing that the victim was “unconscious or … unaware that the
penetration is occurring”). Such a showing would also suffice to
demonstrate lack of consent for purposes of Section 3126(a)(1).
The victim testified that on the evening in question, she had become
intoxicated to such an extent that she was denied entry into the Geistown
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Country Club. N.T., 12/5/16, at 55. Soon thereafter, she recalled “vomiting
profusely” into a bag, while a passenger in a car with Appellant and Kachur.
Id. at 56. She believed they intended to take her home. Id. She could not
recall anything else before waking up in bed, in pain, while Appellant was
having anal sex with her, and, at the same time, Kachur was attempting to
entice her to perform oral sex on him. Id. at 57. She made a brief attempt
to stop the anal sex, but passed out again when Appellant began having
vaginal sex with her. Id. at 59. She did not wake up again until the next
morning. Id. at 60. This evidence, if believed, was sufficient to
demonstrate that the victim was either unconscious or unaware while she
was being sexually assaulted by Appellant and Kachur. Her testimony was
clear that she did not recall being conscious when the sexual encounter
began, and she specifically remembered waking up, briefly, during the
encounter, only to pass out again. To the extent that Kachur’s testimony for
the Commonwealth contradicted the victim’s account regarding her
awareness or consciousness during the encounter, that fact is immaterial, as
any such credibility conflict would go to the weight, not the sufficiency of the
evidence. See Commonwealth v. Gaskins, 692 A.2d 224, 227 (Pa. Super.
1997) (“[C]redibility determinations are made by the fact finder and that
challenges thereto go to the weight, and not the sufficiency, of the
evidence.”). Accordingly, we conclude that the trial court did not err when it
denied Appellant’s post-verdict motion for judgment of acquittal on
sufficiency grounds.
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Order affirmed.
Judgment Entered.
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 11/14/2017
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