Com. v. Williams, D. ( 2020 )

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NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
: PENNSYLVANIA
:
v. :
:
:
DAMIR WILLIAMS :
:
Appellant : No. 2882 EDA 2019
Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered May 24, 2019
In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at
No(s): CP-51-CR-0003682-2018
BEFORE: SHOGAN, J., KING, J., and COLINS, J.*
MEMORANDUM BY SHOGAN, J.: FILED DECEMBER 04, 2020
Appellant, Damir Williams, appeals from the judgment of sentence
entered May 24, 2019, following his conviction by a jury of one count each of
second-degree murder, robbery, conspiracy to commit burglary, and criminal
trespass.1 We affirm.
The trial court summarized the facts of this case as follows:
At trial, the Commonwealth presented the testimony of
Philadelphia [P]olice [O]fficers John Durkin, Barry Sudler,
Christopher Jones, and Matthew Lally, Philadelphia [P]olice
[D]etectives Michael Cannon, Michael Corson, Daniel Plaza, and
Thorsten Lucke, Burlington County [M]edical [E]xaminer Dr. Ian
Hood, Fred Martella, Brittney Rehrig and Andrea Williams, and co-
defendant Mark McLaughlin.3 [Appellant] presented the character
testimony of Angel Santiago and Loretta Amons. Viewed in the
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* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.
1 18 Pa.C.S. §§ 2502(b), 3701(a)(1)(i), 903, 3502(a)(1)(i), and 3503(a)(1),
respectively.
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light most favorable to the Commonwealth as the verdict winner,
the evidence established the following.
3 At Docket No. CP-51-CR-0003681-2018, Mark
McLaughlin pled guilty to one count each of murder of
the third degree (18 Pa.C.S. § 2502(c)), conspiracy to
commit murder of the third degree (18 Pa.C.S. § 903),
and burglary (18 Pa.C.S. § 3502), regarding the
burglary and murder here at issue. At Docket No. CP-
51-CR-0003683-2018, McLaughlin pled guilty to one
count of burglary (18 Pa.C.S. § 3502), regarding the
previous burglary of the Martella home discussed in
the text, infra.
Mark McLaughlin lived at 7330 Hill Road, next-door to 7332
Hill Road, where the decedent, Anthony Martella, lived with his
sister, Rosemary Martella.4 On February 16, 2017, McLaughlin
broke into the Martella home looking for money to support his
drug habit. As a result of that break-in, he was arrested and
charged with burglary on May 1, 2017. He was held in prison
awaiting trial, but was released on September 13, 2017, at 3:00
a.m. The charges had been dismissed, since Rosemary and
Anthony did not appear to testify.
4 Because Anthony and Rosemary Martella have the
same last name, they will be referred to hereafter
using their first names.
On the very day he was released from prison, McLaughlin
decided that he would break into the Martella home again. He
met up with [Appellant], Damir Williams, whom he had known for
several years. McLaughlin told [Appellant] that he had previously
burglarized the Martella home, and that they could do it again to
get some money.
Around 5:00 a.m. that morning, [Appellant] and McLaughlin
went to the back door of the Martella home. Anthony answered
the door and invited McLaughlin and [Appellant] in the home.
[Appellant] then choked Anthony and jumped on top of him.
McLaughlin and [Appellant] found tape inside the home and
[Appellant] tied Anthony up while McLaughlin held him down.
McLaughlin then went upstairs to Rosemary’s bedroom to grab
money. On the second floor, McLaughlin found Rosemary in her
room and asked her for money. McLaughlin found and took a
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purse that contained $150, car keys, and some bank cards.
McLaughlin and [Appellant] then left the home and used the car
keys to take Rosemary’s car. At some point McLaughlin cut the
phone lines using scissors.
Around 7:45 a.m., Rosemary went to the home of a
neighbor, off-duty police officer John Durkin. Rosemary told
Officer Durkin that McLaughlin had gotten into her home again
[and] had cut her phone line. Officer Durkin knew that McLaughlin
had previously broken into the Martella home and that McLaughlin
had been in prison for the break-in. Officer Durkin and Rosemary
called her other brother, Fred Martella, and then started to call
911 when Rosemary told Officer Durkin that Anthony was tied up
in the basement. Officer Durkin and Rosemary then went into the
Martella home. When they arrived, Anthony was untied but kept
rubbing his hands over his chest, was short of breath, and seemed
increasingly uncomfortable. Officer Durkin also noticed a broken
lamp in the middle bedroom, tape on the basement floor at the
bottom of the stairs, and that Rosemary’s car was missing from
her driveway.
Between 8:00 and 8:30 a.m., an ambulance arrived and
took Anthony to Roxborough Hospital. The same day, Detective
Michael Cannon went to the hospital, but was unable to interview
Anthony because Anthony was in too much pain. Detective
Cannon received a phone call later that day that Anthony had been
transferred to Temple Hospital because he was in more serious
condition than previously thought.
On September 18, 2017, McLaughlin was interviewed by
detectives at the Northwest Detective Division. During the
interview, McLaughlin admitted to entering the Martella home with
[Appellant] on September 13, 2017, and stated that he saw
[Appellant] hit, choke, and tie up Anthony.
Rosemary’s car was found on Welsh Road in close proximity
to McLaughlin’s grandmother’s house. Rosemary’s purse, taken
from the second floor bedroom of her home, was found inside the
car. The car was dusted for fingerprints, revealing a fingerprint
from [Appellant] on the passenger side door handle.
Prior to the break-in on September 13, 2017, Rosemary and
Anthony were in good health and able to live alone. Following the
break-in, Anthony was transported to Roxborough hospital. He
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never regained his ability to speak and could no longer stand or
walk. At Roxborough Hospital, he was put on a ventilator. After
about two weeks, doctors performed a tracheostomy. Anthony
was unconscious and not able to swallow or eat, so a feeding tube
was inserted. Once he could breathe on his own he was
transferred to a nursing home. Because he could not clear his
airway by coughing or swallowing properly, he had episodes where
he would aspirate secretions from his nose and mouth into his
lungs, causing pneumonia.
Doctors determined that Anthony had suffered a hypoxic
brain injury, that is, brain injury caused by a lack of oxygen
getting to the brain. The injury was permanent, and Anthony had
no chance to recover. After two or three episodes of aspiration
pneumonia, his family made the decision to stop active treatment
and for Anthony to go into hospice care. He remained in a nursing
home until he died on March 15, 2018, at the age of 76.
An autopsy was done on Anthony by Dr. Ian Hood, a medical
examiner for Burlington County and an expert in the field of
forensic pathology. Dr. Hood determined that Anthony’s
immediate cause of death was pneumonia, but that the
pneumonia was caused by the hypoxic brain injury that Anthony
had previously sustained during the burglary. Dr. Hood explained
that the brain injury was Anthony’s primary cause of death as it
was the cause of the pneumonia from which Anthony ultimately
died.
Trial Court Opinion, 12/31/19, at 2–5 (internal citations to the record
omitted).
Following a five-day jury trial, Appellant was convicted of the above-
described charges. On May 24, 2019, the trial court sentenced Appellant to
life imprisonment for second-degree murder, with a consecutive term of
imprisonment of ten to twenty years for conspiracy to commit burglary, and
no further penalty for criminal trespass. The conviction for robbery merged
with second-degree murder for the purposes of sentencing.
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Appellant filed a timely post-sentence motion, which was denied on
September 13, 2019. Appellant filed a notice of appeal.2 Both Appellant and
the trial court complied with Pa.R.A.P. 1925.
On appeal, Appellant raises the following issues, which are identical to
the issues raised in Appellant’s Rule 1925(b) statement:
I. Whether the [c]ourt erred when it denied the Appellant’s
request to provide the deliberating jury with a written
explanation of the defense of character and reputation
evidence where the relevant Rule provides that a jury can
be furnished with a written explanation of the charges and
the defenses?
II. Whether the Appellant’s conviction for Murder in the Second
Degree was based upon insufficient evidence where the
uncontested evidence at trial was that the intervening cause
of the decedent’s death was the family’s decision to withhold
life saving treatment to cure the decedent’s pneumonia
where such treatment had been successful two times in the
past?
III. Whether the Appellant’s convictions were against the weight
and credibility of the evidence and shocking to one’s sense
of justice where the only witness who placed the Appellant
inside of the home was the corrupt and polluted co-
defendant, where the medical records refuted the
contention that the victim had been strangled and where the
uncontested evidence was that there was an intervening
decision by family members of the decedent to withhold
necessary medical treatment to the victim to cure his
pneumonia that interrupted the chain of events that led to
the decedent’s death?
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2 Appellant filed his notice of appeal to this Court from the denial of post-
sentence motions on September 13, 2019. Notice of Appeal, 10/7/19. In a
criminal action, the appeal properly lies from the judgment of sentence made
final by the denial of post-sentence motions. Commonwealth v.
Kuykendall, 2 A.3d 559, 560 n.1 (Pa. Super. 2010). We have amended the
caption accordingly.
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Appellant’s Brief at 6–7 (re-ordered for ease of disposition).
Appellant first asserts the trial court “lacked a defensible reason” for
denying Appellant’s request to provide the jury with a written explanation of
character and reputation evidence. Appellant’s Brief at 30–31. This issue is
premised upon Pa.R.Crim.P. 646, “Material Permitted in Possession of the
Jury,” which provides, in pertinent part as follows:
(A) Upon retiring, the jury may take with it such exhibits as the
trial judge deems proper, except as provided in paragraph (C).
(B) The trial judge may permit the members of the jury to have
for use during deliberations written copies of the portion of the
judge’s charge on the elements of the offenses, lesser included
offenses, and any defense upon which the jury has been
instructed.
Pa.R.Crim.P. 646 (A) and (B).
Appellant next argues that the Commonwealth failed to present
sufficient evidence to support the conviction for second-degree murder.
Appellant’s Brief at 38–39. In reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, we
must determine whether the evidence admitted at trial and all reasonable
inferences drawn therefrom, viewed in the light most favorable to the
Commonwealth as verdict winner, were sufficient to prove every element of
the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Commonwealth v. Green, 203 A.3d
250, 253 (Pa. Super. 2019), appeal denied, 216 A.3d 1036, 54 WAL 2019 (Pa.
July 30, 2019). “[T]he facts and circumstances established by the
Commonwealth need not preclude every possibility of innocence.”
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Commonwealth v. Colon-Plaza, 136 A.3d 521, 525–526 (Pa. Super. 2016)
(quoting Commonwealth v. Robertson-Dewar, 829 A.2d 1207, 1211 (Pa.
Super. 2003)). It is within the province of the fact-finder to determine the
weight to be accorded to each witness’s testimony and to believe all, part, or
none of the evidence. Commonwealth v. Tejada, 107 A.3d 788, 792–793
(Pa. Super. 2015). The Commonwealth may sustain its burden of proving
every element of the crime by means of wholly circumstantial evidence.
Commonwealth v. Mucci, 143 A.3d 399, 409 (Pa. Super. 2016). Moreover,
as an appellate court, we may not re-weigh the evidence and substitute our
judgment for that of the fact-finder. Commonwealth v. Rogal, 120 A.3d
994 (Pa. Super. 2015).
Finally, Appellant contends the verdict was against the weight of the
evidence, a claim Appellant raised in his post-sentence motion. Appellant’s
Brief at 31–37, Post Sentence Motion, 5/31/19, at ¶ 3. The standard in
reviewing a weight-of-the-evidence claim is well settled:
Appellate review of a weight claim is a review of the exercise
of discretion, not of the underlying question of whether the verdict
is against the weight of the evidence. Because the trial judge has
had the opportunity to hear and see the evidence presented, an
appellate court will give the gravest consideration to the findings
and reasons advanced by the trial judge when reviewing a trial
court’s determination that the verdict is against the weight of the
evidence. One of the least assailable reasons for granting or
denying a new trial is the lower court’s conviction that the verdict
was or was not against the weight of the evidence and that a new
trial should be granted in the interest of justice.
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Commonwealth v. Clay, 64 A.3d 1049, 1055 (Pa. 2013) (emphasis and
citations omitted).
We have considered the arguments of the parties, the relevant law, and
the complete record. The trial court aptly addressed all of Appellant’s issues
at length and authored a cogent, thorough opinion. For this reason, we affirm
the judgment of sentence on the basis of the trial court’s December 31, 2019
Pa.R.A.P. 1925(a) opinion. In the event of future proceedings, the parties are
directed to attach a copy of the trial court’s opinion.
Judgment of sentence affirmed.
Judgment Entered.
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 12/4/20
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