Commonwealth v. Baker-Myers

255 A.3d 223

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellant

v.James Duane BAKER-MYERS, Appellee

No. 54 WAP 2019

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued: September 17, 2020

Decided: July 21, 2021

Peter Rosalsky, Esq., Defender Association of Philadelphia, for Amicus Curiae Defender Association of Phila.

Jacob Charles Sander, Esq., Mercer County District Attorney's Office, for Appellant.

Douglas Eric Straub, Esq., Mercer County Public Defender's Office, for Appellee.

BAER, C.J., SAYLOR, TODD, DONOHUE, DOUGHERTY, WECHT, MUNDY, JJ.

OPINION

JUSTICE DOUGHERTY

In 2010, the legislature amended the corruption of minors statute, 18 Pa.C.S. § 6301, to include new subsection (a)(1)(ii), which provides for additional penalties when the act or acts that corrupt the morals of a minor are sexual offenses. The subsection provides: "Whoever, being of the age of 18 years and upwards, by any course of conduct in violation of Chapter 31 (relating to sexual offenses) corrupts or tends to corrupt the morals of any minor less than 18 years of age, or who aids, abets, entices or encourages any such minor in the commission of an offense under Chapter 31 commits a felony of the third degree." 18 Pa.C.S. § 6301(a)(1)(ii). We granted discretionary review in this case to consider whether the Superior Court properly determined the language "in violation of Chapter 31" is an essential element of an offense under the statute. Upon review, we agree with the Superior Court's assessment. And, because appellee James Baker-Myers was acquitted of all Chapter 31 sexual offenses charged in the indictment and submitted to the jury, we further agree that, under these circumstances, appellee's conviction for corruption of minors, graded as a third-degree felony, cannot stand. We therefore affirm in all respects.

I.

In the early morning hours of July 19, 2015, appellee, who was then 20 years old, attempted to contact the 17-year-old victim by calling her phone nearly a dozen times. The victim, who had been friends with appellee for several years but had not seen him in weeks, missed his calls because she was sleeping. When she texted him back that afternoon, appellee stated he needed to talk with her in person. The two exchanged several messages before appellee twice called the victim around 9:00 p.m. and stated he was outside her house. The victim greeted him at the end of her driveway before agreeing to take a ride with him on his dirt bike.

Appellee first drove the pair to some baseball fields located a few blocks from the victim's house. Once there, appellee instructed the victim to leave her phone, explaining he wanted their conversation "to be private and no one to listen into it." N.T. Trial, 4/12/2016 at 31. The victim complied and they then continued to drive to another location along some railroad tracks. When they arrived, the victim removed a button-up shirt that was covering a swimsuit top as the shirt had become soaked in mud during the ride. Afterwards, the victim and appellee talked for approximately twenty minutes.

At some point during the conversation, according to the victim, appellee "started to get really touchy." Id . at 39. The victim responded by telling appellee she did not feel that way about him and that she was seeing someone else. Undeterred, appellee began to touch the victim's breasts before undoing part of her bathing suit top from behind. While the victim attempted to retie the part appellee had undone, he undid the other part, removed the bathing suit top entirely, and tossed it into a nearby bush. The victim reiterated that she did not have feelings for appellee and attempted to retrieve her bathing suit top from the bushes, but appellee picked her up and carried her approximately ten feet further down the tracks, where he laid her on the grass.

The victim alleged that appellee proceeded to get on top of her, using his body weight to pin her arms behind her back. He then removed her belt and started to undo her pants. The victim again stressed she "didn't want to do this[,]" but appellee continued to remove her pants and threw them to the side. Id . at 45. Then, while still restraining her arms behind her back, appellee digitally penetrated the victim's vagina. Appellee next began to disrobe. When he stood up to remove his pants, releasing the victim from his grip, the victim attempted to get away from him and collect her clothing because she "didn't want to have sex with him." Id . at 47. However, after removing his pants, appellee grabbed the victim and placed her back on the ground, with his own body on top of her. Despite the victim's pleas that she "really didn't want to do this[,]" appellee proceeded to have vaginal intercourse with her. Id . at 48. Over the course of approximately ten minutes, the victim tried to push appellee off her while repeatedly telling him to stop, but he persisted, stating that she "probably liked him." Id . at 49. After the encounter, both appellee and the victim got dressed and returned to the baseball fields to collect their phones before appellee took the victim home.¹

The Commonwealth subsequently charged appellee with rape, sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault, and indecent assault (the sexual offenses).² He was also charged with corruption of minors, graded as a third-degree felony.³ In describing this charge, the criminal information averred as follows:

Count 4: Corruption of Minors

The District Attorney of Mercer County, Pennsylvania, by this Information presents that on (or about) July 19, 2015

defendant, above named, being of the age of 18 years and upwards by any course of conduct related to sexual offenses corrupted or tended to corrupt the morals of a minor less than 18 years of age, or did aid, abet, entice or encourage any such minor in the commission of an offense under Chapter 31, in that defendant did engage in sexual intercourse with a seventeen (17) year old female victim, said incident occurring along an abandoned railroad grade in the Borough of Stoneboro, Mercer County, Pennsylvania,

in violation of 18 Pa.C.S.A [§]6301(a)(1)(ii)[.]

Criminal Information, 11/2/2015 at 2 (emphasis in original).

The case proceeded to a two-day jury trial. At the conclusion of the evidence, the trial court charged the jury on the sexual offenses and on corruption of minors. Following its initial charge on corruption of minors, the court conferred with the parties before giving the following amended instruction:

The attorneys have asked me to clarify a couple of my instructions. ... I'm going to read specifically the charge for corruption of minors one more time. Whoever being of the age of 18 and upwards by any course of conduct in violation of Chapter 31, relating to the other sexual offenses being rape, sexual assault, indecent assault, corrupts or tends to corrupt the morals of any minor of less than 18 years of age or aids, abets, entices or encourages any such minor in the commission of an offense under Chapter 31, again the sexual offenses[,] commits a felony of the third degree.

N.T. Trial, 4/13/2016 at 147-48 (emphasis added).⁴ Twice after the jurors retired to deliberate, they returned with questions concerning the corruption of minors charge. See N.T. Deliberations, 4/13/2016 at 2, 8. In response, the trial court reiterated, in substantial part, the instruction detailed above. See id . at 4, 8-9. The court also opined: "I don't think it's the age that is the sticking point here. I think it is the course of conduct in violation of Chapter 31 relating to sexual offenses." Id . at 9.

Ultimately, the jury returned a verdict of guilty of corruption of minors and not guilty of the charged sexual offenses. The trial court later imposed a sentence of one to two years’ imprisonment and a consecutive term of three years’ probation. Additionally, appellee's conviction for corruption of minors classified him as a Tier I sexual offender, thereby requiring him to comply with the fifteen-year registration and reporting requirements of the Sexual Offender Registration and Notification Act.⁵ Appellee did not file post-sentence motions, but he did file a timely appeal.

On May 21, 2019, a sharply divided panel of the Superior Court sitting en banc affirmed in part and vacated in part appellee's judgment of sentence, and remanded the case for resentencing. Commonwealth v. Baker-Myers , 210 A.3d 1093, 1096 (Pa. Super. 2019) (en banc ).⁶ The majority opinion, authored by Judge Alice Beck Dubow and joined by four other jurists, concluded it was "constrained to agree" with appellee "that the Commonwealth failed to prove an essential element of" corruption of minors under subsection (a)(1)(ii). Id . at 1094. The majority explained:

[I]n the instant case, the Commonwealth charged and prosecuted [appellee] for [corruption of minors graded as a third-degree felony] and the Sexual Offenses, but failed to obtain a conviction on any of the Sexual Offenses. By acquitting [appellee] of the Chapter 31 Sexual Offenses, the jury found that the Commonwealth had failed to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that [appellee] acted ‘in violation of Chapter 31.’ Thus, because the jury found that [appellee] had not acted ‘in violation of Chapter 31,’ an essential element of [corruption of minors graded as a third-degree felony], the Commonwealth was unable to establish every element of [the crime].

Id . at 1096. In reaching its conclusion, the majority acknowledged it had uncovered no authority directly on point. See id . Still, it resolved that our decision in Commonwealth v. Magliocco , 584 Pa. 244, 883 A.2d 479 (2005), guided its analysis. Although we discuss the circumstances of Magliocco in much greater detail below, for present purposes it is enough to note we held that where a jury "specifically found that Magliocco did not commit the offense of terroristic threats, [his] conviction for ethnic intimidation, which requires as an element the commission beyond a reasonable doubt of the underlying offense," was infirm. Id . at 493....