Commonwealth v. Baldwin

158 A.3d 1287

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania

v.Danielle BALDWIN, Appellant

No. 2719 EDA 2015

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Submitted November 14, 2016

Filed April 10, 2017

Richard T. Brown, Jr., Philadelphia, for appellant.

Hugh J. Burns, Jr., Assistant District Attorney, Philadelphia, for Commonwealth, appellee.

BEFORE: SHOGAN, MOULTON, and FITZGERALD,^* JJ.

OPINION BY FITZGERALD, J.:

Appellant, Danielle Baldwin, appeals from the order of the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas reversing the judgment of acquittal entered in the Philadelphia Municipal Court and remanding the case to the Municipal Court for a new trial. Appellant contends that double jeopardy prohibits a new trial. We affirm.

On the evening of October 16, 2014, Appellant allegedly pointed a gun at her neighbor, Jamia Williams. Williams contacted the police, who arrested Appellant, searched her residence and recovered a firearm. Williams was arrested and charged with possession of an instrument of crime,¹ prohibited offensive weapons,² simple assault,³ reckless endangerment⁴ and terroristic threats.⁵

Appellant filed a motion in the Municipal Court to suppress the firearm. On February 11, 2015, following an evidentiary hearing, the Municipal Court granted the motion to suppress. The court determined that Appellant consented to the search of her residence following her arrest, but her consent was involuntary because the arresting officers failed to give her Miranda⁶ warnings. N.T., 2/11/15, at 23.

Trial commenced immediately after the suppression ruling. Before testimony began, the court stated: "Everyone understands the consent is illegal and the fruits are thrown out .... All witnesses are sequestered. If anyone needs to talk to their witnesses because [of] what just happened in the motion, I will suspend [the] sequestration order for a [minute] while any witness is spoken to." Id. at 24.

Williams, the Commonwealth's first trial witness, testified that in the early evening of October 16, 2014, she was standing outside of her house on the street, while Appellant was standing in her house across the street in front of an open window. Id. at 25–27. Williams and Appellant were arguing about the recent arrest of Williams' baby's father. Id. at 25–26. During the argument, Appellant disappeared from her window but returned moments later and pointed a gun at Williams. Id. at 28.⁷

Defense counsel objected to Williams' testimony about the gun and moved for a mistrial. Id. at 28–29. The court sustained defense counsel's objection and granted a mistrial. Id. at 29–30. Defense counsel then requested a "judgment of acquittal" based on "prosecutorial misconduct." Id. at 30. The court responded: "The motion is granted and a mistrial is granted. Jeopardy has attached, and so at this point ... this case is done. The motion for judgment of acquittal is granted." Id. at 33.

The Commonwealth appealed the judgment of acquittal to the Court of Common Pleas on March 13, 2015. On August 3, 2015, the Court of Common Pleas entered an order reversing the judgment of acquittal and remanding the case to the Municipal Court for trial. The Court of Common Pleas determined that Appellant's double jeopardy rights were not violated, because the Municipal Court's ruling "did not constitute an acquittal[,] nor was there prosecutorial misconduct." Pa.R.A.P. 1925 Op., 3/9/16, at 5.

Appellant timely appealed to this Court on September 2, 2015. Both Appellant and the Court of Common Pleas complied with Pa.R.A.P. 1925.

Appellant raises four issues in this appeal:

1. Double jeopardy prohibits a new trial in this case; the [C]ommon [P]leas [C]ourt erred in allowing the [C]ommonwealth to appeal from a judgment of acquittal because the government is categorically prohibited from appealing judgments of acquittal, even if the lower trial court was egregiously wrong to enter the judgment of acquittal.

2. In the alternative event that there are any circumstances under which a government can so appeal, the judgment of acquittal here was entered by the trial judge and is unappealable.

3. In the alternative event that the appellate courts do not so hold, [the] [C]ommon [P]leas [Court] erred here (and [the M]unicipal [C]ourt ruled correctly, and retrial is prohibited no matter how the [M]unicipal [C]ourt judgment is described) because double jeopardy prohibits retrial after a mistrial caused by prosecutorial misconduct: following the suppression ruling, the [C]ommonwealth intentionally elicited testimony about the gun that the [M]unicipal [C]ourt had suppressed.

4. In the alternative event that the appellate courts do not so hold, [the C]ommon [P]leas [Court] erred here (and [the M]unicipal [C]ourt ruled correctly, and retrial is prohibited no matter how the [M]unicipal [C]ourt judgment is described) because double jeopardy prohibits retrial after a mistrial caused by prosecutorial misconduct: even if the [M]unicipal [C]ourt judge erred in her understanding of the scope of suppression rulings, once she ordered the [C]ommonwealth to inform all of its witnesses about the suppression ruling, and warned the [C]ommonwealth that jeopardy was about to attach, the [C]ommonwealth was bound by her rulings (even if erroneous) absent a pre–trial appeal. Because the [C]ommonwealth could have appealed her orders, and because her warnings about jeopardy attaching made sense only if she were warning against prosecutorial misconduct, and because her inclusion of all witnesses (including civilians) could only have anticipated the non-police testimony the [C]ommonwealth thinks is not normally covered by suppression rulings, the [C]ommonwealth's choice not to warn the civilian witness—and the [C]ommonwealth's eliciting of prohibited testimony (even if erroneously prohibited) was an intentional act by the [C]ommonwealth in violation of the [M]unicipal [C]ourt order, was prosecutorial misconduct causing the mistrial, and therefore [was] prohibited[,] placing the defendant again in jeopardy.

Appellant's Brief at 2–3.

We address the first two issues together, because they are interrelated. Appellant asserts that double jeopardy prohibits the Commonwealth from appealing the judgment of acquittal entered by the Municipal Court. We disagree. Appellant's argument rests on the premise that the Municipal Court entered a judgment of acquittal. We disagree and conclude that the Municipal Court declared a mistrial instead of entering a judgment of acquittal.

"[T]he question of whether a defendant's constitutional right against double jeopardy [would be infringed by a successive prosecution] is a question of law. Hence, [when reviewing this issue,] our scope of review is plenary and our standard of review is de novo. " Commonwealth v. Hallman , 67 A.3d 1256, 1260 (Pa. Super. 2013) (citation omitted).

Under the Double Jeopardy Clauses of the United States and Pennsylvania Constitutions, as well as under the Pennsylvania Crimes Code, a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal is prohibited. See U.S. Const. Amend. V ; Pa. Const. Art. I, § 10 ; 18 Pa.C.S. § 109(1). This rule is confined to cases where the prosecution's failure to meet its burden is clear, and a second trial would merely afford the prosecution another opportunity to supply evidence that it failed to submit during the first trial. SeeCommonwealth v. Vogel , 501 Pa. 314, 461 A.2d 604, 610 (1983) (citing Burks v. United States , 437 U.S. 1, 17, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 57 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978) ). "This prohibition ... prevents the State from honing its trial strategies and perfecting its evidence through successive attempts at conviction. Repeated prosecutorial sallies would unfairly burden the defendant and create a risk of conviction through sheer governmental perseverance." Id. (citing, inter alia , Green v. United States , 355 U.S. 184, 187–88, 78 S.Ct. 221, 2 L.Ed.2d 199 (1957) ).

Double jeopardy bars an appeal by the Commonwealth from an acquittal, whether based on a verdict of not guilty or a ruling by the court that the evidence was insufficient to convict. SeeCommonwealth v. Maurizio , 496 Pa. 584, 437 A.2d 1195, 1196 (1981) ; see alsoUnited States v. Scott , 437 U.S. 82, 91, 98 S.Ct. 2187, 57 L.Ed.2d 65 (1978).

Importantly, "the form of the judge's action is not controlling." Commonwealth v. McDonough , 533 Pa. 283, 621 A.2d 569, 573 (1993) (citations omitted). A defendant is "acquitted" only when the "ruling of the judge, whatever its label, actually represents a resolution [in the defendant's favor], correct or not , of some or all of the factual elements of the offense charged ." Id. (citation omitted).

Here, the Court of Common Pleas correctly reasoned that the Municipal Court entered a mistrial instead of a "judgment of acquittal:"

It could not be clearer that [the Municipal Court's] ruling in the instant matter did not involve a resolution of the facts. Indeed, the first witness had only just begun testifying when the judgment of acquittal was declared. Instead, [the Court's] ruling was in response to what [it] perceived as a violation of [its] suppression order. This situation had nothing to do with culpability or factual elements of the offense charged, the touchstone of acquittal determinations.

Pa.R.A.P. 1925(a) Op. at 4 (citations omitted). Therefore, we conclude that the Commonwealth had the right to appeal the Municipal Court's decision to the Court of Common Pleas.

We next address Appellant's third and fourth issues together. Appellant argues that even if the Municipal Court entered a mistrial, double jeopardy prohibits a new trial because the mistrial was the result of prosecutorial misconduct. We disagree.

Pa.R.Crim.P. 605 provides in pertinent part: "When an event prejudicial to the defendant occurs during trial only the defendant may move for a mistrial; the motion shall be made when the event is disclosed." Pa.R.Crim.P. 605(B). Our standard of review of an order granting a mistrial is as follows:

In criminal trials, declaration of a mistrial serves to

...