Commonwealth v. Pruitt

162 A.3d 394

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee

v.Michael PRUITT, Appellant

No. 727 CAP

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

SUBMITTED: January 9, 2017

DECIDED: June 20, 2017

Michael David Dautrich, Esq., Dautrich and Dautrich, for Michael Pruitt, Appellant.

Jonathan H. Kurland, Esq., Berks County District Attorney's Office, Amy Zapp, Esq., Office of Attorney General, for Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Appellee.

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

OPINION

CHIEF JUSTICE SAYLOR

This is a capital post-conviction appeal.

On September 23, 2003, Appellant forcibly entered the Berks County home of Greta A. Gougler, where he robbed, raped, and murdered her. Appellant was arrested, tried, and convicted for first-degree murder, rape, robbery, and other offenses, and a jury returned a death verdict in a capital sentencing proceeding. On direct appeal, this Court affirmed. See Commonwealth v. Pruitt, 597 Pa. 307, 951 A.2d 307 (2008).

In 2009, Appellant commenced the present proceedings under the Post Conviction Relief Act, 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 9541 –9546 (the "PCRA"). The post-conviction court conducted a series of evidentiary hearings, throughout which Appellant was represented by the members of the Federal Community Defender Office. Later, per Appellant's request, those attorneys were removed from the representation and current counsel was appointed in their place.

In 2015, Appellant submitted a request to proceed pro se. The PCRA court scheduled a proceeding, at which Appellant agreed to continue to be represented by counsel but was deemed by the court to have "knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily abandon[ed] any issues raised by prior PCRA counsel and/or [current counsel] that are not contained in [a] memorandum in support of the PCRA relief petition filed this date[.]" N.T., Nov. 23, 2015, at 9–10.

The PCRA court subsequently denied relief on the remaining claims for relief. This appeal followed, in which Appellant advances six challenges, several of which fall within the category of the claims deemed to have been abandoned by the PCRA court.

Part I

Appellant's first three claims, pertaining to DNA evidence presented by the Commonwealth at trial, were found by the PCRA court to have been preserved. The relevant background is as follows.

At trial, the prosecution offered several primary lines of evidence to address Appellant's identity as the robber, rapist, and killer, as well as the actus reus of the rape. First, Appellant's confession to police was introduced, in which he admitted to having forcibly entered Ms. Gougler's home and inflicting physical violence upon her, albeit that he denied any intention to kill and maintained that he did not rape the victim. See N.T., Apr. 25, 2005, at 174–177. The Commonwealth also presented testimony from a witness to whom Appellant had confessed, extra-judicially, to having perpetrated the physical acts resulting in the victim's death. See N.T., Apr. 26, 2005, at 247–48 (testimony of Sean Peterson).

In a second category of evidence, a forensic pathologist testified that the victim had been beaten severely and subjected to ligature strangulation. See id. at 355–365. In terms of the rape, the pathologist explained that the victim suffered lacerations and other injuries to her vagina and anus consistent with nonconsensual penetration. See id. at 352–355, 364. Police officers also attested that the victim's body was naked when discovered. See, e.g., N.T., Apr. 25, 2005, at 22, 31.

In the third set of evidence, the Commonwealth sought to confirm the fact of the rape, and Appellant's identity as the rapist, through testimony establishing a match between Appellant's DNA and a sample of genetic material taken from the inner thigh of the victim's body. In this regard, crime-laboratory serologist Michael Brincat testified that this evidence sample contained both blood and sperm cells. See N.T., Apr. 26, 2005, at 290–291. Pennsylvania State Police ("PSP") forensic scientist Lisa Mihalacki then testified that she segregated the sample into male and female components and conducted DNA analysis. According to the witness: "Every genetic marker, every place that we checked from this sample and [Appellant's] were identical to each other," resulting in between a one in 1.5 billion and a one in 39 billion chance that another person might have contributed the sample (with the variation accounted for by racial differences within the population). Id. at 313–314.¹ On cross-examination, Appellant's lawyer initially pointed out that the DNA data reflected that there was more than one contributor to the portion of the evidence sample denominated as the male component. See id. at 316–320.² The remainder of the cross-examination focused on racial differences in the population samples and the handling of the evidence samples. See id. at 320–323.

In the post-conviction proceedings, Appellant contended that there were multiple flaws in the Commonwealth's DNA analysis and that his trial counsel were derelict in failing to apprehend and capitalize upon such deficiencies.³ In support, Appellant presented testimony from Randal T. Libby, PhD, a forensic geneticist. Dr. Libby testified that the "male" component of the evidence sample taken from the victim's thigh was of a low-template quality and, accordingly, generated a great deal of subjectivity in interpreting the testing result. See, e.g., N.T., Aug. 21, 2013, at 32–38, 59, 62, 64–65, 80.⁴

Indeed, it was Dr. Libby's opinion that the sample contained insufficient DNA to yield a reliable analysis. See id. at 51, 87. This, the geneticist explained, was reflected, inter alia, in the absence of any data whatsoever in Ms. Mihalacki's report pertaining to alleles at three loci for the male evidence sample. See id. at 54, 65–66. Additionally, Dr. Libby affirmed that this report itself indicated that results at five loci were "[i]nconclusive due to an insufficient amount of DNA." Id. at 62–63.

Dr. Libby also found the interpretive enterprise to have been further complicated by the obvious presence of multiple contributors (as was alluded to during cross-examination at trial). See id. at 47, 68–70; see also supra note 2. Moreover, he posited that the results of Ms. Mihalacki's analysis in fact suggested that Appellant should be excluded as a contributor to the evidence sample. See, e.g., N.T., Aug. 21, 2013, at 51, 54–55, 95. It was also the geneticist's opinion that there were too many inconsistencies in the data to justify the use of a statistical analysis to support the probability estimates that Ms. Mihalacki offered in her testimony. See id. at 94.⁵

In terms of Ms. Mihalacki's assertion at trial of a match at every genetic marker, Dr. Libby testified that such testimony was demonstrably false according to her own report. See id. at 73–75. Dr. Libby further attested that the conclusion that the male component of the evidence sample contained sperm was unverifiable, since sperm tails were undetectable upon microscopic examination. See id. at 75–79. Finally, Dr. Libby noted that data from Ms. Mihalacki's initial analysis of the evidence sample, which she apparently had discounted in favor of further testing, had resulted in an affirmative exclusion of Appellant as a possible contributor to the evidence sample. See id. at 133. In this regard, Dr. Libby suggested that Ms. Mihalacki's methodology conflicted with the scientific norm of reproducibility. See id. at 130–134.

Appellant also presented testimony from his lawyer primarily responsible for his representation at the guilt phase of trial. The attorney testified that he was not significantly concerned with the DNA evidence, because the Commonwealth already had adduced compelling physical evidence demonstrating the fact of rape via the testimony of a forensic pathologist, and moreover, "there was only [Appellant] in the room." N.T., Dec. 19, 2013, at 1201; see also id. at 1196 ("[A]ll the DNA did was identify, really identifying [Appellant] as the person who committed the rape. But, you know, the fact of the rape was there, though, and there was no evidence of anybody else being there, so I didn't think it added much."); id. at 1219. Counsel explained that he did not wish to draw undue attention to evidence that he considered unimportant. See id. at 1202.

Nevertheless, the lawyer affirmed that the Commonwealth's DNA evidence presented a strong indication of Appellant's culpability for rape. See id. at 1208. In spite of such materiality, counsel testified that he did not understand the data in Ms. Mihalacki's report and merely relied on her representation of a genetic match between the evidence sample and the sample taken from Appellant. See id. at 1207. With reference to the data reflected in the report, the attorney also indicated: "I don't imagine any lawyer would know how that got from A to B or what that means."Id. at 1208.

A. Failure to Investigate, Effectively Cross-examine, and Present an Expert

Presently, based on the above, Appellant contends that his counsel failed to conduct a professionally reasonable investigation and rendered deficient stewardship at trial. Appellant argues that, at a minimum, his trial counsel had an obligation to garner at least some rudimentary understanding of the evidence being used against him. He also takes the position that counsel should have consulted with and presented testimony from a defense expert. See Brief for Appellant at 16–17 (collecting cases). According to Appellant, trial counsel "essentially conducted the cross-examination of the Commonwealth's DNA expert on the fly." Id. at 15. In terms of the materiality of the DNA evidence and its prejudicial impact, Appellant couches it as the "sole forensic evidence linking [him] to the crime" and posits that it played a pivotal role at trial. Id. at 16. He concludes that there is a reasonable probability that the jury would have found reasonable doubt to exist had counsel investigated and challenged the Commonwealth's...