Commonwealth v. Stiles, 1546 EDA 2015

143 A.3d 968

2016 PA Super 155

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee

v.Rafik STILES, Appellant.

No. 1546 EDA 2015

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Submitted June 20, 2016.

Filed July 19, 2016.

Gary S. Server, Philadelphia, for appellant.

Hugh J. Burns, Jr., Assistant District Attorney, and Anya K.R. Rosin, Assistant District Attorney, Philadelphia, for Commonwealth, appellee.

BEFORE: LAZARUS, J., DUBOW, J., and STEVENS, P.J.E.^*

OPINION BY STEVENS, P.J.E.:

Appellant Rafik Stiles appeals from the judgment of sentence of an aggregate term of forty (40) years to life imprisonment entered in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County on April 28, 2015, following a jury trial and his convictions of two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of violation of the uniform firearms act (VUFA).¹ Upon our review of the record, we affirm.

The trial court detailed the relevant facts herein as follows:

FACTS

Murder of Kyle Featherstone, CP–51–CR–0001997–2013

[Appellant] Rafik (“Hooter”) Stiles was convicted of first degree murder for the shooting death of Kyle Featherstone [Featherstone] (age 16), which occurred just before midnight on July 4, 2010, near the 3400 block of Spring Garden Street in Philadelphia.

Katrina Session [Session] gave a statement to detectives on July 23, 2010, wherein she stated that she was present when her [Appellant] brother shot and killed Featherstone. N.T. 10/17/14 at pp. 66–67. She denied giving the statement at trial.

Session stated in that statement that she went to see the 4th of July fireworks at the Art Museum with [Appellant], their brother Randall Stiles, and some friends. After the fireworks, Session was holding onto her friend “Reek's” arm. Id. at pp. 67–68. A boy whom she did not know walked up to her and grabbed her by the other arm. The boy said to Reek, “[W]hy are you gritting on me? ... [.] [Y]ou don't know who I'm down here with ...” The boy let go of Session's arm and went across the street to his group of his friends on the corner of 31st and Spring Garden Street. Id. at pp. 70–74.

Session and Reek separated. Reek walked across 31st Street on Spring Garden. Session stated that once Reek passed the boy and his friends, they started running after Reek. Session stated: “They were running on Spring Garden Street towards 33rd Street. That's when I heard the gunshots and everyone started running and that's when I saw my brother, ‘Hooter’ shooting into the crowd. After the shooting, ‘Hooter’ ran towards 34th Street.” Id. at pp. 74–75. She heard approximately two to three gunshots. Id. at pp. 76–77.

Lonnie Burton testified that Featherstone and he were walking with a group of boys near 31st and Spring Garden Street after the fireworks on July 4, 2010. One of the boys they were with, whose name Burton did not know, “spoke to somebody's girl” and talk of a fistfight spread through their group of friends. N.T. 10/20/14 at pp. 2–15. Burton testified that he did not know who they were going to fistfight or if it was more than one person. Id. at pp. 16–17. Burton, Featherstone, and four or five guys they were with ran approximately three blocks toward the location where they were going to fight when “somebody started shooting.” Id. at pp. 7, 16–17. Burton was shot in his hand. Id. at p. 3. He walked approximately ten feet, turned around, and saw Featherstone lying in between two cars. Id. at pp. 8–9.

Joachim Fundenberg testified that he was walking and talking to females between 34th and 35th Street on Spring Garden when he heard approximately four gunshots. N.T. 10/20/14 at pp. 119–21. He turned to run and was shot in the left shoulder. Id at pp. 122. Fundenberg testified that he was with Parrish Grantham [Grantham] at the fireworks, and that he did not know Kyle Featherstone or Lonnie Burton. Id. at p. 125.

Based on the testimony of Officer Daniel McGee and Officer Kyle Cross, the Court determined that Parrish Grantham was unavailable for court. Grantham's testimony from the preliminary hearing was read into the record at trial. N.T. 10/22/14 at pp. 58–72.

Grantham gave a statement to detectives on July 8, 2010, wherein he stated that he was present on July 4, 2010, when Featherstone was shot and killed. N.T. 10/22/14 at p. 95. Grantham stated that his friend Kyle (not the decedent in this case) started talking to some girl who was with her boyfriend. Id. at p. 95. The girl's boyfriend was “gritting” on Kyle, so Grantham started telling his friends, including Featherstone, that there may be a fight. Grantham, Featherstone, and Kyle walked towards the boyfriend, “another guy” and their group of friends. Grantham stated:

“The other guy saw us and he pulled out a gun. I just seen it in his hand and he started shooting into our crowd. I ran towards 33rd Street and I stopped at 34th Street and I was hearing somebody got shot and I went back and I saw that it was Kyle [Featherstone].”

Id. at p. 96. Grantham stated that he saw Lonnie Burton had also been shot. Id. at p. 87. He knew Joachim (“Man–Man”) Fundenberg was there, but he did not see whether or not Fundenberg was injured that night. Id. at p. 89. Grantham described the shooter as approximately “6 foot, light skinned, thin build, a dark shirt and a tan bucket hat, between 20 and 18. He had no hair on his face.” Id. at pp. 97–98.

Grantham identified [Appellant] as the shooter in a photo array during his second statement taken more than two years after the shooting on October 10, 2012. He stated that he did not identify [Appellant] when detectives showed him photographs on a prior occasion because he “didn't want to get involved” or “labeled a snitch.” Id. at pp. 101, 106–07, 111. However, Grantham again changed his story, testifying at the preliminary hearing that he never identified [Appellant] as the shooter and that he did not know who shot Featherstone. Id.

Zachary Neugent [Neugent] testified that [Appellant] and he were in placement together at the New Castle Youth Detention Center for approximately three months in 2010. [Appellant] and Neugent became close friends because they were from the same neighborhood and Neugent knew [Appellant's] brother. N.T. 10/22/14 at pp. 4–7, 10–11.

Neugent gave a statement to homicide detectives on August 9, 2011. He stated that during those three months at New Castle YDC, [Appellant] told him “about the 4th of July shooting and right after that, he told [him] about another shooting he did where he killed a lady.” Id. at p. 12. Neugent stated:

“He [Appellant] said that some words were exchanged between his sister with some guy, then the victim [Featherstone] put up his hands and was ready to fight and Rafik told me that he pulled out his gun and just started shooting that guy. He was telling me that he got away by jumping in a rented Charger and that he was wearing a Gucci bucket hat ... He said he shot the guy that had put up his hands. It wasn't the same person who had words with his sister.”

Id. at pp. 15–16. [Appellant] told Neugent he shot Featherstone with a revolver. Id. at p. 20.

Officer Keya Mason testified that she responded to a radio call reporting gunshots and a male down at 34th and Spring Garden Street just before midnight on July 4, 2010. N.T. 10/17/14 at pp. 48–50. When she arrived, responders were doing CPR on a young male lying on the sidewalk struggling to breathe. Id. at pp. 49–53 Dr. Albert Chu, Assistant Medical Examiner, testified that Featherstone was pronounced [dead] at 10:02 p.m. on July 5, 2010. N.T. 10/21/14 at p. 64. Featherstone had three perforating gunshot wounds : (1) one to the back of his head, which went into the left cerebellar hemisphere and the upper cerebral spinal cord near the brainstem and exited on his right check; (2) one to the left side of his back near his waistline, which went into his colon, stomach, and liver, and then exited on the front of his abdomen; and (3) one to his right forearm. Id. at pp. 64–67. The cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds and the manner of death was homicide. Id. at p. 67.

William Whitehouse of the Crime Scene Unit testified that he collected three bullet specimens at 34th and Spring Garden Street on July 4, 2010. N.T. 10/20/14 at pp. 131–34.

Officer Kelly Walker of the Firearms Identification Unit testified that all three bullet specimens were fired from the same firearm. N.T. 10/21/14 at pp. 86. Officer Walker testified that based on the series of lands and grooves, the bullet specimen recovered from the left breast of Barbara Crowder (see below) was fired from the same firearm as the three bullet specimens recovered from Featherstone's crime scene. Id. at pp. 86–87. All four projectiles were identified as caliber .38 Special/.357 magnum. Id. at p. 91.

Murder of Barbara Crowder, CP–51–CR–0005681–2013

Six days after he killed Featherstone, [Appellant] shot and killed Barbara Crowder [Crowder] (age 41) at approximately 2:30 a.m. on July 10, 2010, in front of 600 North 53rd Street.

Sapphia (“Brittany”) Pressley gave a statement to detectives on December 17, 2012, wherein she stated that she dated [Appellant] on-and-off for approximately three years. She denied giving the statement at trial. N.T. 10/21/14 at p. 3–4. Pressley conveyed to homicide detectives that she did not know Crowder, but that she was present when Crowder was shot and killed. Id. at p. 13. She stated:

“I was on my friend's porch. She lives on 53rd Street. Rafik was out there with some of his friends. I don't know what happened. I just heard shots and I looked down the street and Rafik was shooting someone. I couldn't tell who at that time. I saw the person laying [sic] on the ground after Rafik shot them and an old guy came running up to the person on the ground and started screaming for help. I ran in the house and was yelling they [sic] shooting. They shooting. I found out later the person that Rafik had shot was a woman.”

Id. at pp. 13–14. Pressley stated that [Appellant] told her that he shot Crowder “because she owed him something,” but he did not state what that

...