Commonwealth v. Thomas

215 A.3d 36

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee

v.Leeton Jahwanza THOMAS, Appellant

No. 760 CAP

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued: December 4, 2018

Decided: August 20, 2019

OPINION

JUSTICE DOUGHERTY

Following a jury trial, appellant Leeton Jahwanza Thomas (a.k.a. "Pie" Thomas) was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder for the stabbing deaths of Lisa Scheetz and her minor daughter, H.S., one count of attempted murder for stabbing P.S., another minor daughter of Ms. Scheetz, and one count of burglary.^{1 ,2} After finding a number of aggravating and mitigating circumstances and determining the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances, the jury returned two verdicts of death. The trial court formally imposed two death sentences, plus a sentence of 20 to 40 years' imprisonment for attempted murder and 3 to 6 years' imprisonment for burglary. This direct appeal followed³ and for the reasons expressed herein, we affirm the judgment of sentence.

I. Sufficiency of the Evidence

As appellant has been sentenced to death, we must independently review the record to determine whether the Commonwealth presented sufficient evidence to sustain the convictions of first-degree murder. Commonwealth v. Hicks , 638 Pa. 444, 156 A.3d 1114, 1123 (2017) ("in all capital direct appeals, this Court conducts an independent review of the sufficiency of the evidence supporting a first-degree murder conviction, even if the defendant does not raise the claim"), citing Commonwealth v. Zettlemoyer , 500 Pa. 16, 454 A.2d 937, 942 n.3 (1982). In conducting our review, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth as the verdict winner in order to determine whether the jury could have found every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Id.

To convict a defendant of first-degree murder, the Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant unlawfully killed another human being, the defendant acted with the specific intent to kill, and the killing was willful, deliberate, and premeditated. Commonwealth v. Dowling , 584 Pa. 396, 883 A.2d 570, 573 (2005), citing Commonwealth v. Spotz , 552 Pa. 499, 716 A.2d 580, 583 (1998) ; 18 Pa.C.S. § 2502(a). The specific intent to kill may be inferred from the defendant's use of a weapon on a vital part of the victim's body. Hicks , 156 A.3d at 1124. Furthermore, the Commonwealth may sustain its burden by wholly circumstantial evidence and the jury is free to believe all, part, or none of the evidence. Id. at 1123, citing Commonwealth v. Cousar , 593 Pa. 204, 928 A.2d 1025, 1032-33 (2007).

Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, the record establishes appellant was acquainted with the victims for many years as their neighbor in a rural area of Lancaster County.⁴ On April 15, 2015, following an investigation prompted by Ms. Scheetz's allegations that appellant had sexually assaulted H.S. and S.S., officers of the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) arrested appellant and charged him with a number of sexual offenses. Appellant, who was born in Jamaica, but is a permanent United States resident holding a green card, was released on bail, and his formal arraignment in the Lancaster County Court of Common Pleas was scheduled for June 26, 2015.⁵

In the early morning hours of June 11, 2015, Mr. and Mrs. Hershey heard terrified screaming emanating from the basement apartment. They opened the door connecting their home to the basement apartment, and found P.S. on the stairs covered with blood. Mr. and Mrs. Hershey pulled P.S. up the stairs into their home, locked their doors, and called 911. P.S., who suffers from cerebral palsy and has a below-average I.Q., told Mr. and Mrs. Hershey, who also knew appellant, that "Pie" had attacked her. When police and EMT personnel arrived, P.S. repeated several times that "Pie did this[.]"⁶ N.T. Trial, 6/7/17 at 162. P.S. had been stabbed 10 times.

Police and EMT personnel entered the basement apartment to discover Ms. Scheetz and H.S. dead from numerous stab wounds and it appeared the intruder gained entry to the apartment by cutting a window screen. Autopsies revealed Ms. Scheetz suffered 12 stab wounds to her chest and abdomen that penetrated her heart, lungs and spleen, and H.S. suffered six stab wounds to her face, neck, and shoulder. One of the stab wounds to the neck of H.S. was "through-and-through," meaning the knife entered the right side of the neck and exited the left side of the neck. N.T. Trial, 6/12/17 at 702.

Police immediately proceeded to appellant's residence and drove past it, noticing an upstairs light was on. After turning the cruiser around and positioning themselves, police put spotlights on the house and, using a loudspeaker, told appellant to come outside. Additional lights within the house came on, and appellant's wife appeared at the front door where police told her they needed to talk to appellant. Appellant thereafter arrived at the door in bare feet, wearing only a bathrobe with no underclothing. While securing the residence, which also housed appellant's children and mother, the police noticed a bathroom on the second floor had a wet floor, wet tub, wet wash cloth and a towel on the floor, as if someone had very recently showered. The light in the second-floor bathroom corresponded to the location of the light within the house seen by the police during their initial drive by. The police arrested appellant and later that morning secured a search warrant for the premises.

During the search, Trooper John Connelly entered a laundry room that held a washer and dryer. Trooper Connelly opened the washer, noted a strong odor of bleach, and saw the washer half-full of reddish-brown water that contained submerged items of clothing. Next to the washer was an empty bottle of Clorox bleach. The items of clothing recovered from the washer included a pair of appellant's sneakers. The items were sent to a crime laboratory for forensic testing, where a human blood stain was discovered on a protected area of stitching on the left sneaker. Subsequent testing of that blood sample revealed a DNA match to H.S.

PSP investigators contacted Red Rose K-9, a bloodhound search and rescue organization, to attempt to track a path of the person who may have entered the basement apartment through the screen. Red Rose K-9 personnel arrived at the scene approximately 8 hours after the crimes were committed, retrieved a scent from the screen and delivered the scent to two bloodhounds. The first bloodhound, K-9 Ruben, tracked the scent from the screen directly to the patio of appellant's residence on Conowingo Road. Thereafter, a second bloodhound, K-9 Heather, also tracked the scent from the screen directly to appellant's patio. Additionally, PSP personnel subsequently found and removed several pairs of latex gloves and a camouflage cloth from the toilet drain in the second-floor bathroom.

Prior to trial, appellant filed a motion requesting a hearing to determine whether P.S. was competent to testify at trial and seeking related discovery, and a supplemental motion requesting P.S. be evaluated by an expert. See Motion For Competency Hearing And Related Discovery, 3/6/17; Supplemental Motion for Competency Evaluation, 5/17/17.⁷ The court denied the motions, but conducted a colloquy of P.S. outside the presence of the jury and permitted the parties to question her as well. Thereafter, the court determined she was competent to testify.⁸ During her subsequent testimony, P.S., among other things, identified appellant — as "Leeton" and "Pie," and by pointing at him — as the person who repeatedly stabbed her as well as her mother and sister on the night in question. She remembered the specific date because it had been her last day of school and her sister S.S. was not home, but was "at the beach[.]" N.T. Trial, 6/8/17 at 269. She recognized Pie because she had known him practically her entire life.⁹ Based on the record, it is clear the evidence was sufficient to sustain the verdicts of guilty as to two counts of murder in the first-degree.

II. Competency

Appellant's first two issues on appeal are related and his first issue has two components. He first claims the trial court erred and abused its discretion by (a) denying his initial pre-trial motion requesting a competency hearing and related discovery with respect to P.S.'s alleged intellectual and developmental limitations because they may affect her competency to testify, and (b) denying his supplemental motion requesting a competency evaluation to be conducted by an expert obtained by the defense after appellant reviewed P.S.'s educational records which indicated she had a full-scale I.Q. of 46. In his second issue, appellant claims the competency colloquy conducted by the trial court outside the presence of the jury was inadequate to establish P.S.'s competency to testify because "the court did not focus any of its inquiry on P.S.'s ability to perceive an event, recall the event, or communicate about it intelligently, or on her ability to understand the duty to tell the truth under oath." Appellant's Brief at 33.

A. Pre-trial requests for hearing and expert examination

The gravamen of appellant's first issue is the assertion a pre-trial competency hearing was "required" for the trial court to determine whether an expert's evaluation of P.S. was necessary to assist the court in determining whether she was competent to testify at trial. See Appellant's Brief at 24-28. Appellant alleges such a hearing was necessary and required because P.S. is "significantly mentally disabled, with a full scale I.Q. of only 46." Id. at 24. Thus, appellant insists the trial court erred in denying his pre-trial requests for a competency hearing, related discovery, and evaluation by an expert. Appellant cites to three cases that purportedly support his claim. See Appellant's Brief at 27, citing Commonwealth v. Koehler , 558 Pa. 334, 737 A.2d 225, 239 (199...