Summary
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court reviewed Kevin Edward Mattison’s direct appeal from a judgment of sentence of death following his conviction for first-degree murder, robbery, and burglary. The court rejected challenges concerning the sufficiency of the evidence, the spousal confidential communications privilege, voir dire and bifurcation of the guilt and penalty phases, and penalty-phase instructions and mitigation evidence, and affirmed the sentence.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the evidence was sufficient to support the first-degree murder conviction.
- Whether challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the robbery and burglary convictions were waived by failure to include them in the Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) statement.
- Whether the trial court violated Pennsylvania's spousal confidential communications privilege by admitting testimony concerning the wife's observations of Mattison's conduct.
- Whether the trial court improperly limited voir dire by precluding questions about Mattison's prior murder conviction.
- Whether the trial court erred by denying Mattison's request for separate juries for the guilt and penalty phases.
- Whether the penalty-phase instructions and verdict slip improperly failed to enumerate each item of nonstatutory mitigating evidence.
- Whether using the killing as a reason to depart from the sentencing guidelines for robbery and burglary violated the Double Jeopardy Clause.
- Whether the death sentence was supported by the evidence and was free from passion, prejudice, or other arbitrary factors.
Holdings
- The evidence was sufficient to support Mattison's first-degree murder conviction because the eyewitness testimony established that he intentionally shot the victim in the head at close range after obtaining drugs during the robbery.
- Mattison waived his challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the robbery and burglary convictions by failing to raise them in his Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) statement.
- The admission of the wife's testimony concerning her observations that Mattison returned without a shoe box and later returned wearing a different sweatshirt did not violate 42 Pa.C.S. § 5914.
- The trial court did not abuse its discretion by precluding voir dire questions about Mattison's prior murder conviction or by denying separate juries for the guilt and penalty phases.
- The trial court did not err by instructing the jury on the statutory catchall mitigating circumstance rather than separately enumerating every item of mitigation evidence on the instructions or verdict slip.
- The trial court's use of the killing as a reason for departing from the sentencing guidelines on the robbery and burglary convictions did not violate double jeopardy because the sentences did not exceed the statutory maximums and capital aggravating circumstances are not separate penalties or offenses.
- The death sentence was not the product of passion, prejudice, or another arbitrary factor, and the evidence supported the aggravating circumstances that Mattison committed the killing during a felony and had previously been convicted of another murder.
Key quotations
“although communication need not involve words, it must involve more than observation by one person of the conduct of another; it must involve the attribution of a message or meaning to that conduct.” (82 A.3d at 396)
“Rather than ensuring an impartial jury, permitting pretrial questioning of the potential jurors regarding Appellant’s 1995 murder conviction could have biased the jury against him” (82 A.3d at 397)
“By relying on federal case law prohibiting the restriction of mitigation evidence in a capital penalty proceeding, Appellant, like the defendants in King, misapprehends the distinction between allowing the jury to consider mitigating evidence and guiding its consideration.” (82 A.3d at 400)
Factual background
Mattison accompanied Kenney and Johnson to the victim's apartment after Kenney sought to confront her boyfriend. Mattison used a screwdriver to open the apartment door, entered with a gun, restrained the occupants, demanded and obtained marijuana, and then shot the victim in the head at close range while the victim was lying on the floor. The victim died seven days later, and an eyewitness identified Mattison in a photo array and later in a lineup. Mattison had previously pleaded guilty in Maryland to second-degree murder.
Procedural history
Mattison was convicted of first-degree murder and related offenses in the York County Court of Common Pleas. The jury imposed a death sentence based on two aggravating circumstances, and the trial court imposed consecutive prison terms for the robbery and burglary convictions. Mattison filed a timely statement of matters complained of on appeal and raised challenges concerning sufficiency of the evidence, spousal confidential communications, voir dire, bifurcation of the guilt and penalty phases, mitigation instructions and the verdict slip, double jeopardy, and the sentences for robbery and burglary. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania rejected the claims, performed the required statutory review of the death sentence, and affirmed.