Com. v. Chapman (memorandum)
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J-S77043-12 NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37 COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA Appellee v. RONALD CHAPMAN, Appellant No. 1513 EDA 2012 Appeal from the PCRA Order May 1, 2012 In the Court of Common Pleas of Bucks County Criminal Division at No.: CP-09-CR-0004286-2008 BEFORE: MUSMANNO, J., WECHT, J., and PLATT, J.* MEMORANDUM BY PLATT, J. Appellant, Ronald Chapman, appeals from the Order of May 1, 2012, which denied, following a hearing, his first counseled petition brought under the Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA), 42 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 9541-9546. We affirm. The underlying facts in this matter are as follows: Janet Woodrow testified that on May 10, 2008, she was working as the shift runner or supervisor during the 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. shift at the Wawa store located on Bristol Oxford Valley Road in Falls Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Woodrow [testified that an armed robber wearing a grey hooded sweatshirt with hood up and baggy pants held her up at gunpoint and demanded cash from the register and safe. A second suspect wearing black and baggy clothes assisted. After the robbers left, she and her fellow employee Tammy Boyd called police, and they were taken to another crime scene where ____________________________________________ * Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court. J-S77043-12 Woodrow identified co-defendant Kaylan Walker as the hooded armed robber from her store. Woodrow could not definitively identify Appellant as the other robber]. Tammy Boyd [also testified about her observations of the robbery, and described how she was able to see the other robber s face, noticed he held a gun in his left hand, and was able to describe his clothing to police in detail. Boyd, however, was unable to positively identify either robber when brought to a separate location by police]. *** Officer Kimberly Caron, an officer with the Bristol Township Police Department, testified that she patrols the Croydon section of that Township, and was on duty for the midnight to 8:30 shift on May 10, 2009, when police radio reported this armed robbery. [After notifying the only other convenient store open in the area that the WaWa eight miles away had just been robbed, Officer Caron parked her patrol car across the street and waited for unusual activity. She subsequently noticed a gold or tan Ford Explorer pull into the lot of a closed business directly behind the convenient store. After five minutes with no activity coming from the vehicle, Officer Caron called for backup]. [Other officers testified that, minutes later, they descended on the vehicle and found Appellant and his co-defendant asleep inside. Co-defendant and Appellant matched the descriptions given by the Wawa clerks, with Walker dressed in a grey hooded sweatshirt with a rolled up black ski mask wrap around his head and dark cargo pants, and Appellant was wearing baggy black pants. Both men wore shoes covered in mud, a point of interest to police since muddy footprints were discovered at the Wawa store just robbed. A Wawa bag was also found in the car, along with several rolls of wrapped coins, two or three cigarette cartons, $311 in U.S. currency bundled in specific denominations, and a black hooded sweatshirt with a fully operational Colt .45 revolver and a neoprene ski mask to cover from the nose down found rolled up inside. When asked his name, Appellant falsely identified himself as Jeffrey Jones ]. [Because co-defendant Walker was a juvenile, police contacted his mother, who came to the station. After speaking privately with his mother for one-half hour, Walker told police he would -2- J-S77043-12 sign a prepared statement if police drafted one as he explained what happened. He confessed to committing the robbery at the WaWa and admitted the bag found in their car along with the money was from the robbery. He described the crime in detail and admitted that I know the person I was arrested with, that I was not driving the silver SUV with New Jersey plates. I was the front passenger[,] I did not cut the phone wire, and I did not have a gun, I stuck my hand in the pocket of my hoodie and pointed it. This statement was read at trial.] (Commonwealth v. Chapman, No. 58 EDA 2009, unpublished memorandum at 3-4 (Pa. Super. filed December 15, 2010) (citing Trial Court Opinion, 9/03/09, at 2-14) (bracketed material in original)). In its opinion of July 11, 2012, the PCRA court fully and correctly sets forth the relevant procedural history of this case. Therefore, we have no reason to restate it. On appeal, Appellant raises the following issues for our review: I. Was trial counsel ineffective for stipulating to the admission of the non-testifying co-defendant s redacted confession when the redactions failed to eliminate all references to Appellant and thereby failed to preserve the issue of trial court error for appeal? II. Was trial counsel ineffective for failing to object when the prosecutor used the non-testifying co-defendant s statement in her closing argument in a manner that vitiated the protections of the Confrontation Clause[?] III. Was trial counsel ineffective for failing to seek exclusion of Appellant s post-arrest use of an alias and for failing to rebut any inference of guilt arising from the use of that alias? -3- J-S77043-12 (Appellant s Brief, at 4).1 We review a denial of a post-conviction petition to determine whether the record supports the PCRA court s findings and whether its order is otherwise free of legal error. See Commonwealth v. Faulk, 21 A.3d 1196, 1199 (Pa. Super. 2011), appeal denied, 2011 Pa. Lexis 3041 (Pa. 2011). To be eligible for relief pursuant to the PCRA, Appellant must establish, inter alia, that his conviction or sentence resulted from one or more of the enumerated errors or defects found in 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9543(a)(2). He must also establish that the issues raised in the PCRA petition have not been previously litigated or waived. See 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9543(a)(3). An allegation of error is waived if the petitioner could have raised it but failed to do so before trial, at trial, during unitary review, on appeal or in a prior state postconviction proceeding. Id. at § 9544(b). Appellant claims that he received ineffective assistance of counsel during trial. (See Appellant s Brief, at 10). Counsel is presumed effective, and Appellant bears the burden to prove otherwise. The test for ineffective assistance of counsel is the same under both the Federal and Pennsylvania Constitutions. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984); Commonwealth v. Jones, 815 A.2d 598, 611 (Pa. 2002). Appellant must demonstrate that: (1) his underlying claim is of arguable merit; (2) the ____________________________________________ 1 We have reordered the issues in Appellant s brief. -4- J-S77043-12 particular course of conduct pursued by counsel did not have some reasonable basis designed to effectuate his interests; and (3) but for counsel s ineffectiveness, there is a reasonable probability that the outcome of the proceedings would have been different. See Commonwealth v. Pierce, 786 A.2d 203, 213 (Pa. 2001), abrogated on other grounds by Commonwealth v. Grant, 813 A.2d 726 (Pa. 2002). A failure to satisfy any prong of the test for ineffectiveness will require rejection of the claim. See Jones, supra at 611. After a thorough review of the record, the briefs of the parties, the applicable law, and the well-reasoned opinion of the trial court, we conclude that there is no merit to the issues Appellant has raised on appeal. PCRA court opinion properly disposes of the questions presented. The (See PCRA Court Opinion, 7/11/12, at 8-21) (finding that trial counsel was not ineffective, because: (1) there was no arguable merit to the claim counsel should not have stipulated to the admission of the co-defendants statement because it had been properly redacted and the jury was given an appropriate cautionary instruction; (2) there was no arguable merit to the claim counsel did not object to the Commonwealth s closing argument because the prosecutor made only a brief reference to the co-defendant s statement and did not implicate Appellant by name in her remarks; and (3) there was a reasonable basis not to seek exclusion of Appellant s pre-arrest and postarrest use of an alias because it was properly admitted as showing -5- J-S77043-12 consciousness of guilt and the proffer of Appellant s explanation could have potentially exposed the jury to other evidence of his prior convictions for armed robbery.). Accordingly, we affirm on the basis of the PCRA court s opinion. Order affirmed. Jurisdiction relinquished. -6-
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