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Commonwealth v. Boczkowski3/23/2004
ARGUED: March 4, 2002
On May 5, 1999, a jury sitting before the Honorable David S. Cercone of the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County convicted appellant of first-degree murder for the strangulation death of his wife, Maryann Boczkowski. At the penalty hearing, the jury found one aggravating circumstance - that appellant had been convicted of another murder committed before or at the time of the offense at issue -- and one mitigating circumstance - evidence of mitigation concerning appellant's character. The jury found that the aggravating circumstance outweighed the mitigating circumstance and therefore returned a sentence of death. On May 6, 1999, the trial court formally imposed the death sentence. In this direct appeal from the sentence of death, appellant specifies twenty claims of error. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the verdict of guilt, but vacate the sentence of death and remand for imposition of a sentence of life imprisonment.
I. Sufficiency of the Evidence
In all direct capital appeals, this Court performs a self-imposed duty to review the sufficiency of the evidence in support of the first-degree murder verdict. E.g. Commonwealth v. Bomar, 826 A.2d 831, 840 (Pa. 2003). In addition, appellant specifically challenges the sufficiency of the evidence, arguing that the Commonwealth failed to prove that Maryann Boczkowski's death was a homicide, rather than an accident. In reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, the Court must determine whether the evidence admitted at trial and all reasonable inferences derived therefrom, when viewed in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth as the verdict winner, supports the jury's finding of all elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Commonwealth v. Spotz, 759 A.2d 1280 (Pa. 2000) (citing Commonwealth v. Rhodes, 510 A.2d 1217 (Pa. 1986)). "Evidence is sufficient to sustain a conviction of first-degree murder where the Commonwealth establishes that the defendant acted with the specific intent to kill, that a human being was unlawfully killed, that the person accused did the killing and that the killing was done with premeditation or deliberation." Spotz, 759 A.2d at 1283 (citing 18 Pa.C.S. § 2502(d) and Commonwealth v. Mitchell, 599 A.2d 624 (Pa. 1991)).
Our independent review of the evidence reveals that, on November 7, 1994, appellant summoned paramedics and police to his home in Ross Township, Pennsylvania. The first police officer to arrive at the scene found appellant attempting to revive his thirty-six-year-old wife, Maryann Boczkowski, who was unconscious in the couple's hot tub. Appellant, police officers and paramedics removed Maryann from the hot tub and attempted to revive her, but they were unsuccessful. Maryann was transported to Allegheny General Hospital at appellant's request, rather than to the closest hospital.
There, she was pronounced dead. An autopsy revealed that Maryann's death was caused by asphyxiation, resulting from blunt force trauma to her neck. The autopsy also showed numerous points of trauma of recent origin on Maryann's body and head, including hemorrhages on her neck and bruises on the interior of her scalp, which were inconsistent with the treatment she received in the attempts to revive her. Maryann's blood alcohol level at the time of her death was .22 percent.
Meanwhile, a physical examination of appellant revealed fresh scratch marks on his arms, sides and hands. In addition, before Maryann was taken to Allegheny General Hospital, appellant spontaneously told police: "I hope they don't try to put this on me." Later, after voluntarily accompanying police to the Ross Township Police Department, appellant nodded in the
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