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Commonwealth v. Santos6/20/2005
The Commonwealth appeals from the Superior Court's order affirming the order of the trial court granting Appellee Oscar Santos' Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus. For the reasons that follow, we reverse.
On the evening of July 21, 1994, Santos and his friend, solely identified as "Papadiko," were standing on a street in North Philadelphia when they observed a vehicle sideswipe Santos' parked car and then drive away. The two men went to Santos' car where Santos obtained a gun from underneath one of the seats. The men then got into the car and followed the vehicle that had hit Santos' car. Approximately five minutes later, Papadiko and Santos returned to the scene and parked the car in the same spot in which it had been earlier.
When Santos exited the car, he was carrying a gun and pulling the slide back and forth. Gladys Soto, who was standing nearby, told Santos to put the gun away because there were children playing a few feet away. Santos, however, ignored Ms. Soto and continued to pull the slide of his gun. Moments later, the gun went off, firing a single shot into the head of six-year-old Felicia Cohen. Santos threw the gun in a nearby alley and fled from the scene. Three days later, Felicia died from the gunshot wound. Around the same time, Santos fled to the Dominican Republic, where he was apprehended seven years later.
On December 13, 2001, the Commonwealth charged Santos with murder, possession of an instrument of a crime, reckless endangerment, and violation of certain provisions of the Uniform Firearms Act. During a preliminary hearing before Judge McCaffery of the Municipal Court of Philadelphia County, the Commonwealth introduced testimony from Ms. Soto regarding Santos' conduct on the evening of July 21, 1994. The Commonwealth also produced a statement made by Santos in which he admitted that he had shot Felicia. However, in his statement, Santos claimed that he had accidentally fired the gun while he was pulling the slide to see if he could get the gun to work. At the conclusion of the preliminary hearing, Judge McCaffery found that the totality of the evidence, when considered in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, was sufficient to support all of the charges against Santos.
Santos subsequently filed a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, arguing that the evidence did not support the charges lodged against him. On March 20, 2002, Judge Lerner of the Court of Common Pleas held a hearing on Santos' petition. During the hearing, the Commonwealth reopened the record and introduced the testimony of Officer Carl Rone, a ballistics expert, who had examined the gun found at the crime scene. According to Officer Rone, the gun did not have any malfunctions and could not have fired simply based on Santos' act of pulling the slide. Rather, Officer Rone testified that Santos would have had to pull the trigger in order to fire the gun.
Immediately following the hearing, Judge Lerner entered an order granting Santos' Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus with respect to the murder charge. In a subsequent Pa.R.A.P. 1925(a) opinion, Judge Lerner first explained that Santos could not be tried for first or second-degree murder as the Commonwealth had not presented any evidence to establish that Santos was guilty of those specific degrees of murder. Judge Lerner then explained that Santos also could not be placed on trial for the offense of third-degree murder because the Commonwealth had failed to show that Santos had acted with malice, a necessary element of that offense. Judge Lerner stated: " here is no evidence in the record from which a reasonable juror could find beyond a reasonable doubt that the shooting of Felicia Cohen was anything
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