Com. v. Sammy, T. ( 2018 )

J-S85002-17
NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
: PENNSYLVANIA
:
v. :
:
:
TAYLOR QUINN SAMMY :
:
Appellant : No. 1671 WDA 2016
Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence October 6, 2016
In the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County Criminal Division at
No(s): CP-02-CR-0004748-2015,
CP-02-CR-0004751-2015
BEFORE: BOWES, J., PANELLA, J., and STABILE, J.
MEMORANDUM BY BOWES, J.: FILED APRIL 30, 2018
Talyor Quinn Sammy appeals from the judgment of sentence of
concurrent five years probation, imposed following his convictions for
terroristic threats, stalking, and harassment. We affirm.
The two dockets at issue involve separate victims and crimes. At case
4748 of 2015, the Commonwealth charged Appellant with one count each of
terroristic threats, a misdemeanor of the first degree, and harassment,
graded as a misdemeanor of the third degree, for his conduct towards
Courtney Law. At case 4751 of 2015, the Commonwealth charged Appellant
with one count each of stalking, graded as a misdemeanor of the first
degree, and harassment and criminal mischief, for his actions towards
Faydra Heidkamp. The latter two crimes were both charged as
misdemeanors of the third degree.
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These matters were consolidated for a non-jury trial, which took place
on October 6, 2016. The trial court’s opinion aptly summarizes the
testimony adduced at that proceeding:
At trial at CC20[1]5-04751 the Commonwealth presented the
testimony of the victim who testified that she met Defendant,
who was an employee at a shoe store at a local mall, while
making a purchase. Defendant, using her name from the credit
card, later contacted her via Facebook. She initially responded
to him on Facebook and had casual conversations and he then
asked her out on multiple occasions but she told him she was
not interested in dating. She did eventually meet him for coffee,
but then became uncomfortable with various messages that he
was sending her. She asked him to "stop bothering me.”
Defendant responded by sending the victim messages using
obscenities and threats. Additional messages from Defendant to
the victim between December 14, 2014 and January 20, 2015
were admitted into evidence. The victim testified to the content
of the messages stating
Just complete aggressiveness. When I, you know,
tried to come to a point that I did not no longer want
to be contacted and felt very scared, too, because of
the nature of the threats that I was receiving and the
text messages in terms of, you know, if you read
them, you know, [“]you're a mean angry old bitch,
you're white,[”] I asked him to stop several times
and he did not.
The victim testified that after she blocked Defendant’s phone
number he called from another place of business and left
repeated voicemails. She indicated she then received a final
email in which Defendant stated, "I know both your parents are
deceased, . . ., and you live alone." The victim also testified that
as a result of the messages from Defendant she suffered from
panic attacks and had an alarm system put in her house. She
also testified that in February of 2015 her tires were slashed,
however, she acknowledged during cross-examination that she
did not actually see the person who slashed her tires.
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At CC2015-4748 the victim testified that she was contacted by
Defendant, who[m] she did not know, through Facebook in June
of 2014. She testified Defendant began by periodically
messaging her hello but then asked her out and she told him
that she wasn't interested. When he continued to contact her
she told him to stop and then blocked him on Facebook.
Defendant subsequently created a second Facebook address and
again began contacting her with obscenities and threats.
Defendant’s messages were identified and offered into evidence.
The victim testified that:
He threatened to gut my son and make me watch
him bleed out. He threatened to carve a smiley face
on my forehead, to beat me to basically death until I
bleed. He quoted lyrics from a song, the sweetest
revenge will be death.
Defendant also communicated with the victim’s son which
caused her to be concerned about not only her safety but her
son’s also. On cross examination the victim testified that she did
initially respond to some of Defendant’s threats and insulted him
in return because of the threats.
The Commonwealth also presented the testimony of Detective
Joseph Brown of the Pittsburgh Police who testified that both
victims identified Defendant from photo arrays. Detective Brown
also testified that Defendant admitted contacting both of the
victims and making inappropriate statements to them but denied
slashing the first victim’s tires.
Defendant testified that he met the first victim at the shoe store
and had a coffee date with her and that at one point he called
her at work and she "screamed" at him and after that he "may
have sent some more messages." As to the second victim,
Defendant testified that she posted some of his messages on
social media and as a result, while intoxicated, sent her "ugly
messages." When confronted with the written messages,
Defendant repeatedly indicated that he did not recall what he
stated as he was intoxicated but that he could not dispute the
written messages. Defendant denied that he slashed the car
tires on the victim’s car.
Trial Court Opinion, 7/10/17, at 2-4 (citations to transcript omitted).
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The trial court found Appellant guilty of all charges except criminal
mischief, and immediately sentenced him to two concurrent periods of five
years probation for stalking and terroristic threats.1 Following a timely
notice of appeal and compliance with the trial court’s order to file a Pa.R.A.P.
1925(b) statement, the trial court authored its responsive opinion and the
matter is ready for our review. Appellant raises two issues:
I. Was the evidence insufficient as a matter of law to convict
[Appellant] of terroristic threats where the
Commonwealth's evidence demonstrated only that he
made mere spur-of-the-moment threats which resulted
from anger in the course of a heated dispute, not that he
intended to terrorize or acted with reckless disregard for
the risk of causing terror?
II. Was the evidence insufficient as a matter of law to convict
[Appellant] of stalking where the Commonwealth's
evidence demonstrated only that he made repeated
contact with the complainant in an attempt to determine
their romantic status but did not possess the intent to
cause fear or distress?
Appellant’s brief at 5.
Both issues present challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence
supporting the convictions. Our standard of review is well-settled. Whether
the evidence was sufficient to sustain the charge presents a question of law.
Our standard of review is de novo and our scope of review is
plenary. Commonwealth v. Walls, 144 A.3d 926, 931 (Pa.Super. 2016)
(citation omitted). In conducting our inquiry, we
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1 No further penalty was imposed for the remaining charge of harassment.
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examine whether the evidence admitted at trial, and all
reasonable inferences drawn therefrom, viewed in the light most
favorable to the Commonwealth as verdict winner, support the
jury's finding of all the elements of the offense beyond a
reasonable doubt. The Commonwealth may sustain its burden by
means of wholly circumstantial evidence.
Commonwealth v. Doughty, 126 A.3d 951, 958 (Pa. 2015).
We address Appellant’s claims in order. “The elements necessary to
establish a violation of the terroristic threats statute are: (1) a threat to
commit a crime of violence; and (2) that the threat was communicated with
the intent to terrorize[.]” Commonwealth v. Walls, 144 A.3d 926, 936
(Pa.Super. 2016) (citation omitted). We have recognized that the statute
does not punish “statements in the context of a heated
discussion.” Commonwealth v. Walker, 836 A.2d 999, 1001 (Pa.Super.
2003). However, the mere fact that statements were made out of anger
does not render the speaker incapable of forming an intent to terrorize. Id.
We examine the totality of the circumstances in determining if Appellant had
the necessary mens rea. Commonwealth v. Reynolds, 835 A.2d 720, 730
(Pa.Super. 2003).
Appellant concedes that the statements were in the nature of a threat
to commit violence. He asserts that the Commonwealth failed to present
sufficient evidence to permit the trial court to find, beyond a reasonable
doubt, that those statements were made with the intent to terrorize.
According to Appellant, the totality of the circumstances demonstrates that
he simply “responded poorly to the romantic rejection.” Appellant’s brief at
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16. Appellant attaches great significance to the victim’s concession that she
participated in some insulting exchanges with Appellant. The victim testified
that after Appellant called her a b**ch and a whore, she insulted him in
return. When Appellant persisted, she told him that she would take
screenshots of his comments and post them on her publicly-available
Facebook page. She followed through with that promise, and then blocked
him from communicating with her:
A. He kept inboxing me, and I fed into it, and I told him that I
would shot screen everything if he didn't leave me alone and
stop inboxing me. I would shot screen everything and put it on
my Facebook timeline, and I did it because he still kept inboxing
me. And then he talked about my children in the Facebook
conversation. So after that, I blocked him. And a couple months
later -- well, into January 2015, I got a Facebook request from a
page called Oh MG[.]
N.T., 10/6/16, at 26-27.
As indicated by the trial court’s factual findings, Appellant conceded to
the investigating police officers that he created the “Oh MG” account and
utilized it to circumvent the block. Having succeeded in evading Ms. Law’s
attempts to ignore him, Appellant proceeded to further berate and threaten
her. The nature of his comments significantly escalated.
He threatened to gut my son and make me watch him bleed out.
He threatened to carve a smiley face on my forehead, to beat
me to basically death until I bleed. He quoted lyrics from a song,
the sweetest revenge will be my death.
Id. at 27.
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Appellant’s own testimony establishes that he contacted Ms. Law after
discovering that she posted evidence of his prior interactions. “I was just
acting out of[,] just response to someone messaging me saying that they
saw me on her social media page.” Id. at 50. Appellant’s communications
with Ms. Law were introduced into evidence, and included the following
threats. “[D]on't f***ing lie to me. You didn't delete it, you f***ing shit
talking b**ch. Women like you are the reason Bridgeville LA Fitness2 got
shot up, you f***king s**t talking c**t.” Id. at 51. Appellant also told Ms.
Law, “I just want to watch you bleed, you s**t talking piece of s**t whore.
If I ever see you, I swear to God I will beat the f*** out of you. I don't care
about hitting you because you're a woman. You deserve to f***ing die or
get the s**t beat out of you.” Id. at 53.
We hold that the totality of the circumstances easily justify a finding
that the threats were intended to terrorize and were not simply made in the
spur of the moment. Appellant cites Commonwealth v. Kidd, 442 A.2d
826 (Pa.Super. 1982) (insufficient evidence for terroristic threats where
appellant, while under arrest, repeatedly shouted obscenities and screamed
threats to kill the police with machine guns if given a chance) and
Commonwealth v. Sullivan, 409 A.2d 888 (Pa.Super. 1979) (insufficient
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2 On August 4, 2009, a man entered an exercise class at that facility and
opened fire, killing three women before committing suicide.
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evidence for terroristic threats where defendant threatened to kill sheriff) as
support for the notion that his statements were spur-of-the-moment threats.
This case is nothing like those two precedents when accounting for the
totality of the circumstances. The emphasis in those and related cases on
anger and spontaneity is that the comments truly are made in the heat of
the moment, and do not indicate premeditation. For instance, in Walls,
supra, we vacated a conviction for terroristic threats where the appellant
approached an assistant district attorney at a store and accused her of
sending him to jail for a crime that he did not commit. As he was escorted
out of the store, he shouted at the prosecutor that she should die. In
reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence to support the conviction, we
summarized the relevant principles:
When two parties have an unplanned, heated confrontation, a
threat made during the confrontation is often a spur-of-the-
moment threat made during a period of transitory anger. For
example, in Commonwealth v. Sullivan, 269 Pa.Super. 279,
409 A.2d 888 (1979), the defendant called the state police and
threatened to kill the local sheriff. Id. at 888–889. The next day,
the defendant encountered the local sheriff on the street, and
during a shouting match, Appellant threatened to kill the
sheriff. Id. at 889. The defendant was convicted of two counts of
terroristic threats—one count for each incident. On appeal, this
Court reversed and found that the evidence was insufficient to
find Appellant guilty on either count. As to the second count,
involving the defendant's encounter with the sheriff, this Court
held that the threat was made as part of a chance argument on
a public street and that the defendant did not have the settled
purpose of terrorizing the local sheriff. See id. at 889–890.
....
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What we find instructive about Sullivan, however, is that, as in
the case at bar, the defendant encountered an official in public, a
heated confrontation followed, and the defendant made a threat
during that heated confrontation. Thus, it was the chance nature
of the parties' meeting and the spontaneous anger that the
encounter instilled in the defendant that links the facts in the
present case to those before this Court in Sullivan. Just
as Sullivan found the evidence insufficient to support a
terroristic threats conviction, we do so here as well.
Id. at 937. We further noted that the appellant “did not specifically threaten
harm to [the victim] presently or in the future.” Id. at 938.
The circumstances under which the instant statements were made are
nothing like those in Kidd, Sullivan, and Walls. Appellant’s comments
were not spontaneously made in the course of a real time conversation with
Ms. Law, nor were they the product of a chance encounter. Instead,
Appellant sent the aforementioned threats only after learning that Ms. Law
had published his comments and named him. The evidence amply
demonstrates that he intended to terrorize her as retribution for that action,
in addition to persuading her from doing it again by threatening violence for
non-compliance. He specifically threatened future harm, and stated he
would kill her if he saw her. See Commonwealth v. Fenton, 750 A.2d
863, 865 (Pa.Super. 2000) (reviewing terroristic threats conviction and
noting that defendant “clearly spent a long time reflecting upon his
frustrations, and his threats cannot be characterized as less than
premeditated and deliberate”). We thus agree with the Commonwealth’s
argument that the evidence supports a finding that Appellant “made a
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premeditated and deliberate decision to create a fake Facebook page in
order to re-engage Ms. Law based on the screen shots she had posted
earlier.” Commonwealth’s brief at 15. That scenario is far removed from a
situation where the two parties had an unplanned, ill-tempered
confrontation. Accordingly, Appellant’s challenge fails.
We now examine the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the
conviction for stalking. Appellant was charged under the following statutory
language:
(a) Offense defined.--A person commits the crime of stalking
when the person either:
(1) engages in a course of conduct or repeatedly
commits acts toward another person, including
following the person without proper authority, under
circumstances which demonstrate either an intent to
place such other person in reasonable fear of bodily
injury or to cause substantial emotional distress to
such other person;
18 Pa.C.S. § 2709.1(a).
Like the foregoing challenge, Appellant’s argument is limited to intent.
He concedes that his actions constituted a course of conduct, but avers that
those actions were the result of “[Appellant] desir[ing] to find out what
soured their burgeoning relationship.” Appellant’s brief at 12. Appellant
claims that his repeated messages were not motivated by an intent to cause
substantial emotional distress; “their cause and subject matter is easily
deduced – the end of the potential romantic relationship between himself
and Heidkamp.” Appellant’s brief at 26.
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We agree with the Commonwealth that Appellant’s argument
misapplies the standard of review. Appellant assumes that his version of
events, i.e. that his repeated calls were motivated by an innocent desire to
ascertain why their relationship fizzled, must be credited as true when
assessing whether there is sufficient evidence of intent. He acknowledges
that he repeatedly contacted Ms. Heidkamp and used foul language, but
maintains that we must consider those actions “in the context in which they
occurred.” Appellant’s brief at 25. That is true, but nothing requires this
Court to credit Appellant’s own self-serving testimony in considering that
context. In fact, our standard of review requires the opposite by tasking this
Court with reviewing the evidence in light of all reasonable inferences drawn
in favor of the Commonwealth.
Moreover, Ms. Heidkamp owed Appellant no explanation for why she
wished to stop speaking to him, and he was not entitled to pester her for
answers. Appellant was undeterred by her clear directions to cease contact.
He acknowledges that Ms. Heidkamp blocked his phone number and that he
circumvented the block by using another phone number, but claims that he
“would not have been aware that Heidkamp blocked his number[.]”
Appellant’s brief at 26. But of course he was aware of that fact; that is
precisely why he used another phone and “left . . . voice mails stating why
did you block me[?]” N.T., 10/6/16, at 17.
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Furthermore, we must examine the totality of the circumstances in
ascertaining Appellant’s intent, and Appellant’s messages were aggressive in
nature after Ms. Heidkamp tried to prevent further contact. He insulted her,
and informed her that he knew Ms. Heidkamp’s parents were dead and that
she lived alone. Moreover, the latter comment regarding the victim’s
parents was sent to the victim’s email address, which she did not disclose to
him. We find that this evidence establishes an intent to cause substantial
emotional distress, as defined by the statute. 18 Pa.C.S. § 2709.1(f)
(defining “emotional distress” as “A temporary or permanent state of mental
anguish.”).
Judgment of sentence affirmed.
Judgment Entered.
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 4/30/2018
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