Com. v. Hardy, Q. ( 2023 )

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NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
: PENNSYLVANIA
:
v. :
:
:
QUARTEZ DESHAWN HARDY :
:
Appellant : No. 1503 MDA 2022
Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered July 26, 2022
In the Court of Common Pleas of Cumberland County Criminal Division at
No(s): CP-21-CR-0001679-2019
BEFORE: BOWES, J., NICHOLS, J., and PELLEGRINI, J.*
MEMORANDUM BY PELLEGRINI, J.: FILED JULY 13, 2023
Quartez Deshawn Hardy (Hardy) was charged in 2019 with several
offenses allegedly committed in Dauphin and Cumberland Counties. Following
a jury trial held in the Court of Common Pleas of Cumberland County (trial
court), Hardy was found guilty of four counts – aggravated indecent assault
(18 Pa.C.S. § 3125(a)(2)), false imprisonment (18 Pa.C.S. § 2903(a)), simple
assault (18 Pa.C.S. § 2701(a)(1)), and harassment (18 Pa.C.S. § 2709(a)(4)).
He was sentenced to an aggregate prison term of 5.5 to 12 years and ordered
to register for life as a Tier III sexual offender under the SORNA Act.1 Hardy
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* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.
1 The Sexual Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) requires
sexual offenders to register with the Pennsylvania State Police. See 42
Pa.C.S. §§ 9799.14(d)(4), 9799.15(a)(3), 9799.23.
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now contends that the evidence was insufficient as to both assault counts, and
that the trial court erred in admitting evidence of his criminal conduct in
Dauphin County. We affirm.
I.
On the Friday evening in question, the victim in this case, Megan Bull
(Bull), drove Hardy to a Dauphin County bar where he had worked as a
bouncer. Bull left the bar after dropping off Hardy, but she returned later that
night to pick him up at the end of his shift.
When Bull came back to the bar, she exchanged text messages with
Hardy in which he expressed annoyance that she had departed after dropping
him off. The two had been romantically involved, and Hardy was upset
because he had told his co-workers that he would be introducing them to “his
girl.” Trial Transcript, 3/28/2022, at p. 71.
Hardy then came out of the bar and acted aggressively toward Bull and
other individuals who were socializing outside. Initially, Hardy walked away
from Bull and she lost sight of him. However, a few minutes later, while Bull
was speaking to a friend, Hardy grabbed Bull from behind, clutching her arm
and her hair. He then pulled her to the vehicle she had driven to the bar and
forcefully took the keys from her hand. He also took her cellular phone.
Bull testified that once they were both seated in the vehicle, Hardy
slapped her in the face and called her degrading names. He also warned Bull
that he would kill her if she continued “to play with him.” Id. at p. 110.
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Hardy drove the two of them to his apartment in Cumberland County. Bull
had lived in an apartment just across the street.
When the two arrived at Hardy’s apartment, he refused to give Bull her
keys and phone. She reluctantly went into his apartment so that she could
get those items back. However, once she entered, Hardy did not permit her
to leave, physically blocking her from the front door and verbally refusing her
requests to go home. The door was bolted shut and Hardy became irate when
he saw that Bull was receiving a call from a friend.
Hardy began accusing Bull of having sexual relations with other men,
and he touched her vagina with his fingers, ostensibly to confirm his
suspicions. Moments later, Hardy appeared to grow remorseful, brandishing
a kitchen knife, crying, and stating that he needed psychological treatment
for a behavioral disorder.
Bull continued asking for her keys and phone so that she could go home,
but Hardy ignored her requests and instead pulled her to the floor, where they
engaged in sexual intercourse. Hardy continued to detain Bull in the
apartment and she did not leave until several hours later, by which time Hardy
had fallen asleep.
Bull contacted her brother to tell him what had happened and he, in
turn, called the police. It appeared to Bull’s brother that she had been crying
and that her cheeks were red, but he did not immediately observe any bruises
or signs of injury. The police arranged to speak with Bull in a school parking
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lot and she went with her brother’s wife. Her initial statement to the
investigating officer included no mention of a rape or a sexual assault.
About three hours after giving her first statement, Bull contacted the
police again so that she could speak to an officer alone in the interview room
of the police station. At this second interview, Bull, for the first time,
recounted her allegations that Hardy had digitally penetrated her vagina and
then raped her. Photos of Bull taken on that same day showed that she had
a swollen face, deep bruises on her arms, a ripped fingernail and a torn dress.
The Commonwealth charged Hardy in Cumberland County with
aggravated indecent assault, terroristic threats, false imprisonment, simple
assault, harassment, rape and sexual assault. Bull, her brother and the
investigating officer later testified at a jury trial held in 2022. According to
Bull and her brother, she was assaulted by Hardy, driven to Hardy’s apartment
without her consent, and then forced into having sexual contact with him,
including digital and penile penetration of her vagina.
During Bull’s testimony, defense counsel objected to the admission at
trial of any evidence concerning Hardy’s conduct in Dauphin County (i.e.,
slapping Bull in the face and grabbing her hair) on the ground that the
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proceedings only concerned events transpiring in Cumberland County. The
objection was overruled. See Trial Transcript, 3/28/2022, at pp. 74-75.2
As discussed above, the jury found Hardy guilty of aggravated indecent
assault, false imprisonment, simple assault and harassment. He was
acquitted of the remaining counts of terroristic threats, rape and sexual
assault. As to the aggravated indecent assault count, Hardy was sentenced
to a prison term of 5 to 10 years; as to the false imprisonment count, he was
sentenced to a concurrent term of 9 months to 2 years; as to the simple
assault count, he was sentenced to a consecutive term of 6 months to 2 years;
and as to the harassment count, no term of incarceration was imposed.
Hardy filed post-sentence motions which were all denied. He then timely
appealed, and the trial court entered a 1925(a) opinion giving its reasons why
the judgment of sentence should be affirmed. See Trial Court 1925(a)
Opinion, 1/9/2023, at 14-17.
In his brief, Hardy’s first claim is that the evidence adduced at trial was
insufficient to sustain his conviction on the count of aggravated indecent
assault. He also contends in his second claim that the evidence was
insufficient as to the simple assault conviction. In his final claim, Hardy argues
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2 Similarly, defense counsel unsuccessfully sought to have the jury instructed
that it could not consider any evidence pertaining to Hardy’s actions in
Dauphin County. The trial court denied that request on the ground that all
the charged offenses, as alleged, were part of one continuous criminal
episode. See Trial Transcript, 3/29/2022, at p. 8.
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that the evidence of his alleged conduct in Dauphin County should not have
been presented to the jury because the trial’s scope should have been limited
to his conduct in Cumberland County.
II.
We first consider Hardy’s challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence
as to the aggravated indecent assault and simple assault convictions.
The evidence presented at trial may sustain a conviction if it is sufficient
to prove every element of a given offense beyond a reasonable doubt. See
Commonwealth v. Bragg, 133 A.3d 328, 330-31 (Pa. Super. 2016) (citation
omitted). This Court must consider the evidence in the light most favorable
to the verdict winner (here, the Commonwealth). See id.In reviewing the evidence, this Court may not substitute its judgment
for that of the fact-finder, whose role it is to weigh the credibility of witnesses
and accept or reject “all, part[,] or none of the evidence.” Id. Inconsistencies
in the testimony of a witness generally do not implicate the sufficiency of the
evidence. See id. Furthermore, specifically, as to sexual offenses,
Pennsylvania law permits a jury to find a defendant guilty based on a victim’s
uncorroborated testimony. See 18 Pa.C.S. § 3106 (“The testimony of a
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complainant need not be corroborated in prosecutions under this [Sexual
Offenses chapter of the Crimes Code]”).3
Aggravated indecent assault occurs when “a person who engages in
penetration, however slight, of the genitals . . . of a complainant with a part
of the person’s body for any purpose other than good faith, medical, hygienic
or law enforcement procedures commits aggravated indecent assault if . . .
the person does so by forcible compulsion[.]” 18 Pa.C.S. § 3125(a)(2).
Simple assault is defined as an attempt “to cause . . . bodily injury to
another[.]” 18 Pa.C.S. § 2701(a)(1). In this context, “bodily injury” means
“[i]mpairment of physical condition or substantial pain.” 18 Pa.C.S. § 2301.
The evidence adduced at trial in this case was sufficient to sustain the
convictions as to both assault counts. Bull testified that Hardy digitally
penetrated her vagina without her consent. Although Bull waited until her
second police interview to report this allegation of aggravated indecent
assault, the delay alone did not, as Hardy suggests, undermine the evidence
to the extent that it would preclude the jury from finding Hardy guilty of that
crime.
The discrepancy between Bull’s first and second police interviews
created an issue of credibility. It is well established that this Court may not
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3 Legal sufficiency of the evidence is a pure issue of law subject to a de novo
standard of review. See Commonwealth v. Mikitiuk, 213 A.3d 290, 300
(Pa. Super. 2019).
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substitute its own credibility assessment for that of the jury, and as the finder-
of-fact, the jury was free to accept or reject any portion of Hardy’s testimony.
See Bragg, 133 A.3d at 330-31; see also 18 Pa.C.S. § 3106. Moreover, Bull
gave plausible reasons for omitting part of her account in her first police
interview, making it even more evident that this issue was for the jury to
decide and not a matter that would implicate the legal sufficiency of the
evidence.
Hardy’s sufficiency claim regarding his simple assault conviction also
lacks merit. At trial, the Commonwealth corroborated Bull’s testimony by
introducing photos of her swollen face, bruises on her arms, a torn dress and
a ripped fingernail. While Hardy argues in his brief that Bull’s brother saw no
signs of bruising on the day of the incident, which is arguably inconsistent with
Bull’s account, the issue is again a matter of credibility and weight of the
evidence, which is for the jury to determine.
Here, the jury observed photographs of Bull’s injuries and heard her
testify as to what caused them. The verdict on the count of simple assault
reflects that the jury believed at least part of Bull’s explanation about how her
injuries occurred, and we see no reason to disturb that finding of fact on
appeal.
III.
Hardy’s last claim is that the jury should have been precluded from
hearing evidence concerning the alleged simple assault in Dauphin County.
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Although the claim is mostly framed as an evidentiary issue in his brief,
Hardy’s central point really seems to be that Cumberland County was an
improper venue for the simple assault count. Regardless, this claim lacks
merit.
A criminal defendant generally must stand trial in the county where the
alleged crime occurred. See Commonwealth v. Callen, 198 A.3d 1149,
1158 (Pa. Super. 2018). However, where multiple offenses are part of a single
criminal episode that spans two counties, venue is proper in the court of either
county as to all the related charges. See Pa. R. Crim. P. 130(A)(3) (“When
charges arising from the same criminal episode occur in more than one judicial
district, the criminal proceeding on all the charges may be brought before one
issuing authority in a magisterial district within any of the judicial districts in
which the charges arising from the same criminal episode occurred.”); see
also 18 Pa.C.S. § 110(1)(ii) (codifying Pennsylvania’s compulsory joinder
rule).
Multiple crimes are committed in a single criminal episode if the offenses
“are logically or temporally related and share common issues of law and
fact[.]” Commonwealth v. Witmayer, 144 A.3d 939, 946-47 (Pa. Super.
2016). “The temporal relationship between criminal acts will be a factor which
frequently determines whether the acts are ‘logically related’ to one
another[.]” Id. “When we ascertain whether a number of statutory offenses
are ‘logically related’ to one another, the court should initially inquire as to
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whether there is a substantial duplication of factual, and/or legal issues
presented by the offenses.” Id.A trial court’s authority to entertain charges committed in another
county is an issue of venue, and the Commonwealth bears the burden of
proving that venue is proper by a preponderance of the evidence. See
Commonwealth v. Gross, 101 A.3d 28, 33 (Pa. 2014). “The single criminal
episode analysis essentially considers the totality of the circumstances.”
Schmidt, 919 A.2d at 246.
In this case, the evidence established that the offenses in each county
were temporally and logically connected to the extent that they were part of
one continuous criminal episode. As alleged and proven at trial, Hardy
assaulted Bull outside of a bar in Dauphin County and then forced her into the
vehicle used to transport them to Cumberland County, where Bull was again
assaulted while locked in Hardy’s apartment. There was no temporal break in
the sequence of events beginning with (a) the initial assault and false
imprisonment, and (b) the offenses which later took place hours later in
Cumberland County.
Moreover, the issue of Bull’s credibility was crucial to the jury’s
determination as to all charges. The Commonwealth relied on the word of this
witness to establish her lack of consent to sexual touching, her lack of consent
to be transported from the bar to Hardy’s apartment, and the cause of her
injuries. This resulted in a substantial duplication of factual and legal issues
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presented by the offenses. Thus, the trial court did not err in ruling that
Cumberland County was a proper venue to adjudicate the alleged offenses
occurring in Dauphin County.4
Judgment of sentence affirmed.
Judgment Entered.
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 07/13/2023
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4 Hardy suggests in his brief that the Commonwealth failed to follow the
process outlined in Pennsylvania Rule of Criminal Procedure 555 for
transferring a case from one county to another, precluding the trial court from
adjudicating charges relating to offenses committed in Dauphin County.
However, the subject charges were all filed in Cumberland County at the
outset of the case, so there was never a case in Dauphin County to transfer,
making Rule 555 inapposite. See Pa.R.Crim.P. 555(A).
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