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NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
: PENNSYLVANIA
Appellant :
:
:
v. :
:
:
HELEN LUCY GALLI : No. 1336 MDA 2016
Appeal from the PCRA Order July 19, 2016
In the Court of Common Pleas of Luzerne County
Criminal Division at No(s): CP-40-CR-0000828-2011
BEFORE: GANTMAN, P.J., BENDER, and STEVENS, P.J.E.*
DISSENTING MEMORANDUM BY STEVENS, P.J.E.: FILED JUNE 09, 2017
On October 10, 2013, Appellee, Defendant Helen Lucy Galli, was
convicted by a jury of aggravated assault, simple assault and recklessly
endangering another person. Appellee is not entitled to a new trial and
should be returned to a correctional facility to serve her sentence.
An order entered in the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas
granted Appellee’s petition under the Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA) 1 and
awarded her a new trial. The Majority memorandum affirms that order. I
respectfully dissent and would reverse the lower court order and deny a new
trial.
____________________________________________
*
Former Justice specially assigned to the Superior Court.
1
42 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 9541-9546.
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At trial, admissible evidence overwhelmingly implicated
Defendant/Appellee as the only person possessing both motive and
opportunity to poison the victim with a potentially lethal dose of anti-freeze.
Specifically, the Commonwealth established that Defendant/Appellee
prepared breakfast for her son, Victor, before he began his workday, as was
their daily custom. When Victor finished, he walked back to his home next
door with a large glass of juice for the victim, his girlfriend, as she
requested. The victim testified the juice tasted very sweet, a description
consistent with expert testimony as to the “very sweet-tasting” properties of
ethylene glycol in anti-freeze. See N.T., 10/7/13, at 337. It was also the
victim’s testimony that the juice was normally kept at Defendant/Appellee’s
house. By the end of that day, the victim was gravely ill.
The jury clearly rejected unsupported defense theories that the victim
either attempted suicide or harmed herself to falsely incriminate
Defendant/Appellee, and there was no suggestion that Defendant/Appellee’s
son, Victor, was responsible. Other properly admitted evidence from a
disinterested neighbor detailed how Defendant/Appellee loathed the victim,
wished her harm, and repeatedly asked the neighbor to arrange for the
victim’s car to explode with the victim inside. Defendant/Appellee also
revealed her animus for the victim during an interview with a Pennsylvania
State Police investigator.
Clearly, the hearsay testimony that “my mother said this [juice] will
make you feel better” is largely cumulative of properly admitted evidence
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that Defendant/Appellee prepared the breakfast food and drink from her
kitchen that morning as she did every other morning. The failure of defense
counsel to object to that hearsay did not taint the jury, and the verdict
would have remained guilty whether that statement was objected to or not,
admitted into evidence or not.
Thus, Defendant/Appellee failed to establish a reasonable probability
that the outcome of her trial would have been different but for defense
counsel’s failure to object to the hearsay statement in question. See
Commonwealth v. Charleston, 94 A.3d 1012, 1026 (Pa.Super. 2014)
(holding PCRA petitioner establishes actual prejudice only by showing a
reasonable probability that, but for counsel's error or omission, result of
proceeding would have been different). Here, the result of the proceeding
would not have been different.
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent from the Majority’s decision to
uphold the lower court decision to grant Appellee a new trial.
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