Commonwealth v. Baumhammers
625 Pa. 354
| Pa. | 2014Background
- In April 2000 Richard Baumhammers fatally shot multiple victims (all racial/ethnic minorities) and desecrated synagogues; convicted of five counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to death after a jury found aggravators outweighed mitigation.
- Appellant pursued a PCRA petition raising 19 claims; the PCRA court held an evidentiary hearing on four claims and dismissed the rest; the court denied relief and Baumhammers appealed.
- Central contested guilt/penalty evidence concerned psychiatric experts: defense expert Dr. Merikangas testified Appellant may have been paranoid schizophrenic and legally insane; Commonwealth expert Dr. Weiner testified Appellant was not schizophrenic and was motivated by racial hatred.
- Post-trial Dr. Weiner made media statements (years later) suggesting Appellant had schizophrenia; at the PCRA hearing he explained these were memory errors and reaffirmed his trial opinions; the PCRA court credited him.
- Major ineffective-assistance and trial-rights claims raised: failure to impeach or rebut Weiner effectively; insufficient prep time to review Weiner’s report; failure to retain mitigation/social-history expert; failure to request guilty-but-mentally-ill or life-with-treatment instructions; involuntary medication; Caldwell jury-responsibility language; challenges to various procedural choices (venue, juror exclusions).
- The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the PCRA court: credited witness credibility findings, rejected newly-discovered-evidence/impeachment basis, and found most ineffective-assistance or constitutional claims either meritless, waived, or unsupported by the record.
Issues
| Issue | Plaintiff's Argument (Baumhammers) | Defendant's Argument (Commonwealth/PCRA court) | Held |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dr. Weiner’s inconsistent post-trial statements | Media statements that Weiner later said Appellant had schizophrenia are newly discovered/exculpatory and render trial unreliable | Weiner credibly explained statements were memory errors years after trial and disavowed them; not newly discovered impeachment that would change outcome | Court accepted PCRA credibility finding; no relief — statements insufficient to warrant new trial |
| Ineffective cross‑examination / failure to retain rebuttal expert | Counsel should have hired an expert (e.g., Dr. Dudley) to attack Weiner’s methodology and/or testify in surrebuttal | Defense already presented multiple treating experts; counsel effectively cross-examined Weiner; additional expert would be limited to impeachment; no showing of arguable merit or prejudice | No ineffective assistance — counsel’s performance reasonable and adversarial testing sufficient |
| Failure to request guilty‑but‑mentally‑ill or life‑with‑treatment instructions | Counsel ineffective for not requesting guilt-phase guilty-but-mentally-ill instruction or telling jury life sentence includes mental-health treatment | Pennsylvania precedent held guilty-but-mentally-ill verdict not available in guilt phase of capital cases; sentencing instruction requesting life-with-treatment claim was not raised in PCRA petition (waived) | No relief: counsel cannot be ineffective for failing to request instruction barred by settled law; sentencing-phase claim waived |
| Alleged involuntary medication during trial | Appellant was forcibly medicated (Zyprexa) which impaired demeanour and trial fairness; counsel ineffective for not litigating | Record shows medication changed voluntarily, Zyprexa had fewer side effects, Appellant acknowledged taking it pretrial; no affirmative evidence of forcible administration | Dismissed without hearing as speculative; no Riggins/Sell violation shown |
| Caldwell jury‑responsibility claim | Court and prosecutor minimized jurors’ responsibility, violating Eighth Amendment (Caldwell) and counsel ineffective for not objecting | Charge and remarks aimed to counter defense emotional appeals; court did not reference appellate review; charge as a whole left jurors responsible for sentencing | No constitutional error; claim lacks arguable merit |
| Failure to investigate / present mitigation and social‑history expert | Counsel erred by not employing mitigation specialist to connect parents’ WWII trauma to mitigation | Extensive penalty-phase mitigation presented (parents’ testimony, treating physicians); Dr. Lebowitz’s PCRA testimony duplicative and did not tie parents’ trauma to mitigation for Appellant | No ineffective assistance — missing evidence cumulative/duplicative; no prejudice shown |
| Jury selection/exclusions and venue decisions | Counsel ineffective for failing to rehabilitate or preserve venire/venue objections | Excusals for cause were supported by venire responses; Appellant knowingly waived venue/venire and elected Allegheny jury | No relief — juror exclusions proper under Witt; venue/venire decision knowingly and validly waived |
Key Cases Cited
- Commonwealth v. Sneed, 45 A.3d 1096 (Pa. 2012) (PCRA eligibility and standards for relief)
- Commonwealth v. Rega, 70 A.3d 777 (Pa. 2013) (review of PCRA factfinding and legal error)
- Commonwealth v. Chmiel, 30 A.3d 1111 (Pa. 2011) (limits on need to call experts to critique prosecution experts)
- Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510 (2003) (mitigation investigation standards under Strickland)
- Riggins v. Nevada, 504 U.S. 127 (1992) (due process limits on involuntary antipsychotic medication)
- Sell v. United States, 539 U.S. 166 (2003) (standard for involuntary medication to restore competency)
- Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U.S. 320 (1985) (invalidating comments that diminish jury’s sense of responsibility in capital sentencing)
- Commonwealth v. Jasper, 737 A.2d 196 (Pa. 1999) (applying Caldwell to judge’s instructions)
- Commonwealth v. Travaglia, 467 A.2d 288 (Pa. 1983) (interpreting "convicted" in capital aggravators; contemporaneous offenses qualify)
- Commonwealth v. Young, 572 A.2d 1217 (Pa. 1990) (guilty‑but‑mentally‑ill verdict not available in guilt phase of capital cases)
- Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510 (1968) (limits on excluding jurors who voice general objections to death penalty)
- Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U.S. 412 (1985) (standard for excluding jurors whose views would substantially impair duties)
- Commonwealth v. Fletcher, 861 A.2d 898 (Pa. 2004) (upholding multiple‑murder aggravator against Eighth Amendment vagueness challenge)
- Commonwealth v. Lassiter, 722 A.2d 657 (Pa. 1998) (counsel’s duty to advise re: eligibility for death penalty when statute scope not settled)