On May 3, 2017, Jesse Smith was driving near a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania school zone, when Robert Kramer, an off-duty police officer, pulled up alongside him. Smith alleges that Kramer aimed a handgun at him, then drove away when Smith demanded that he pull over. Smith reported the incident to 911 and provided a partial license plate number. City police officers Troy Signorella and Kaelen O’Connor responded to the scene. Smith noticed O’Connor run the partial plate through his patrol car’s computer system and announce to Signorella that he was able to determine the name and address of the driver associated with the vehicle. Smith alleged that Signorella asked O’Connor to call him on his cell phone, and then stepped away. Smith could see both officers having a discussion on their individual phones. After the call, O’Connor told Smith that nothing more could be done at this time, and that detectives would be in touch.
After waiting for about a month, Smith contacted detective Dawn Mercurio and retrieved the investigative report. The report indicated that the case had not yet been cleared because further investigation was needed. Smith’s contact information and general account of the incident were correctly recorded. However, the report included a license plate number with a missing letter and an incorrect numeral and did not include Kramer’s identity as the driver. Mercurio was able to locate Kramer and his vehicle when Smith provided her with the full license plate number, which in turn was provided by O’Connor the day of the incident. Mercurio then called Kramer, confirmed that he was involved in a traffic incident, and referred the case to internal affairs.
Internal affairs discovered that in the half hour following Smith’s 911 call, Signorella and O’Connor made several calls to each other, to Kramer, and to Officer Ray Toomey, who was dispatched to Kramer’s home once O’Connor identified him with the partial license plate number. O’Connor omitted these communications from his report. It would later be determined that O’Connor used another officer’s login information to search the plate number of Kramer’s vehicle, and that O’Connor, Toomey, and Kramer all attended police academy together. None of these details were included in O’Connor’s report.
O’Connor was criminally charged and convicted of obstructing administration of law and hindering apprehension and prosecution and was sentenced to two years’ probation. O’Connor appealed, arguing that he was entitled to a new trial because (1) the evidence was insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he intended to obstruct the investigation; and (2) the presiding judge was making disparaging faces, rolling his eyes, and scoffing during O’Connor’s testimony, in full view of the jury. Kramer’s sister and brother-in-law claimed to have witnessed this firsthand, and O’Connor presented undisputed evidence that the judge had engaged in egregious misconduct in many other cases, resulting in his suspension and resignation from the bench.
The Court determined that there was ample evidence for a jury to conclude, beyond a reasonable doubt, that O’Connor obstructed the investigation with intent. O’Connor omitted so many damning facts from his report that it was clear that he intended to prevent Kramer’s punishment for the road rage incident, namely (1) the communications between him, Signorella, and Toomey; (2) O’Connor’s use of an alternate login to search Kramer’s plate; (3) the correct plate number and Kramer’s identity as the driver, despite O’Connor’s knowledge of both; and (4) O’Connor and Toomey’s personal relationship with Kramer. In the Court’s view, this was enough to sustain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt.
Although the Court observed that O’Connor’s allegations against the judge were not supported by the record, it determined that the trial court erred in dismissing his claim of judicial misconduct: “By its very nature, O’Connor’s claim of after-discovered evidence was unavoidably lacking in development because O’Connor did not learn of the new evidence until after the trial had already concluded. The record contains no images of the judge at the time of O’Connor’s cross-examination, so anything short of an evidentiary hearing would make it impossible for a court to assess the merit of the claim.” The Court noted that O’Connor’s claim is strengthened by the facts that the judge was later disciplined for similar conduct, and the judge gave a peculiar jury instruction in O’Connor’s trial directing the jury to disregard his apparent “annoyance,” “displeasure,” and “facial expressions” during the trial. The Court directed the trial court to hold additional evidentiary hearings to develop the record as to whether the jury was influenced by the judge’s conduct, and to what extent.
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. O’Connor, No. 185 WDA 2022, 2023 WL 9005427 (Pa. Super., 2023).