Richard Cujdik, a Philadelphia police officer, arranged a controlled buy of PCP with the defendant. After the buy, Cujdik obtained a search warrant for her home, where he found additional PCP. Following a bench trial at which Cujdik was the Commonwealth's only witness, the defendant was found guilty of possession and possession with intent to deliver.
Two days after she was sentenced, the defendant filed for a new trial based on after-discovered evidence. Specifically, she cited recent articles in the Philadelphia Inquirer in which Cujdik was exposed as falsifying evidence of a controlled buy on camera. The trial court denied a new trial, and the defendant appealed.
The Superior Court disagreed with the trial court, and concluded that the video-tape of Officer Cujdik, in which he attempted to disable the surveillance system at the site of the controlled buy, and then clearly did not conduct a controlled buy - although he later claimed to have - was of a type that could have raised doubts about the officer's credibility to such a degree that it could have affected the outcome of the trial. Judge Lazarus, joined by Judge Bender, therefore vacated Castro's conviction, and remanded the matter for re-trial.
Judge Strassburger dissented. He agreed with the majority in principle, but noted that a contrary conclusion was mandated by the Court's previous holding in Commonwealth v. Estepp, 2011 Pa. Super. 53 (Pa. Super. 2011) - with which he also disagreed.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Leave a comment