Francisco Aguon Pua was convicted of killing Mostofa Faruk Parves on May 22, 2002.
Parves was working as a cashier at Candi’s Poker at the time.
Pua was acquitted of robbery, but found guilty of first degree murder.
On appeal, the Supreme Court rejected three main arguments raised by Pua’s attorney to try and have the jury’s guilty verdict reversed.
The defense argued that a pouch found in a garbage bin by an investigating police officer during the investigation was improperly entered into evidence.
But the Supreme Court held that the pouch was admissible at trial under the “plain view” exception to Article 1, Section 3 of the Commonwealth Constitution.
This exception permits an officer to seize an item if the officer lawfully views the object: the incriminating character of the item is immediately apparent: and the officer has a lawful right to access the object.
The Supreme Court said this exception applied because the officer found the pouch while executing a valid search warrant that included the trash bin, and the pouch had a red stain that an officer could reasonably believe was blood and therefore evidence of a crime.
Pua’s attorney also argued that there was insufficient evidence to uphold a robbery conviction, and therefore that both the robbery charge and the murder charge that resulted from the victim’s death should be dismissed.
The defense argued that because the jury ultimately found Pua not guilty of robbery, this was proof that the trial court improperly denied his motion.
The Supreme Court disagreed.
Even though the jury ultimately acquitted Pua of robbery, there was sufficient evidence for the matter to be submitted to the jury, the Supreme Court stated.
It specifically referenced evidence admitted at trial, including surveillance tapes establishing that Pua was walking near the scene of the crime with what appeared to be a knife; that DNA samples taken from the seized pouch matched Parves’ DNA profile; and that Parves’ body was found near the cashier’s booth with the cash register open and empty.
The high court concluded that given this evidence, a jury could have found that a robbery took place.
Finally, the defense argued that the first degree felony murder conviction must be reversed because Pua was not found guilty of robbery.
Under the “felony murder rule,” a defendant can be convicted of first degree murder if someone is murdered during the commission of a felony — in this case, robbery or attempted robbery.
The Supreme Court held that the trial court properly denied Pua’s motion — and thus the jury verdict should stand — because the murder conviction and robbery acquittal were not inconsistent.
The Supreme Court stated that the jury was instructed that first degree murder could occur during either a robbery or an attempted robbery, and reasoned that because Pua was acquitted of robbery, the jury must have necessarily based its first degree murder conviction on the fact that they believed Pua attempted to rob Parves.
The high court said even though Pua was not charged or convicted of attempted robbery, a conviction on the underlying felony was not necessary in order to secure a first degree felony murder conviction.
Justice Pro Tem Jesus C. Borja concurred with the majority’s opinion. However, he wrote separately to express his belief that because the murder conviction could be based on attempted robbery, it was irrelevant whether there was sufficient evidence to uphold a robbery conviction.
Borja concurred with the reasoning and conclusion in the remainder of the opinion.
