## Facts

- Veranica James Hands, eight and one-half months pregnant, was found in her Philadelphia apartment building bound, gagged, and stabbed more than fifty times; some wounds also fatally injured the unborn child.
- The bedroom area was ransacked, and small valuables (cash, jewelry, a watch, and other items) were missing.
- There were no signs of forced entry; evidence supported that the victim likely opened the door to the perpetrator.
- Later the same day, Jerry McEachin saw Larry Rush nervous and possessing items matching the victim’s property; Rush admitted he had stabbed his “distant cousin,” referring to Hands.
- Rush attempted to use the victim’s bank card and to sell her jewelry.
- Rush’s fingerprints were found at the scene.
- The Commonwealth introduced evidence of Rush’s 1979 conviction (robbery, burglary, aggravated assault, attempted rape), asserting it showed a distinctive common scheme/plan and identity based on multiple similarities between the two crimes.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence was sufficient to support convictions for first-degree murder, robbery, burglary, and possession of an instrument of crime.
2. Whether the trial court abused its discretion by admitting crime-scene photographs and other challenged evidence.
3. Whether evidence of Rush’s 1979 conviction and its surrounding facts was admissible under the common scheme/plan (and related identity) exception to the prohibition on prior bad acts evidence.
4. Whether trial counsel was ineffective under Pennsylvania’s ineffectiveness standard.
5. Whether the death sentence was legally valid, supported by the jury’s aggravating/mitigating findings, and proportionate.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the judgments of sentence, including the death sentence.
- The court held the evidence was sufficient to sustain first-degree murder and the related offenses.
- The court upheld admission of the photographs, concluding their probative value was not outweighed by unfair prejudice.
- The court held the 1979 conviction evidence was properly admitted because the crimes shared a distinctive pattern probative of common scheme and identity; the time gap did not bar admission given Rush’s intervening incarceration.
- The court rejected claims of ineffective assistance of counsel for lack of arguable merit, reasonable strategic basis, and/or prejudice.
- The court found no reversible penalty-phase error and concluded the death sentence was not disproportionate.

## Legal Principles

- In reviewing sufficiency of the evidence, the court views the record in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth as verdict winner and asks whether the evidence permits the factfinder to find each element beyond a reasonable doubt.
- Graphic photographs may be admitted if they aid the jury’s understanding and their probative value is not outweighed by the danger of inflaming the jury.
- Evidence of prior crimes is generally inadmissible to prove propensity, but may be admitted for limited purposes such as common plan/scheme/design or identity when the prior and charged acts share distinctive, non-generic features.
- A temporal gap between offenses does not necessarily defeat probative value where contextual facts (including long incarceration) explain the interval.
- Ineffective assistance requires: (1) arguable merit to the underlying claim, (2) lack of a reasonable basis for counsel’s act or omission, and (3) prejudice (a reasonable probability of a different outcome).
- On direct review of a death sentence, the court evaluates whether the sentencing procedure complied with the capital statute, whether the jury’s findings are supported by the evidence, and whether the sentence is disproportionate compared to similar cases.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed Rush’s convictions and death sentence, concluding that the Commonwealth’s evidence proved guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and that the trial court acted within its discretion in admitting photographs and prior-crime evidence due to a distinctive pattern supporting identity and common scheme, with no meritorious ineffectiveness or penalty-phase error warranting relief.


Commonwealth v. Rush, 646 A.2d 557 (Pa. 1994)