Commonwealth v. Padilla

I concur in the result as to the denial of guilt-phase relief but do not support affir-mance of the penalty verdict.

It is a matter of record that an arbitrary factor was interjected directly into the *1291weighing process performed by Appellant’s capital sentencing jury. In this regard, as the majority opinion aptly discusses, the stipulation serving as the basis for the in-perpetration-of-a-felony aggravator was self-provingly erroneous. See Majority Opinion, at 1270-71 (explaining that the sole predicate offense advanced by the Commonwealth to prove the in-perpetration-of-a-felony aggravator…