J-S54042-19 NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37 COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF : PENNSYLVANIA : v. : : : ADRIAN BAUTISTA VELASCO : : Appellant : No. 423 MDA 2019 Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered November 14, 2018 In the Court of Common Pleas of Franklin County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-28-CR-0000423-2017 BEFORE: BOWES, J., LAZARUS, J., and DUBOW, J. MEMORANDUM BY DUBOW, J.: FILED NOVEMBER 27, 2019 Appellant, Adrian Bautisa Velasco, appeals from the November 14, 2018 Judgment of Sentence entered in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas following his jury conviction of one count each of Kidnap to Facilitate a Felony, Rape by Forcible Compulsion, Burglary, Sexual Assault, Criminal Trespass, False Imprisonment, Simple Assault, and Indecent Assault by Forcible Compulsion.1 Appellant challenges the denial of his suppression motion, the admission of certain testimony, and the sufficiency and weight of the evidence. After careful review, we affirm. The relevant facts and procedural history are as follows. The victim reported that, in the early morning hours of September 28, 2013, a man entered her home around 3:00 AM, restrained her by her wrists, and raped ____________________________________________ 118 Pa.C.S. §§ 2901(a)(2), 3121(a)(1), 3502(a)(1), 3124.1, 3503(a)(1)(ii), 2903(a), 2701(a)(1), and 3126(a)(2), respectively. J-S54042-19 her. Following the rape, a sexual assault nurse examiner interviewed the victim and completed a sexual assault exam kit, which included DNA swabs. In the course of investigating the home invasion and rape, Trooper Jason Cachara spoke with Appellant in October 2013. Three years later, in November 2016, after obtaining Appellant’s written consent on a form written in Spanish, Trooper Cachara obtained a DNA sample from Appellant. 2 The DNA in the sample matched DNA found on the victim. Police arrested Appellant and charged him with the above crimes.3 On June 16, 2017, Appellant filed a Motion to Suppress his DNA sample, challenging the voluntary, intelligent, and knowing nature of his consent to provide the sample. In his Motion, Appellant averred that his inability to speak and understand Spanish4 prevented him from consenting knowingly and intelligently to the search of his person and the collection of his DNA. ____________________________________________ 2 Appellant signed a Spanish language consent form. N.T., 10/5/17, at 11. 3 Police also charged Appellant with Unlawful Restraint, 18 Pa.C.S. § 2902(a)(1). The jury acquitted him of that charge. 4Appellant alleges that he does not speak and understand Spanish, but rather he speaks and understands Mixteco, a language spoken by indigenous Mesoamerican people in Mexico. N.T., 10/5/17, at 58. Mixteco is not a cognate language to Spanish. Id. -2- J-S54042-19 On October 5, 2017, the court held a hearing on Appellant’s Motion to Suppress. Officer Cachara5 and Sila Alegret-Bartel, a native Spanish speaker and the owner of a translation interpretation company, testified for the Commonwealth.6 The Commonwealth’s witnesses offered testimony to support the Commonwealth’s position that Appellant spoke and understood Spanish proficiently, thus rendering his consent to the DNA collection knowing and intelligent. In particular, Trooper Cachara testified that when ...
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