Opinion ID: 2322573
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Applicability of the PCHA to this Question

Text: There is at the outset a question of whether section 4(b) of the Post Conviction Hearing Act, 19 P.S. § 1180-4(b), wherein is found the waiver concept which the Commonwealth here advances, applies to Schmidt's failure to raise by pretrial motion in 1965 the question of the legality of his arrest. By its own terms, the Post Conviction Hearing Act establishes a post-conviction procedure for providing relief from convictions obtained and sentences imposed without due process of law. It encompass[es] all common law and statutory procedures for the same purpose that exist when this statute takes effect, including habeas corpus and coram nobis. 19 P.S. § 1180-2 (Supp. 1972-73) (emphasis added). To be eligible for post-conviction relief, a person who, like Schmidt, is incarcerated in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania under a sentence of . . . imprisonment . . . ., 19 P.S. § 1180-3(b) (Supp. 1972-73), must initiate a proceeding under the Act and follow the procedure therein set forth. There is no other channel by which to attack a conviction collaterally in the courts of this Commonwealth. The Act states in section 4 that an issue is waived [and hence no relief can be obtained] if: (1) The petitioner knowingly and understandingly failed to raise it and it could have been raised before the trial, at the trial, on appeal, in a habeas corpus proceeding or any other proceeding actually conducted or in a prior proceeding actually initiated under this act. . . . 19 P.S. § 1180-4(b) (Supp. 1972-73) (emphasis added). Section 4 then creates a rebuttable presumption that a failure to raise an issue was knowing and understanding, 19 P.S. § 1180-4(c) (Supp. 1972-73); the burden of rebutting the presumption is upon the PCHA petitioner. 19 P.S. § 1180-4(b)(2) (Supp. 1972-73). In Commonwealth v. Cannon, 442 Pa. 339, 275 A. 2d 293 (1971), we held that section 4 waiver provisions did not apply to the failure to raise issues in a pre-PCHA habeas corpus petition. Noting that under prior habeas corpus law there was no corresponding concept of waiver, we found it impossible to conclude that appellant knowingly and understandingly waived his present claims by virtue of his failure to raise them in a pre-PCHA 1965 habeas corpus petition. 442 Pa. at 342. We followed that decision in Commonwealth v. Butler, 442 Pa. 476, 276 A. 2d 536 (1971), and recognized in Commonwealth v. Melton, 449 Pa. 223, 296 A. 2d 727 (1972), that the same reasoning applied to a failure to raise issues in a direct appeal taken pre-PCHA. The question necessarily before us today, then, is whether these three cases require us similarly to view a failure, prior to the effective date of the PCHA, to raise an issue by pretrial motion. Our pre- Cannon interpretations of section 4 of the Act recognized that the Act does refer (in a habeas corpus proceeding) to events occurring prior to the effective date of the Act. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Johnson, 433 Pa. 582, 252 A. 2d 641 (1969); Commonwealth v. Henderson, 433 Pa. 585, 253 A. 2d 109 (1969). The error in those cases, an error corrected in Cannon, supra, was in not recognizing that section 4's rebuttable presumption that failure to raise an issue in a pre-PCHA habeas corpus proceeding was knowing and understanding was always in fact effectively rebutted by the absence of any corresponding waiver doctrine in prior existing habeas corpus law. Because no adverse consequence attached to the failure to raise an issue in a pre-PCHA habeas corpus petition, we found it impossible to believe, notwithstanding the rebuttable presumption to the contrary, that such failure was knowing and understanding of anything. In the case at bar, however, the rationale of Cannon, Butler and Melton has no application. At the time of his trial in 1965, a Pennsylvania Rule of Criminal Procedure (see note 7, supra) required Schmidt to raise the issue of legality of his arrest prior to trial, and his failure to do so, under pre-PCHA habeas corpus law, would have effectively precluded his seeking collateral relief on that ground after conviction. Commonwealth ex rel. Cully v. Myers, 422 Pa. 561, 222 A. 2d 910 (1966); Commonwealth ex rel. Souder v. Myers, 421 Pa. 371, 219 A. 2d 696 (1966); Commonwealth ex rel. Cuevas v. Rundle, 418 Pa. 373, 211 A. 2d 485 (1965); Commonwealth ex rel. Pomales v. Myers, 418 Pa. 369, 211 A. 2d 483 (1965); Commonwealth ex rel. Adderley v. Myers, 418 Pa. 366, 211 A. 2d 481 (1965); Commonwealth ex rel. Fox v. Maroney, 417 Pa. 308, 207 A. 2d 810 (1965). That is to say, there was operative in this case, unlike the situation in Cannon, a doctrine of waiver as to issues required to be raised by pretrial motion, which prevented such issues to be raised after trial by habeas corpus. Indeed, as the cases cited above indicate, the doctrine was one of unvarying and untempered conclusiveness. Because this doctrine existed, there is here no obstacle to following the legislative mandate of section 4(c) of the PCHA. It follows that the failure to raise this issue before the trial will be regarded as knowing and understanding until the petitioner-appellant demonstrates to the contrary. This he is required to do if he is to prevail under the Act, but would not have had the opportunity to do under prior law. We turn then to a consideration of whether or not the failure to raise the illegal arrest issue pretrial in 1965 was or was not a knowing and understanding decision; if it was not, the petitioner would be entitled, under the PCHA, to a consideration on the merits.