Opinion ID: 2168343
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Responsibility for the Delay

Text: The second Barker factor inquires into responsibility for the delay. Generally, no speedy trial violation arises from the delay of a criminal defendant's trial brought about by the normal litigation of claims related to the ensuing trial. United States v. Loud Hawk, 474 U.S. 302, 315, 106 S.Ct. 648, 656, 88 L.Ed.2d 640 (1986). In such cases, a criminal defendant bears the heavy burden of showing an unreasonable delay caused by the prosecution in that appeal, or a wholly unjustifiable delay by the appellate court. Loud Hawk at 316, 106 S.Ct. at 656-57. The foundation of this rule lies in the notion that appellate review of suppression motions concerning important issues of criminal justice serves important public interests. Jones, supra, 495 Pa. at 500-501, 434 A.2d at 1202. Indeed, when weighed against a defendant's speedy trial rights, the public's interest in thoroughly-considered and well-reasoned appellate opinions where an individual is charged with criminal conduct must be given at least equal consideration: It has long been a rule that when a defendant obtains a reversal of a prior, unsatisfied conviction, he may be retried in the normal course of events. . . . [This rule] has been thought wise because it protects the societal interest in trying people accused of crime, rather than granting them immunization because of a legal error at a previous trial, and because it enhances the probability that appellate courts will be vigilant to strike down previous convictions that are tainted with reversible error. . . . These policies, so carefully preserved in this Court's interpretation given the Double Jeopardy Clause, would be seriously undercut by [an] interpretation given the Speedy Trial Clause [that raised a Sixth Amendment obstacle to retrial following successful attack on conviction]. Loud Hawk, supra, 474 U.S. at 313, 106 S.Ct. at 655 (citation omitted). Loud Hawk involved facts very similar to those in the instant matter in that neither Loud Hawk nor appellant had been tried on the charges leveled against them and both Loud Hawk and appellant invoked the appellate process to obtain a more advantageous trial posture. When a criminal defendant petitions for appellate review in this Court, he necessarily risks a relatively slower, more deliberative process than that available with either the trial courts or intermediate appellate courts of this Commonwealth. The Superior Court's review for errors in the trial court's pretrial rulings and guilt determination almost inevitably implicate a quicker analysis aided by principles of stare decisis and well-settled legal pronouncements by this and other courts. By contrast, this Court engages in a more comprehensive legal and constitutional review of the issues raised by a particular case. Further, given that this Court's opinions have a state-wide and precedentially binding impact on all other courts situated in this Commonwealth, this Court's determinations affect more than just the litigants named in a particular case, thereby necessarily requiring a deliberative consideration of the issues, not constrained by significant temporal restrictions. Accordingly, when a criminal defendant petitions for review with this Court, he concurrently divests the trial court of its jurisdiction and, consequently, divests the trial court of the power to proceed with a trial while the deliberative appellate process takes its course. Jones, supra, 495 Pa. at 497-498, 434 A.2d at 1200-1201. In short, a defendant who resorts to an interlocutory appeal of a pretrial motion normally should not be able upon return to the trial court to reap the reward of dismissal for failure to receive a speedy trial. Loud Hawk, supra, 474 U.S. at 316, 106 S.Ct. at 656. Rather, as the U.S. Supreme Court noted in Loud Hawk, [h]aving sought the aid of the judicial process and realizing the deliberateness that a[n appellate] court employs in reaching a decision, the defendants are not now able to criticize the very process which they so frequently called upon. Id. (citation omitted). We agree. The sole question remaining before us, then, is whether appellant carried the heavy burden of showing an unreasonable delay caused by a wholly unjustifiable delay by this Court. Id. at 316, 106 S.Ct. at 656. In this regard, appellant asserts that this Court's deliberation of his petition for allowance of appeal violated his right to a speedy trial. Brief for Appellant at 23. However, rather than proving or even attempting to thoughtfully and specifically describe the wholly unjustifiable nature of the delay in this Court, appellant makes only bare assertions. See, e.g., id. at 18 (noting the unexplained appellate delay, the extreme and unexplained delay, and that [t]here was no justification for this extreme appellate delay.); at 30 (the reasons for the delay are not explained and [are] inexcusable. There is absolutely no excuse for [the delay]. . . . The Pennsylvania Supreme Court simply did nothing for three and three quarter years and, then, still did not decide the issue but dismissed the Petition without prejudice.); and at 35-36 ([appellant] has met his heavy burden with the existence of this kind of excessive and unjustifiable delay. . . . The excessive and unexplained delay in the context of [appellant's] case and incarceration clearly wasn't warranted and was highly unreasonable and unjustifiable.). We fail to discern how these naked proclamations, without more, meet the heavy burden of the wholly unjustifiable delay standard of proof imposed by Loud Hawk. Although appellant is not privy to the inner workings or the deliberative processes of this Court, this does not excuse the fact that appellant failed to expound upon, or perhaps even ignored, the context in which he filed his petition for allowance of appeal with this Court. We will not be so remiss. In his petition, appellant asked this Court to reverse the Superior Court's determination that the Commonwealth's warrantless use of a one-party consensual body wire in appellant's home did not violate his right to privacy protected by Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. At the point in time that appellant filed his petition with this Court, however, this Court had docketed other cases for consideration of the precise issue raised by appellant in his petition. On December 29, 1987, almost a year and a half before issuing its remand order in appellant's case, the Superior Court decided en banc the case Commonwealth v. Schaeffer, 370 Pa.Super. 179, 536 A.2d 354 (1987) ( Schaeffer I ), finding that the warrantless use of a body wire in the home of a non-consenting individual violates Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. On December 2, 1988, this Court granted allocatur in Schaeffer I. 520 Pa. 596, 552 A.2d 251 (1988). On January 12, 1989, a panel of the Superior Court filed an opinion in the case of Commonwealth v. Brion, 381 Pa.Super. 83, 552 A.2d 1105 (1989), finding that the warrantless use of a body wire into the home of a non-consenting individual did not violate Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. Then, just three months later on April 5, 1989, and with these two conflicting opinions under its belt, the Superior Court issued a per curiam order in appellant's case, reversing the trial court's suppression order and remanding the case for reconsideration in light of this Court's decisions in Commonwealth v. Blystone, 519 Pa. 450, 549 A.2d 81 (1988) ( subsequently aff'd in Blystone v. Pennsylvania, 494 U.S. 299, 110 S.Ct. 1078, 108 L.Ed.2d 255 (1990)), Commonwealth v. Rodriguez, 519 Pa. 415, 548 A.2d 1211 (1988), and its own decision in Brion, supra. On April 26, 1989, appellant then filed with this Court his petition for allowance of appeal of the Superior Court's order, relying on the Superior Court's opinion in Schaeffer I and in anticipation of this Court's scheduled resolution of Schaeffer I. Appellant's April 1989 filing of his Petition for Allowance of Appeal marked the beginning of the delay period of which appellant complains in the instant matter. As is the normal practice of this Court (and, in this case, as proposed by appellant's own petition), this Court reserved disposition of appellant's Petition for Allowance of Appeal pending this Court's disposition of Schaeffer I since this Court's ruling in Schaeffer I would resolve the issue raised in appellant's Petition for Allowance of Appeal of whether the warrantless use of a body wire into his home non-consensually violated Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution and should therefore be suppressed. [4] On August 26, 1991, while this petition was pending, appellant, who had been held without bail, filed a petition for bail in federal court. A year and three months later, on December 2, 1992, a federal magistrate issued a recommendation that the charges against appellant be dismissed unless he was brought to trial within 120 days. The Commonwealth then filed with this Court a petition for extraordinary relief in which it urged the Court to act on appellant's petition for allowance of appeal in order to bring the matter to trial and comply with the federal court order. Notwithstanding the still-pending status of Schaeffer I, this Court entered an order on December 28, 1992, denying appellant's petition for allowance of appeal without prejudice and denying the Commonwealth's emergency petition as moot so that appellant could proceed to trial within the time frame set forth by the federal magistrate, thus ending the delay period of which appellant complains in the instant matter. Commonwealth v. Deblase, 533 Pa. 617, 619 A.2d 699 (1992). Then, on June 14, 1993, this Court granted allocatur in the Brion case (534 Pa. 652, 627 A.2d 730 (1993)), and consolidated it for review with the Schaeffer I and its companion case, Schaeffer II. [5] When viewed in this context, the reason this Court's concededly lengthy consideration of appellant's petition for allowance of appeal becomes pointedly clear. In his petition, appellant relied on the Superior Court's opinion in Schaeffer I as the basis for asking this Court to reverse the Superior Court order in his case. When appellant filed his petition with this Court on April 26, 1989, this Court had already granted allocatur in Schaeffer I on December 2, 1988. 520 Pa. 596, 552 A.2d 251 (1988). Accordingly, by appellant's own hand, the resolution of his petition for allowance of appeal in turn was premised on this Court's resolution of Schaeffer I. Having premised his petition for allowance of appeal on the resolution of a specific case, appellant cannot now claim error with respect to the delay in this Court's disposition of his petition in order to consider and rule upon the very case appellant cited in his petition as the reason why the tape recording in his case should have been suppressed. Accordingly, appellant cannot reasonably claim a wholly unjustifiable delay by this Court's deliberation over his petition for allowance of appeal. Further, when this Court denied appellant's petition for allowance of appeal on December 28, 1992, it relinquished jurisdiction of the case to allow the trial court to proceed to trial even though the Schaeffer I issue had not been resolved. Only in this manner could the lower court proceed to adhere to the federal magistrate's December 2, 1992, recommendation that the charges against appellant be dismissed unless he be brought to trial within 120 days, an action procured by appellant himself in the federal courts. Moreover, the principal issue raised in Brion, Schaeffer I, Schaeffer II, and appellant's petition for allowance of appeal posed a complex and sensitive analysis of the ever-evolving nature and reach of the right to privacy ostensibly protected by Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. This Court's decisions on that particular issue have been characteristically marked by bare majorities and strenuous dissents, indicating the thoughtful exchange process involved and the inherently time-consuming nature of attempting to form a majority coalition among the varied members of this Court on such a contentious issue of such constitutional dimension. See, e.g., Brion, supra (4-3 majority); Commonwealth v. Louden, 536 Pa. 180, 638 A.2d 953 (1994) (3-2 majority) (defendants had no justifiable expectation that conversations in their home, which were loud enough to be heard through wall of their home into adjoining home, were not subject to being intercepted); Commonwealth v. Martin, 534 Pa. 136, 626 A.2d 556 (1993) (4-3 majority) (probable cause and judicial warrant necessary before drugs found via canine sniff could be searched); Commonwealth v. Kohl, 532 Pa. 152, 615 A.2d 308 (1992) (4-2 majority) (blood samples taken under implied consent law violated constitution where there was no reason to believe that defendants operated vehicle under the influence of alcohol or controlled substance); Commonwealth, Department of Environmental Resources v. Blosenski Disposal Service, 523 Pa. 274, 566 A.2d 845 (1989) (4-2 majority) (warrantless inspection provisions of Solid Waste Management Act were constitutionally valid). Indeed, even appellant admits that [i]n the present case, [appellant's] position ha[d] substantial merit in that he [had] raised serious issues in the State Court [sic] system as to the applicability of the right of privacy in the case of Commonwealth v. Schaeffer, [370 Pa.Super. 179], 536 A.2d 354 (1987). Brief for Appellant at 34. Appellant's admission in this regard necessarily implies an acquiescence to this Court's deliberative process in resolving issues of substantial merit affecting fundamental freedoms of all individuals under the Pennsylvania Constitution. Accordingly, for these reasons, the delay in appellant's trial brought about by this Court's deliberation of his petition for allowance of appeal cannot be legitimately considered wholly unjustifiable within the meaning of Loud Hawk. We find, consequently, that appellant did not carry the heavy burden imposed by Loud Hawk of showing such wholly unjustifiable delay by this Court. We therefore decline to weigh this consideration in favor of appellant's speedy trial claim.