Opinion ID: 1972350
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Pennsylvania Constitution

Text: Appellant contends that his right under Article One, Section 11 of this Commonwealth's Constitution was violated by the holding of his preliminary hearing in the prison rather than in a courtroom open to the public. Section 11 provides that [a]ll courts shall be open. Logically, the next question is whether a preliminary hearing is a court proceeding. Just two years ago, this Court answered that question in the affirmative. Re: Petition of Daily Item, 310 Pa.Super. 222, 456 A.2d 580 (1983) (Brosky, J.). In Daily Item, this Court considered whether the press and public had a right to insist upon access to pretrial judicial proceedings, independent of the defendant's right to a public trial. In that case, the District Justice denied public access to the preliminary hearing held to determine whether the defendant should be tried on criminal homicide charges. The trial court upheld the District Judge's exclusion of the public from the hearing and denial of access to the transcript. We reversed, granting the petitioner access to the transcript. The defendant in that case had requested that the press and public be excluded from the hearing, thus waiving his right to a public trial at that stage. We, therefore, did not address the defendant's constitutional right, only that of the press and the public of access to a preliminary hearing. For our purposes here, the critical point is that we held in that case, as we do today, that the Pennsylvania Constitutional provision in Article One, Section 11, that [a]ll courts shall be open, applies to a preliminary hearing. Daily Item involved the assertion of that constitutional right by the public. The issue before us differs only in that here it is the criminal defendant  not the public  who is claiming the benefit of this constitutional provision. Since Section 11 grants a right that accrues to the public, it is inconceivable that it could not also be relied upon by a party to a case. There is no language in Section 11 which would justify such a restriction of standing to assert its violation  and we do not intend to fabricate it. It follows that Section 11 of Article One of the Pennsylvania Constitution was violated by the manner in which the preliminary hearing in this case was conducted.
This provision of the Pennsylvania Constitution accords the criminal defendant the right to a public trial. We have concluded above that a preliminary hearing is a court proceeding. This would seem to imply that a preliminary hearing is part of a trial. However, in order to resolve the issue of whether or not this type of court proceeding is a trial, we will examine the nature and importance of the preliminary hearing in Pennsylvania and consider whether it is an integral part of the trial, such that the Section 9 right attaches. Judge Beck's concurring opinion in Daily Item is instructive for our present concern: The preliminary hearing has a common law and statutory rather than a constitutional origin. Its history extends for a period of nearly 500 years in English criminal jurisprudence. ..... Pennsylvania first enacted a statute providing for preliminary hearings in 1915. . . . Interpreting this statute, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court declared that a preliminary hearing is a positive legal right of an accused. . . . The major changes in Pennsylvania law since 1915 have been to expand the right to a preliminary hearing to categories of crime not included in the original 1915 statute and to defendants already incarcerated. ..... The public as well as the defendant has an interest in the preliminary hearing because it is a vital and integral part of the criminal adjudicative process. The public's interest in the proceeding derives from its fundamental interest in the proper administration of justice. Daily Item, supra, 310 Pa.Superior Ct. at 228-29, 456 A.2d at 584 (Beck, J. concurring) (emphasis added). Thus, under Pennsylvania law, the preliminary hearing is a mandatory part of the accused's criminal trial proceedings. We cannot discern any reason why the constitutional protections of the Pennsylvania right to a public trial should adhere only to the later portion of the trial and not to the preliminary hearing which is mandatory, vital and integral in Pennsylvania. Our own Supreme Court extensively discussed the historical importance of open public trials under the Pennsylvania and federal Constitutions in Commonwealth v. Contakos, 499 Pa. 340, 453 A.2d 578 (1982). The Pennsylvania and federal constitutional policy basis of the right to a public trial was summarized as follows: to assure the public that justice is done evenhandedly and fairly; to discourage perjury and the misconduct of the participants; to prevent decisions based on secret bias or partiality; to prevent individuals from feeling that the law should be taken into the hands of private citizens; to satisfy the natural desire to see justice done; to provide for community catharsis; to promote the stability of government by allowing access to its workings, thus assuring citizens that government and the courts are worthy of their continued loyalty and support; to promote an understanding of our system of government and courts. Contakos, supra, 499 Pa. at 344, 453 A.2d at 579-80. We conclude, therefore, that a preliminary hearing is covered by Section 9's guarantee of a public trial; and that the instant preliminary hearing was held in contravention of Section 9. It remains to be seen, however, whether this constituted reversible error.