Court Opinion

ID: 9641589
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:35:29.118688+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:38.392304
License: Public Domain

POMEROY, Justice,
dissenting.
Prior to his second trial for the robbery and homicide of Catherine Johnson, the appellant, Clarence Greene, chose to waive his right to be tried by a jury. Before accepting the waiver, the trial judge attempted to comply with the mandate of Pa.R.Crim.P. 1101 which requires the judge, in an on-the-record colloquy, to “ascertain from the defendant whether [the waiver] is a knowing and intelligent waiver.” Although the colloquy here was substantially complete, the trial judge omitted any mention of one of the elements of a jury trial, that the jury’s verdict shall be unanimous.1 *198This omission violated the guidelines which this Court set up for jury trial waiver colloquies in Commonwealth v. Williams, 454 Pa. 368, 312 A.2d 597 (1973). At that time we expressly declined to denominate those guidelines a per se rule. Id. at 372, 312 A.2d at 599. In Commonwealth v. Morin, 477 Pa. 80, 383 A.2d 832 (1978), however, the majority of the Court in effect established the Williams guidelines as inflexible requirements of the on-the-record colloquy, with the result that appellant’s counsel was held to have been ineffective in failing to object to defects in the colloquy in post-verdict motions or before the Superior Court. I dissented in Commonwealth v. Morin, supra at 88, 383 A.2d at 835, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the lack of necessity, as I saw it, of molding the. guidelines suggested in Williams, supra, into a per se rule where no widespread abuse of colloquy requirements has been shown. 477 Pa. at 92, 383 A.2d at 837. I continue to adhere to that view.
Now, however, that there is virtually a prescribed content to the colloquy which must precede acceptance of a jury trial waiver, I suggest that objections to the sufficiency or accuracy of the colloquy should initially be raised at the time of the colloquy and before the non-jury trial has been conducted. I am mindful of the fact that Pa.R.Crim.P. 1101, as-interpreted by the Morin decision places upon the trial judge the obligation of seeing to it not only that the colloquy relative to jury waiver shall “appear on the record,” but also that the colloquy which appears on the record shall be sufficient to support the court’s finding that the waiver is knowing and intelligent. This, however, is no different than any other duty a judge has to perform which may bear on a litigant’s constitutional rights; we expect a judge to apply the law as it has been written — this is the trial judge’s burden, as it were. But to say as much is not to relieve the trial lawyer of his obligation to call any mistakes of the trial judge to his or her attention at the earliest practicable time. *199The language of Justice Roberts’ dissenting opinion in Commonwealth v. Williams, 432 Pa. 557, 570, 248 A.2d 301, 307 (1968),2 quoted with approval in Commonwealth v. Clair, 458 Pa. 418, 421, 326 A.2d 272, 273 (1974), is equally applicable here:
“The majority now — contrary to the whole course of modern trial procedure — encourages defense counsel to sit by silently without calling errors to the trial court’s attention until after the guilty verdict is returned. Where counsel fails to call errors to the attention of the trial judge, the majority ignores that deficiency and assumes the function of protecting those failures by granting relief despite the silence of counsel at trial.” (Emphasis in original.)
The Clair court reasoned that “[t]he trial judge must be given an opportunity to rectify errors at the time they are made. As we have often said before: ‘[A] party may not remain silent and take chances on a verdict and afterwards complain of matters which, if erroneous, the Court would have corrected.’ Commonwealth v. Marlin, 452 Pa. 380, 382, 305 A.2d 14, 16 (1973). See also, Commonwealth v. Morgan, 448 Pa. 494, 295 A.2d 77 (1972).” 458 Pa. at 421, 326 A.2d at 274.
To the extent that Commonwealth v. Morin, supra, suggested that objections to a jury trial waiver colloquy may be raised for the first time at post-verdict motions, I think it was mistaken; I would hold that such objections must be raised at the time of the colloquy in order to be preserved for appellate review. Since in the case at bar the first objection to the sufficiency of the colloquy was not taken until the post-trial motion stage, I think it came too late. Hence this dissent.
LARSEN, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.

. As noted above, this was Greene’s second trial for these offenses; his first trial had been a jury trial and the appellant had had the jury polled following their rendition of the verdict in that trial. Furthermore, at the time of his second trial the appellant indicated that he had discussed the waiver with his attorney, and he signed a written *198waiver. The judge undoubtedly was satisfied that he had indeed ascertained that the defendant’s waiver was knowing and intelligent.

. Not to be confused with Commonwealth v. Williams, 454 Pa. 368, 312 A.2d 597 (1973), referred to supra in this opinion.