Court Opinion

ID: 9695100
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:06:40.159984+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:08.285211
License: Public Domain

Justice GREENSPAN,
concurring.
I join the Majority Opinion authored by Justice Eakin, as well as the Chief Justice’s Concurring Opinion, for the following reasons. One of appellant’s initial claims on appeal to the Superior Court was that his constitutional right to a jury trial was violated when the trial court imposed, without a prior offer of trial by jury, an aggregate sentence that exceeded six months. The Superior Court panel had authority and an obligation to consider this claim, as well as the Commonwealth’s assertion that appellant waived the claim by failing to include it in his Statement of Questions Complained of on *456Appeal. The panel was not authorized to convert appellant’s constitutional claim into one based on the statutory right to a jury trial apparently granted by 42 Pa.C.S. § 4136(a)(3)(i).
Of course, once the Superior Court improperly refocused the issue on Section 4136, and then further determined that appellant was denied his rights under the statute, the Commonwealth was entitled to seek review in this Court to challenge: 1) the failure of the Superior Court to consider the case on the proper grounds; and 2) the merits of the panel’s decision. This Court, as carefully and thoroughly set out in the Majority Opinion, concludes that under Commonwealth v. Sorrell, 500 Pa. 355, 456 A.2d 1326 (1982), the Legislature usurped the Court’s constitutional rulemaking authority when it granted the right to a jury trial in Section 4136(a)(3)(i). Therefore, the subsection is unconstitutional and must be stricken. That conclusion is correct and I join it.1
The second issue this case presents is whether the legislature unconstitutionally usurped this Court’s authority in the area of contumacious violation of a court order when it limited a sentence of imprisonment for indirect criminal contempt to 15 days.2 On this issue, I join the Chief Justice in noting that criminal contempt of court is sui generis. The General Assembly certainly may legislate in a given area of the law (such as in the case of Protection From Abuse matters), and may authorize court orders and punishments for their violation in the context of those areas. The resulting court orders in such cases are legislatively authorized by statute. Here, however, *457with Section 4136(b), the Legislature limits the court’s authority to punish for indirect criminal contempts of any and all of the court’s general orders of injunction and restraint. Thus, it purports to apply to every injunction and restraining order a court enters. Under the statute, a court cannot fashion its sentence based on the nature of the eontemnor’s violation or the danger the violation may have triggered. Rather, the court is limited to imposing, at a maximum, a brief period of incarceration, no matter the facts surrounding the case. This is an improper encroachment on a court’s inherent authority to enforce its own orders and so certainly constitutes an illegal infringement on the separation of powers.
Unlike Justice Saylor, I believe that criminal contempts of court present the only instance where courts may make a rule, adjudicate its violation, and assess a penalty. The right of appellate review serves to protect the contemnor. The limits imposed by the legislature in Section 4136(b) abrogate the inherent power by which the court can enforce its own orders. Because Section 4136(b) violates the separation of powers doctrine, it is invalid.
Justice McCAFFERY joins.

. I also agree with the Chief Justice’s observation that on remand, the focus of the Superior Court should be on whether appellant preserved the claim that his constitutional right to a jury trial was violated (the issue he raised in the first instance).

. Appellant initially claimed that his sentence violated 42 Pa.C.S. § 4133, Commitment or fine for contempt. Section 4133 provides that commitment for contempt is proper "only [for] contempts committed in open court" and "all other contempts shall be punished by fine only," except if "otherwise provided by statute.” 42 Pa.C.S. § 4133. The Superior Court panel looked to Section 4136(b) because it believed that subsection presented a statutory exception to the "fine only” provision in Section 4133. One could argue that Section 4133 likewise constitutes an infringement on a court’s authority to ehforce its own orders. However, that statute is not before us in this case.