Court Opinion

ID: 9736224
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:47:54.405278+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:27:05.157620
License: Public Domain

*535NIX, Chief Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the majority’s judgment that the motion to suppress was wrongly decided by the trial court.
I must voice my disagreement, however, with the majority’s statement that the Commonwealth should have appealed from the suppression order prior to trial. Rather than take an immediate appeal, the prosecution attempted in good faith to proceed to trial with its remaining evidence. The jury was ultimately unable to agree on a verdict, and a mistrial was declared. That occurrence strongly suggests that the Commonwealth’s case was substantially handicapped by the order suppressing the victim’s in-court identification of appellant.
While in retrospect it might appear that the prosecution’s decision to proceed to trial was unwise, that decision should not operate as a bar to appellate relief where, as in the instant circumstances, a mistrial is declared. It is consistent with the letter and spirit of Commonwealth v. Bosurgi, 411 Pa. 56, 190 A.2d 304 (1963), to permit an appeal before retrial of the instant case. Moreover, the appeal was filed within thirty (30) days of the suppression order within the requirements of our rule of procedure. Pa.R.A.P. 903(a).
Thus absent the aborted trial the propriety of the Commonwealth’s appeal would be without question. I can determine no legitimate reason why the aborted trial should alter that situation. A contrary rule would penalize prosecutors who go to trial honestly uncertain of the impact an adverse pretrial ruling will have on their case and encourage interlocutory appeals by the Commonwealth in every situation in which evidence has been suppressed.