Court Opinion

ID: 9544017
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:51:26.130837+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:11:48.660491
License: Public Domain

CAVANAUGH, Judge,
dissenting:
With all due respect, I must reject the majority’s application of Commonwealth v. Bolden, 472 Pa. 602, 373 A.2d 90 (1977), as both untenable and unwise. I would instead hold that the February 27, 1980 order was interlocutory and must, therefore, be quashed. See Commonwealth v. Ravert, 286 Pa.Super. 46, 428 A.2d 231 (1981) (denial of appellant’s motion to quash indictment at end of Commonwealth’s case at preliminary hearing interlocutory and not appealable).
A brief reiteration of the procedural history will illustrate the inappropriateness of the present appeal at this juncture. Appellant timely appealed for a trial de novo before the Lehigh County Common Pleas Court after his conviction of summary offenses before a District Magistrate. Prior to the scheduled de novo trial, appellant moved to dismiss the prosecution because of an alleged violation of Pa.R.Crim.P. 51. The lower court agreed and, on March 21, 1979, dismissed the charges against appellant. Immediately thereafter, the Commonwealth filed a petition to rescind that order on the grounds that it was based on mistaken facts. In response, appellant claimed that (a) the court lacked jurisdiction to reverse its dismissal order, and (b) a trial de novo was barred by double jeopardy.
On February 27, 1980, the court granted the Commonwealth’s petition and reversed its March 21, 1979, dismissal order. The court also held that it had jurisdiction to review its earlier order and that appellant’s defense of double jeopardy was inapplicable because appellant had never been *158brought to trial. Appellant, on March 17, 1980, appealed to this court from the February 27, 1980 order. In a per curiam order of June 6, 1980, we denied the Commonwealth’s April 1, 1980 motion to quash appellant’s appeal without prejudice to the parties’ rights to argue the jurisdictional propriety of this appeal.1
Turning now to the issue herein raised, I must disagree with the majority that Bolden requires the resolution of appellant’s double jeopardy claim. The double jeopardy prohibition of the Federal Constitution “. . . protects against a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal. It protects against a second prosecution for the same offense after conviction. And it protects against multiple punishment for the same offense.” (Opinion of Hester, J. at 797; citations omitted). Accordingly, the Supreme Court in Bol-den stated:
We hold that the denial of a pre-trial application to dismiss an indictment on the ground that the scheduled trial will violate the defendant’s right not to be placed twice in jeopardy may be appealed before the new trial takes place. Once a defendant is erroneously subjected to another prosecution, neither an acquittal nor appellate reversal of a conviction is sufficient to vindicate his constitutional right not to be placed twice in jeopardy. We conclude that the right to be free from multiple prosecution, embodied in the double jeopardy clause, can be adequately protected only by permitting an immediate appeal from a trial court’s denial of relief.
472 Pa. at 609, 373 A.2d at 93 (emphasis added). Applying Bolden, our appellate courts have frequently entertained appeals which have alleged that reprosecution will violate double jeopardy. See, e. g., Commonwealth v. Sample, 493 *159Pa. 347, 426 A.2d 582 (1981); Commonwealth v. Washington, 492 Pa. 572, 424 A.2d 1340 (1981). Those appeals, however, have involved matters in which there has been a prior proceeding at which jeopardy has already attached.
We have said that:
it is axiomatic that in order to prevail on a plea of double jeopardy the defendant must establish that he has already been once placed in jeopardy. In a jury case, jeopardy does not attach until the jury has been impaneled and sworn; and in a non-jury case, jeopardy attaches when the accused has been subjected to a charge and the court has begun to hear evidence.
Commonwealth v. Smith, 232 Pa.Super. 546, 548-549, 334 A.2d 741, 742 (1975). Consequently, where jeopardy has not attached ab initio, there can be no viable subsequent claim of double jeopardy. Compare In The Interest of George S., III, 286 Pa.Super. 217, 428 A.2d 650 (1981) (order denying motion to dismiss on double jeopardy grounds appealable in case where appellant was transferred by juvenile court to adult court and then returned to juvenile court; the court held that the remand for further juvenile court proceedings would not place appellant twice in jeopardy because there had been no prior adjudicatory proceeding in juvenile court).
Here, appellant has never been once placed in jeopardy for these crimes.2 I, therefore, cannot go along with the majority’s conclusion that the February 27, 1980 order constitutes a final appealable order within the meaning of 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 742. Simply because appellant has labeled his appeal as a “double jeopardy” claim does not make it cognizable, particularly where an examination of the procedural history makes clear that such a claim is inappropriate at this juncture. Because I do not read Bolden so broadly as to encompass the instant appeal, I would order it quashed and remand this matter for trial.

. Although this issue is not properly before us, the briefs indicate that, subsequent to his filing of the March 17, 1980 notice of appeal to this court, appellant was tried and convicted of the instant charges in Common Pleas Court. If this information is accurate, that proceeding would appear to be a nullity. Pa.R.A.P. 1701(a). See Commonwealth v. Borris, 280 Pa.Super. 369, 421 A.2d 767 (1980).

. I agree with the majority that appellant’s initial trial and conviction before a District Magistrate does not raise a meritorious double jeopardy issue.