Court Opinion

ID: 9639854
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:50:08.984339+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:22.401203
License: Public Domain

*217Concurring Opinion by
Mr. Justice Bell:
This appeal, taken before sentence and judgment and while defendant’s motion for new trial lias not been disposed of, is clearly interlocutory and should be quashed. If this defendant is committed before his motion for a new trial is disposed of, it may be many years before he appears in Court for a redetermination of Ms sanity or mental condition, or for the disposition of his motion for a new trial, or for a new trial if a new trial is granted. The net result of such delay may well be the obstruction or defeat of justice because of the death, resignation or retirement of the trial Judge or stenographer, or because of the absence or death or dimming recollections of witnesses. Dilatory or delaying tactics are well known devices employed by criminals to defeat justice and such tactics or motions should be rejected by the Courts whenever reasonably possible.
If an appeal is taken after defendant’s motion for a new trial has been dismissed and judgment of sentence has been entered on the verdict, defendant can then raise all questions he desires, including the lower Court’s refusal to commit Mm to an institution. This has always been the salutary policy in Pennsylvania. The general rule is long and well established that a defendant has no standing to appeal, even after conviction, where no sentence or other final judgment has been entered against Mm: Commonwealth v. Hall, 173 Pa. Superior Ct. 285, 98 A. 2d 386; Commonwealth v. Hicks, 173 Pa. Superior Ct. 395, 98 A. 2d 478; Commonwealth v. Trufley, 170 Pa. Superior Ct. 200, 85 A. 2d 622; Commonwealth v. Graham, 170 Pa. Superior Ct. 343, 85 A. 2d 632; Commonwealth v. Feldman, 159 Pa. Superior Ct. 3, 46 A. 2d 332; Commonwealth ex rel. Holly v. Ashe, 368 Pa. 211, 82 A. 2d 244. See also, Act of March 31, 1860, P. L. 427, §57.
*218In Commonwealth ex rel. Holly v. Ashe, 368 Pa., supra, the Court said (page 218) : “‘appeals may not be taken in criminal proceedings where judgment of sentence has not been passed.’ ”
In Sullivan v. Philadelphia, 378 Pa. 648, 107 A. 2d 854, the Court said: “Even with the consent of all interested parties, appellate jurisdiction of an interlocutory order or decree may not be assumed: Stadler v. Mt. Oliver Borough [373 Pa. 316, 95 A. 2d 776]. The evident policy of the law in such regard is to preclude piecemeal determinations and the consequent protraction of litigation.”
There are no extraordinary circumstances, no jeopardy of basic human rights, to justify taking the present case out of the aforesaid general rule.
Since the decision in Commonwealth v. Moon, 383 Pa. 18, 117 A. 2d 96, this Court decided the case of Commomoealth v. Novak, 384 Pa. 237, 120 A. 2d 543, which I believe was inadvertently overlooked by the majority. In the Novak case this Court decided that an order of the lower Court dismissing the petition of a defendant to commit him to a mental hospital — which petition was filed after indictment but before trial— was interlocutory and not appealable. The Novak case, in my judgment, in principle rules the instant case since there is no difference in principle between the dismissal of a commitment petition presented before trial and one presented during trial or after trial but before sentence.
To allow this interlocutory and unnecessary appeal will establish a precedent — a bad precedent — for an almost endless series of commitment petitions followed by interlocutory appeals by defendants (1) during trial, and (2) after trial but before sentence. These delaying tactics will hamper and for the aforesaid reasons will often defeat justice.
*219If tbe appeal is not quashed, I would coneur in Justice Chidsex’s able opinion.