Court Opinion

ID: 9759353
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:13:44.775061+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:01.419515
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Justice,
concurring.
I
Appellant did not present the issues the majority now reaches on the merits to the trial court in written post-verdict motions. Pennsylvania Rule of Criminal Procedure 1123(a) and this Court’s expressly prospective mandate in Commonwealth v. Blair, 460 Pa. 31, 331 A.2d 213 (1975), therefore, preclude consideration of the merits of appellant’s claims and demand that judgment of sentence be affirmed. Nonetheless, Mr. Chief Justice Eagen reaches the merits of appellant’s claims and proposes that now, in June of 1979, six years after adoption of Rule 1123(a) and more than four years after Blair, this Court should perpetuate for sixty more days further disregard of Rule 1123(a) and of Blair by some trial courts and counsel. I cannot support this proposal.
Instead of enforcing Rule 1123(a) and its expressly prospective application announced in Blair, the Chief Justice proposes that this Court now adopt a new and additional prospective rule that sixty days from the filing of this decision, the requirements of Rule 1123(a) will be strictly enforced. The result is that in September 1979, fifty-five months after Blair was filed on January 29, 1975, and fifty-three months after Blair was published in the Atlantic Second advance sheets on March 1, 1975, this Court announces that, at long last a Rule of Criminal Procedure adopted by this Court in June 1973 will be fully enforced. As a proposed “cure,” the suggested additional sixty day postponement is just a delay and must be regarded as utterly worthless1. Is it not irresponsible to say in June 1979 that the 1975 prospective rule of Blair will be strictly enforced in September 1979?
*208Mr. Chief Justice Eagen seeks to justify the departure from Rule 1123(a) and Blair by asserting that trial courts and counsel may have justifiably relied upon a series of decisions purportedly creating a “limited” exception to Blair. But what Mr. Chief Justice Eagen perceives of as justifiable reliance is in reality no more than a misperception of and slovenly disregard of Rule 1123(a) and the case law of this Court. Indeed, even the very cases first creating the “exception” to Blair explicitly warned the bench and bar that failure to file written post-verdict motions was expressly disapproved. E.. g., Commonwealth v. Pugh, 476 Pa. 445, 448, 383 A.2d 183, 185 (1978); Commonwealth v. Perillo, 474 Pa. 63, 66 n.2, 376 A.2d 635, 637 n.2 (1977); Commonwealth v. Grace, 473 Pa. 542, 546, 375 A.2d 721, 723 (1977). Is the majority now saying it did not mean what it said in 1973, 1975, 1977, and 1978 and that it will only now, in 1979, begin to follow its own admonitions and enforce its own rules?
Clearly the proposed curative measure does nothing more than create additional confusing and complicating side effects. Established precedent holds that where the post-verdict court strictly enforces Rule 1123(a) and refuses to consider issues not raised in written post-verdict motions, the issues are waived on appeal. E. g., Commonwealth v. Carrillo, 483 Pa. 215, 395 A.2d 570 (1978). In a fairly and evenhandedly administered unified judicial system can distinctions properly be made among litigants in the appellate courts on the basis of non-uniform application in the trial courts of Rule 1123(a)?
Our case law also firmly supports the position that if an issue is only raised orally before the post-verdict court, it is waived on appeal regardless of whether the trial court addressed the issue on its merits. E. g., Commonwealth v. Waters, 477 Pa. 430, 384 A.2d 234 (1978). I can perceive of no basis for distinguishing between appeals where the trial court has addressed issues raised in oral post-verdict motions and those where the trial court has addressed issues raised in a written brief or memorandum not included in the record. How is the effectiveness of appellate review possibly en*209hanced absent written post-verdict motions? Indeed, how on a silent record containing only boiler plate post-verdict motions can an appellate court determine whether a written brief or memorandum on other issues has been filed other than to take the unprecedented step of obtaining, by telephone or otherwise, off-the-record information? Experience demonstrates that frequently unfiled post-verdict briefs and memoranda are not even mentioned in appellate briefs or at oral argument. And if an appellee were to dispute the assertion that an unfiled brief or memoranda had been presented to the trial court are we to remand for a hearing to resolve that question of fact or credibility? Rule 1123(a) and Blair were designed specifically to avoid such unnecessary additional. controversy and the accompanying burdens of legislation. Nothing less than strict enforcement of Rule 1123(a) and Blair can possibly resolve all these potential difficulties.
I would hold the issues appellant presents, and the majority addresses, waived.
II
In addition to its failure to apply Blair, the majority errs by applying an erroneous legal standard to the unpreserved issues it addresses. Despite an express and repeated admonition of the trial court to all concerned not to discuss in the presence of the jury the results of a lie detector test, a police officer on the witness stand at the time of the court’s order and testifying on behalf of the Commonwealth stated that appellant had failed the test. Appellant moved immediately for a mistrial and the court granted appellant’s request. Appellant now contends that the officer’s disregard of the court order produced the mistrial and under the double jeopardy clause, reprosecution is barred. I adhere to the view expressed in Commonwealth v. Potter, 478 Pa. 251, 276, 386 A.2d 918, 930 (1978) (Opinion in Support of Reversal), that for purposes of double jeopardy analysis the only satisfactory inquiry is whether the error causing the declaration of a mistrial was either grossly negligent or intentional. *210This is the view of the Courts of Appeals for the Eighth and Fifth Circuits. United States v. Martin, 561 F.2d 135, 140 (8th Cir. 1977); United States v. Kennedy, 548 F.2d 608, 609 n.1 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 865, 98 S.Ct. 199, 54 L.Ed.2d 140 (1977). The Second Circuit also appears to have rejected any strict requirement of an intent to provoke a mistrial. “Even absent such a provocation, retrial is prohibited if the judicial or prosecutorial error was ‘motivated by bad faith or undertaken to harass or prejudice’ the petitioner.” Drayton v. Hayes, 589 F.2d 117, 121 (2d Cir. 1979) (quoting Lee v. United States, 432 U.S. 23, 33-34, 97 S.Ct. 2141, 53 L.Ed.2d 80 (1974)).
Further compounding the majority’s error is its examination of the conduct of the prosecuting attorney, rather than the misconduct of the Commonwealth’s police witness. Here a police officer, an agent of the Commonwealth and a prosecution witness, gave prejudicial and unsolicited testimony that appellant failed a lie detector test. The witness’ inexcusable and prejudicial remark followed the trial court’s clear ruling, delivered in the presence of the police officer, indeed while the police officer was on the witness stand, expressly directing all concerned that the jury was not to be informed of the results of appellant’s polygraph examination.
The double jeopardy clause
“embraces the defendant’s ‘valued right to have his trial completed by a particular tribunal.’ The reasons why this ‘valued right’ merits constitutional protection are worthy of repetition. Even if the first trial is not completed, a second prosecution may be grossly unfair. It increases the financial and emotional burden on the accused, prolongs the period in which he is stigmatized by an unresolved accusation of wrongdoing, and may even enhance the risk that an innocent defendant may be convicted. The danger of such unfairness to the defendant exists whenever a trial is aborted before it is completed. Consequently, as a general rule, the prosecutor is entitled to one, and only one, opportunity to require an accused to stand trial.”
*211Arizona v. Washington, 434 U.S. 497, 503-05, 98 S.Ct. 824, 829, 54 L.Ed.2d 717 (1978) (footnotes omitted). This clause acts as a prohibition upon the Commonwealth and does not permit the unjustified distinction drawn by the majority between the prosecutor and the prosecuting police witness. Surely the prejudicial statement made after the court’s express admonition which produced a mistrial here was no less damaging to the appellant’s rights and no less the act of the Commonwealth than if it had been uttered by the prosecuting attorney himself. By subjecting appellant to retrial despite the misconduct of the police witness, the Commonwealth deprived appellant, in the words of the Supreme Court of the United States, of his “valued right to have his trial completed by a particular tribunal,” multiplied the burdens which the appellant was compelled to endure, and improperly enhanced the risk of conviction.
LARSEN, J., joins in this concurring opinion.