Court Opinion

ID: 9754664
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:09:02.651195+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:55.966332
License: Public Domain

BROSKY, Judge,
concurring:
I agree with the result reached by the majority, but wish to address its treatment of appellant’s issues I — V and VI — VIII.
As to issues I — V, the majority holds that the lower court erred in ruling on the issue that appellee should have been charged with violations under the Escheat Law rather than with theft by unlawful taking because that issue had not been preserved by its inclusion in a timely, written omnibus pretrial motion. However, appellee argues that the Commonwealth has waived this claim of error by failing to raise it below. In other words, appellee contends that the Commonwealth has waived the issue of appellee’s waiver.
Case law in this jurisdiction has consistently held that the cornerstone of our waiver doctrine is that issues below not raised in a timely manner are foreclosed for purposes of appellate review. Commonwealth v. Pritchitt, 468 Pa. 10, 359 A.2d 786 (1976). In the vast majority of cases, the rubric “in a timely manner” requires contempo*403raneous objection; and our rules and cases rigorously enforce the contemporaneous objection rule.
But contemporaneity of objection is not insisted upon as a value in itself, rather it is required as the most convenient method of preventing a party from permitting error to insinuate itself into the record and complaining thereafter.
Commonwealth v. Griffin, 271 Pa.Super. 228, 236-37, 412 A.2d 897, 901 (1979) (citations omitted); see Pa.R.A.P. 302(a) (issues not raised in the lower court are waived).
What is insisted upon, however, is that appellate review be preceded by an opportunity for the lower court to correct any trial errors. Commonwealth v. Dessus, 262 Pa.Super. 443, 396 A.2d 1254 (1978). Therefore, I agree with appellee that if the Commonwealth failed to raise the lower court’s error in considering a waived issue in time for the court to correct that error, then the Commonwealth has not preserved that claim of error on appeal.1 However, I do not find such to be the case.
As noted in the majority opinion, appellee filed his initial omnibus pretrial motion which did not raise the issue that he had been charged with the wrong crime, on June 10, 1982. This motion was untimely and appellant, in its answer to the motion, objected to consideration of any issue raised in it on this basis. Certainly, then, the lower court was made aware that this pre-trial motion was untimely and thus, that any such future motion would also necessarily be untimely.2 Moreover, appellant also incorporated its objection in its motion for reconsideration of the trial court’s *404September 14, 1982 order. Thus, I disagree with appellee’s argument that appellant waived this issue.
As to issues VI — VIII, I agree with that portion of the majority’s discussion holding that we cannot consider appellant’s issues raised in conjunction with the lower court’s order of September 3,1982 because no appeal was ever filed from that order. However, having made that determination, I disagree that appellant’s further failure to raise these issues in its motion for reconsideration of the September 3 order is of any consequence. Although I believe it is somewhat questionable whether appellant would have had to have done so to preserve these issues for appeal, that question is moot since appellant, in fact, did not appeal the September 3 order. Thus, I believe we are unable to consider these issues not because they have not been preserved for appeal in the sense of having been waived under Pa.R.A.P. 302(a), but because we have no jurisdiction to consider the September 3 order since no appeal was taken from it.

. Cf. Commonwealth v. Murphy, 305 Pa.Super. 246, 451 A.2d 514 (1982), in which the Court in determining that the trial judge had improperly raised an issue sua sponte noted that the prosecutor had continually pointed out that the issue was not raised by the defendant and was consequently not before the court.

. Appellee states that he first raised the issue in question subsequent to the hearing on his June 10, 1982 original omnibus motion in an oral motion which was followed by a September 8, 1982 written motion. The Commonwealth states that this motion was never served upon it and I note that it contains no affidavit or other proof of service and bears the signature of no judge.