Court Opinion

ID: 9728650
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:13:15.636823+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:50.723449
License: Public Domain

McDERMOTT, Justice,
dissenting.
There can be no question that a prosecutor cannot be the judge; in those cases cited by the majority we have consistently so held. Nor would we tolerate a prosecutor participating in the decision of a Board during the adjudicative process. The majority now holds that a Board may not order an inquiry without being contaminated by the reason an inquiry should be ordered; this upon the ground that as ultimate reviewing authority they have already been prejudiced because they ordered a hearing.
There is no evidence here that the Board did anything but respond to what, without question, was sufficient probable cause proffered through patient complaints. The complaints were processed by two levels of consideration, the complaint officer and counsel, before presentation to the Board: neither of which were charged with bias. The Board did not act on its own motion to secure evidence, accuse, or order an inquiry on information known to it alone; nor is there evidence that the Board believed the complaints to be true when they ordered an inquiry. Lacking such evidence of initial prejudice, the majority nonetheless lays down a per se rule that if the Board orders an inquiry upon complaints, they are ineradicably tainted.
By statute the Board is composed of lay and professionals in the medical field; it is designed as a “buffer” to determine whether prosecutors have sufficient, demonstrable probable cause to proceed with a prosecution. That salutary protection against prosecutorial excess is now obviated upon the flimsy ground that to hear evidence that an inquiry should go forth forever taints the Board with prejudice. The majority obviously finds the Board short of professional ability and personal integrity, a shortage they think best supplied by prosecutors.
*552The majority obviously prefers that prosecuting officials decide, without any “buffer” that a prosecution shall proceed. That is to say that instead of the “buffer” of a Board to whom probable cause must be presented, the prosecutors can proceed at will.
I would adopt the due process analysis of the Commonwealth Court and therefore I am compelled to dissent.
Mr. Justice FLAHERTY joins in this Dissenting Opinion.