Court Opinion

ID: 9719161
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:44:07.713929+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:24:04.081458
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Pomeroy:
Subsequent to the filing of the appeal but before argument thereon, the appellant died. His counsel filed a petition advising the Court of Walker’s death and praying both that the appeal be dismissed as moot and that the prior proceedings be abated ab initio. The Commonwealth answered the abatement petition, agreeing that the appeal is moot but arguing that the proceedings below should not be abated. At the time scheduled for argument on the appeal, argument was had instead on the issue raised by the petition and answer. Without addressing itself to the issue thus raised, the Court ordered that the appeal be argued on the merits. Believing that it was a mistake to consider this appeal on the merits, I dissented from the order directing further argument, and by the same token T must respectfully dissent from the Court’s present action in rendering a decision.
The procedural issue presented by appellant’s petition has not heretofore been decided in Pennsylvania: What is the effect of the death of a person convicted of a felony when the death occurs prior to the time his appeal from the conviction is heard and disposed of? Should the appeal and all prior proceedings be abated in such circumstances, or should the appeal be mooted, or should the case proceed to a conclusion as though the appellant were still living? The Court has opted for the last alternative.
*152Notwithstanding that there is no party appellant before the Court, that both appellant’s counsel and the Commonwealth agree that the ease is now moot, and request that it be not heard, the Court states flatly that “the interest of both a defendant’s estate and society” require that “any challenge initiated by a defendant to the regularity or constitutionality of a criminal proceeding be fully reviewed and decided by the appellate process”. No reasons are advanced for this conclusion, which is clearly not in accord with the normal concept of mootness or with our practically invariable practice not to decide moot questions.1 One may ask, moreover, on whom the burden of this new requirement is to be placed. If there is an “Estate” of James Walker, the deceased defendant, it has not sought to be made a party appellant. The record is silent as to whether James Walker left any family to survive him, or what their circumstances may be. Does the family, if there is one, have the duty to pick up the case and carry it forward? If not, is the lawyer who represented the deceased in his lifetime obligated to seek full appellate review for a nonexistent client, and regardless of remuneration for his services? Is any and every kind of “criminal proceeding” embraced by the Court’s new fiat? And what is the limit of “fully reviewed”? The fact that these questions are at once presented by the Court’s pronouncement indicates its unwisdom.
*153Absent a question under the Slayer’s Act, Act of August 5, 1941, P. L. 816, §1 et seq., 20 P.S. §3441 et seq., neither the Commonwealth nor the decedent has an interest in or will benefit from a final adjudication. In hearing argument, rendering a decision and writing an opinion, the Court is engaging in a useless exercise; no liberty would have accrued to the defendant had this appeal succeeded, and no punishment can be administered to him now that it is lost. Furthermore, if a federal question were involved, the determination of our Court that the case is not moot would not be controlling in the federal courts so as to allow review there. “Even in cases arising in the state courts, the question of mootness is a federal one which a federal court must resolve before it assumes jurisdiction.” North Carolina v. Rice, 40 L.W. 4073 (December 14, 1971). To me it seems clear that the economical administration of justice requires that criminal proceedings come to an end when a defendant dies.
Without going into an analysis of the argument advanced by appellant’s counsel in favor of abatement ah initio (a view which I do not espouse), I venture to suggest that the appeal should be dismissed as moot by reason of the death of the appellant pending final adjudication, and that an entry to this effect should be placed not only in the records of this Court but in those of the Clerk of Courts of the lower court. It will thus be clear to all who read that the defendant was convicted, for such indeed was the fact; it will be equally clear that the judgment of sentence never became final because the defendant died before his appeal from that judgment could be considered. In this manner, so it seems to me, will the interests both of the Commonwealth and of the deceased convicted defendant be fairly and accurately served.
*154For tlie reasons indicated, I do not participate in the decision of the Court on the merits, and dissent from its action in rendering a decision.

 See, inter alia, Manganese Steel Forge Co. v. Commonwealth, 421 Pa. 67, 69, 218 A. 2d 307 (1966) ; Schuster v. Gilberton Coal Co., 412 Pa. 353, 358, 194 A. 2d 346 (1963); Ridley Park Shopping Center, Inc. v. Sun Ray Drug Co., 407 Pa. 230, 232, 180 A. 2d 1 (1962) ; Conti v. Dept. of Labor & Industry, 405 Pa. 309, 310, 175 A. 2d 56 (1961); Wortex Mills v. Textile Workers U. of A., 369 Pa. 359, 370, 85 A. 2d 851 (1952) ; Commonwealth ex rel. Davis v. Reid, 338 Pa. 351, 12 A. 2d 909 (1940) ; Richards v. Johns, 338 Pa. 232, 13 A. 2d 59 (1940) ; see in general 2 P.L.E. Appeals, §337.