Court Opinion

ID: 9701892
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 22:42:31.831284+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:30.491421
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, Judge
(dissenting):
The majority holds that an accused may be held for court after a preliminary hearing at which the prosecution offers only hearsay evidence. I disagree.
“The primary reason for the preliminary hearing is to protect an individual’s right against unlawful arrest and detention. It seeks to prevent a person from being imprisoned or required to enter bail for a crime which was never committed, or for a crime with which there is no evidence of his connection.” Commonwealth ex rel. Maisenhelder v. Rundle, 414 Pa. 11, 15, 198 A.2d 565, *39567 (1964) (emphasis added). When there is only hearsay evidence, and when it has been objected to, “there is no evidence.”
Our Rules of Criminal Procedure provide that at a preliminary hearing the accused has the right to “[b]e represented by counsel” and to [c] ross-examine witnesses and inspect physical evidence offered against him; . . ..” Pa.R.Crim.P. 141(c). The right to counsel is constitutionally compelled, Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U.S. 1, 90 S.Ct. 1999, 26 L.Ed.2d 387 (1970), and the primary reason is that “the lawyer’s skilled examination and cross-examination of witnesses may expose fatal weaknesses in the State’s case that may lead the magistrate to refuse to bind the accused over.” Id. at 9, 90 S.Ct. at 2003. The result of the majority’s holding is to deny the lawyer this ability, for if only hearsay evidence is offered, he can cross-examine no one, or more precisely, no one who knows what he is talking about. If the majority is right, the accused in a rape case may be bound over on the testimony of a detective who has read into the record a statement he got from the prosecutrix, who is not at the hearing. This offends the sense of fairness and regard for individual rights fundamental to our law; it recalls the ancient roots of the hearsay rule: Coke denouncing “the strange conceit that one may be an accuser by hearsay.” Coke Third Inst. 25 (1641).
I do not mean that at a preliminary hearing the rules of evidence need be as strictly followed as at trial. There may be some relaxation, provided that the accused is afforded the protection that a preliminary hearing is meant to provide. I would state the rule as follows: At a preliminary hearing, the prosecution must establish a prima facie case by a core of evidence that would be admissible at trial. If this is done, the fact that other evidence may be heard will not be error. If our decisions were contrary to this rule, they should be overruled; however, when carefully read, they are not contrary.
*40In Commonwealth v. Banks, 228 Pa.Super. 308, 323 A.2d 780 (1974), cited by the majority, the defendant was charged with sale of narcotics. At the preliminary hearing the following evidence was introduced:
1. A trooper’s testimony that he purchased drugs from the defendant on three separate occasions;
2. A chemist’s testimony that he examined the seized substance and determined that it was heroin; and
3. A copy of a laboratory report as evidence of the procedure and results of the examination.
This court held that the evidence was competent and credible, and that the defendant’s contention that the laboratory report should not have been admitted because it was hearsay evidence was without merit. Id. at 309-310 n. 1, 323 A.2d at 781 n. 1. It is not clear whether the laboratory report was regarded as within an exception to the hearsay rule, or whether it was regarded as admissible without qualification. The cases cited suggest the latter. The result, however, conforms to the rule I have stated above, since the trooper’s and the chemist’s testimony constituted the required core of admissible evidence.
In Commonwealth v. Smith, 212 Pa.Super. 403, 244 A.2d 787 (1968), the defendant was charged with assault and battery and indecent assault. The prosecution offered a police officer’s testimony that he had received and investigated the victim’s complaint, and as a result had taken the defendant into custody, and that the defendant had admitted the assault. This court held that a prima facie case had been established, despite the lack of evidence other than hearsay.1 I do not think, however, that Smith is contrary to my view. First, the opinion *41holds that the defendant’s objection to the preliminary hearing was not timely, for before objecting he gave bail. Id. at 407, 244 A.2d at 789. The language as to what evidence may be sufficient at a preliminary hearing is therefore dictum only. Second, the defendant’s admission would have been admissible at trial as an exception to the hearsay rule, McCormick, Evidence § 262 et seq. (2d ed. 1972), and thus would have constituted the required core of admissible evidence. It is true that the Commonwealth had agreed that all of the defendant’s statements to the police were inadmissible on constitutional grounds. There is, however, an important difference between hearsay evidence and evidence that would be suppressed at trial on constitutional grounds. The former is inadmissible because its reliability is suspect; the latter is inadmissible, despite its reliability,2 because of the constitutional guarantee against self-incrimination. Thus this court’s apparent conclusion in Smith, that constitutionally inadmissible evidence was sufficient to show a prima facie case at a preliminary hearing, does not undercut the rule as I have stated it.
In the present case, with the chemist’s letter excluded as hearsay, the prosecution showed only that appellant drove his car into a tree. I would therefore reverse the judgment of sentence and remand with orders to quash the return and dismiss the indictment.

. It is conceivable that some evidence other than hearsay was contained in the officer’s recitation of his investigation. The opinion does not make this clear.

. Admissions that are the product of physical or mental compulsion are not reliable. The admission in Smith, as far as the opinion indicates, was inadmissible on technical grounds, i. e., failure to give Miranda warnings.