Court Opinion

ID: 9766300
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:40:20.964311+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:21.116775
License: Public Domain

HOFFMAN, Judge
(dissenting).
Because I believe that the Commonwealth has not demonstrated that the complainant was “unavailable” within the meaning of 19 P.S. § 582, I would agree with President Judge WATKINS that the Commonwealth should not be allowed to read from the transcript of appellant’s first trial. However, I do not agree that it is necessary to reach the constitutional issue: “ ‘[w]hen the validity of an act of the [Legislature] is drawn in question, and if a serious doubt of constitutionality is raised, it is a cardinal principle that this Court will first ascertain whether a construction of the statute is fairly possible by which the [constitutional] question may be avoided.’ Crowell v. Benson, 285 U.S. 22, 62, 52 S.Ct. 285, 296, 76 L.Ed. 598 (1932) (footnote omitted). See Johnson v. Robison, 415 U.S. 361, 365, 94 S.Ct. 1160, 1165, 39 L.Ed.2d 389 (1974); United States v. Thirty-Seven Photographs, 402 U.S. 363, 369, 91 S.Ct. 1400, 1404, 28 L.Ed.2d 822 (1971) (plurality opinion).” Commonwealth v. Monumental Properties, Inc., 459 Pa. 450, 480-81, 329 A.2d 812 (1974).
*128I would, therefore, reverse the judgment of sentence and grant a new trial on statutory, not Constitutional, grounds. .