Court Opinion

ID: 9759403
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:15:11.296357+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:04:07.065552
License: Public Domain

NIX, Justice,
dissenting.
Today’s majority opinion calls to mind the witicism of Abraham Lincoln that “calling it a leg doesn’t make it so.” Such is the case with today’s decision labeling the delay from appellant’s first aborted preliminary hearing to the second as due to appellant’s unavailability instead of properly identifying it as a continuance. This distinction is not a quibble, as the circumstances of this case point out.
Rule 1100(d) of our Rules of Criminal Procedure states: (d) In determining the period for commencement of trial, there shall be excluded therefrom such period of delay at any stage of the proceedings as results from:
*233(1) the unavailability of the defendant or his attorney; (2) any continuance in excess of thirty (30) days granted at the request of the defendant or his attorney, provided that only the period beyond the thirtieth (30th) day shall be so excluded.
In the instant case, appellant was arraigned on December 14, 1973, and a preliminary hearing was scheduled for December 21. At the preliminary hearing, appellant indicated to the court that he wished to retain private defense counsel. In response, the court stated:
I want the defendant to be entitled to all of his rights, one of which is to retain private counsel. I will grant this request and the hearing will be continued on that ground. (Emphasis added).
At the suggestion of the assistant district attorney, the preliminary hearing was continued to “after the first of the year” — specifically, to January 18, 1974. On January 18, appellant appeared with private counsel for the preliminary hearing. The majority of the Court today agrees with the trial court that this 28-day period of delay is chargeable to the appellant and should be excluded from the computations fixing the run-date of Rule 1100. It appears obvious to me that the delay was the product of a continuance granted for the benefit of appellant so as to allow him to retain counsel of his choice. Since the continuance was not in excess of thirty days, section (d)(2) mandates that the period of delay cannot be excluded from the computation of the Rule’s run-date.
The majority contends that our opinion in Commonwealth v. Millhouse, 470 Pa. 512, 368 A.2d 1273 (1977) requires a contrary result. Millhouse and the instant case, however, are clearly distinguishable. In Millhouse the defendant purposefully abused the judicial system by causing a four-month delay through his dilatory efforts to retain private counsel. Millhouse was arraigned and apparently let out on bail on February 6, and appeared unrepresented by counsel at preliminary proceedings scheduled for March 12 and 20; April 15, 18, and 25; and May 1 and 3. It was not until May *23428 that private counsel entered his appearance for Millhouse. The sole reason Millhouse gave for the delay was difficulty in agreeing on a fee with his counsel.
In the instant case, appellant Bussey was given only one week from the date of his arraignment to his preliminary hearing to locate and retain private counsel; Millhouse had over a month before the March 12 listing. In addition, Bussey was incarcerated during the week between arraignment and bail while Millhouse was free on bail. Appellant Bussey did successfully retain private counsel and was represented at the continued preliminary hearing while Millhouse failed to retain private counsel despite several admonitions by the court. Appellant Bussey’s failure to be represented at the December 21 hearing caused only a 28-day delay, much of which must be charged against the prosecution and the court for suggesting and setting the second hearing as late as January 18; while Millhouse caused a delay of over three months. Additionally, except for the initial postponement of the preliminary hearing, there is no delay of judicial proceedings attributable to Bussey’s lack of representation; Millhouse’s disinclination to retain counsel caused the postponement or cancellation of judicial proceedings seven separate times. Because Millhouse purposefully stymied the orderly functioning of the judicial process, it was appropriate to charge the attendant delay against him for Rule 1100 purposes and find that the delay was caused by the unavailability of counsel. This same conclusion is not appropriate in the instant case because Bussey merely exercised his sixth amendment right to retain counsel in an expeditious fashion.
The effect of today’s holding is to rewrite Section 1100(d)(2) to exclude continuances where the reason for the continuance is to secure representation. I can find no logical or legal basis for such an exclusion. To the contrary, I can think of no more legitimate basis for the postponement of a proceeding than to afford a party reasonable opportunity to secure representation of his or her choice. I would find *235the period of delay complained of to be a continuance and includable in fixing the Rule 1100 run-date in this case. Accordingly, I would reverse the judgment of sentence and order the appellant discharged.1

. In view of the majority’s reliance upon the period of delay between December 21 and January 18, I need not reach the question of whether some other period could be chargeable to appellant so as to bring his trial within the limits of Rule 1100. In addition, in view of my belief that appellant should be discharged, I need not reach the other issues considered by the majority.

. The detective who asked these questions obviously felt that this was the case because, after appellant responded to the third question with his inculpatory statement, the detective did not pursue the matter further and left the room to perform other duties.