Court Opinion

ID: 9757412
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:39:50.621756+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:39.253377
License: Public Domain

MANDERINO, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. For years the appellate courts of this Commonwealth have been saying that an order placing a criminal defendant on probation is interlocutory and need not be appealed at the time it is entered, but may be appealed at the time a sentence of imprisonment is imposed (if such a sentence is ever imposed). In Commonwealth v. Elias, 394 Pa. 639, 642, 149 A.2d 53, 54-55 (1959), we said such an order
“is a judgment from which the defendant may appeal . . . but it is not a sentence from, which he must ap*207peal within forty-five days after its entry, on pain of losing his right to appeal from a sentence subsequently imposed for violation of the terms and conditions of his probation” (emphasis in original)
In Commonwealth v. Vivian, 426 Pa. 192, 231 A.2d 301 (1967), citing Elias, supra, we repeated that an order placing a defendant on probation “ [w] hile interlocutory, . is an appealable order, (emphasis added.)
Likewise, the Superior Court has pointed out that
“[f]or many years it was the practice to quash as interlocutory, appeals [from the imposition of probation], unless it was necessary to make an exception in order to safeguard basic human rights.” (citations omitted)
Commonwealth v. Hendrick, 197 Pa.Super. 230, 177 A.2d 162 (1962).
And as recently as 1975, Judge Spaeth expressed this Rule in a concurring opinion to Commonwealth v. Tomlin, 232 Pa.Super. 147, 336 A.2d 407 (1975), stating that
“[a]ppellant did not, however, have to appeal the probation order. As in other cases where an appeal from an interlocutory order is allowed, he could defer appeal until final judgment (the sentence), (citation omitted). That is what he did, and I agree that on his appeal the sentence should be vacated for the reasons set forth in Judge Hoffman’s opinion [expressing the view of the majority of the court].”
If a defendant does not have to appeal the order imposing probation at the time it is entered because such an order is interlocutory, how can we now say that by not appealing he has “ [waived his] right to challenge the validity of the conviction upon which the probation order is based”? He has relied on the decisions of the appellate courts of this Commonwealth, and such reliance should not now be betrayed.