Court Opinion

ID: 9766924
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:03:25.889682+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:27.257914
License: Public Domain

FLAHERTY, Justice,
concurring.
I join the opinion of the Court authored by Mr. Justice Hutchinson, but write separately inasmuch as I view the admonition of counsel expressed by the majority as a great deal milder than the circumstances warrant. Indeed, inasmuch as this represents our third such experience with this attorney, counsel’s behavior suggests a violation of Disciplinary Rule 7-106(A), which provides in pertinent part:
A lawyer shall not disregard ... a ruling of a tribunal made in the course of a proceeding, but he may take appropriate steps in good faith to test the validity of such ruling.
Moreover, I take this opportunity to reassert the position set forth in my authored concurring and dissenting opinion filed in Commonwealth v. Waters, 491 Pa. 85, 100-101, 418 A.2d 312, 319-320 (1980), that any inquiry into whether the homicide was perpetrated “in furtherance of” the underlying felony cannot advance the felony-murder doctrine. “[S]o long as the energy initiating the felonious undertaking continues to pervade the felonious atmosphere ... any result engendered by that felonious energy is within the purview of the felony murder doctrine.” Id.