Court Opinion

ID: 9701273
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 22:13:29.068564+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:21.898732
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, J.,
dissenting:
¶ 1 The Majority holds that “judicial review of a private criminal complaint is limited, by traditional notions of standing, to the following complainants: victims, their named representatives or, in the event of a victim’s death, a family member.” Majority Opinion at 382 (footnote omitted). The Majority also notes that its decision “does not impair in any manner the right of every citizen to ask the district attorney, via the filing of a private criminal complaint, to bring charges against an individual or individuals.” Id. at 382 n. 8. Thus, while the Majority’s holding does not place a restriction on who may file a private complaint, it specifically enumerates which individuals are entitled to seek judicial review of a district attorney’s decision if the district attorney disapproves the private complaint. I conclude that under Pa.R.Crim.P. 106, there is no limitation on who may file a private complaint nor upon who may petition the Court of Common Pleas if the district attorney does not approve the complaint. Moreover, I conclude that any individual who files a private complaint has standing to petition the Court of Common Pleas for review of a district attorney’s decision disapproving the private complaint. Having so concluded, I have reviewed the Commonwealth’s argument alleging that the Honorable Teresa Sarmina erred in ordering the district attorney to approve the complaints and have concluded that Judge Sarmina did not abuse her discretion or commit an error of law. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.
¶ 2 The instant appeal arises from the trial court’s grant of a petition filed pursuant to Pa.R.Crim.P. 106. Rule 106 states:
Rule 106. Approval of Private Complaints
(c) When the affiant is not a law enforcement officer, the complaint shall be submitted to an attorney for the Commonwealth, who shall approve or disapprove it without unreasonable delay.
(d) If the attorney for the Commonwealth:
(3) approves the complaint, the attorney shall indicate this decision on the complaint form and transmit it to the issuing authority;
(4) disapproves the complaint, the attorney shall state the reasons on the complaint form and return it to the affiant. Thereafter, the affiant may petition the court of common pleas for review of the decision.
Pa.R.Crim.P. 106. Thus, the plain language of Rule 106 requires only that the petitioner be “the affiant.” Pa.R.Crim.P. 106(b)(2). Williams was the affiant in this case. Therefore, Judge Sarmina ruled in accordance with Rule 106 when she deter*383mined that Williams was entitled to petition for review of the district attorney’s decision.
¶ 3 Although Rule 106 does not expressly require an affiant to have standing to petition the Court of Common Pleas, the Commonwealth argues, and the Majority holds, that “victims, their named representatives or, in the event of a victim’s death, a family member” [hereinafter collectively referred to as “the victim”] are the only affiants who have standing to petition the Court of Common Pleas for review of a district attorney’s disapproval of a private complaint. Initially, I note that although the Majority’s holding is based upon “traditional notions of standingt,]” its Opinion never engages the traditional three-prong standing analysis to demonstrate how a victim affiant is uniquely endowed with an entitlement of standing. See generally Beers v. Unemployment Compensation Bd. of Review, 534 Pa. 605, 633 A.2d 1158, 1161 (1993). Rather, the Majority enunciates the victim’s entitlement to seek judicial review of a disapproved private complaint after engaging in what I can only discern to be a circuitous process of elimination. Ostensibly, the Majority reasons that since the Appellee in this case does not have standing because he is not a victim, the victim, therefore, has standing. Although the Majority warns of “the negative ramifications of a broad standing rule” that “would be virtually impossible to shape[,]” it does not at any point endeavor to shape its own standing rule. More to the point, the Majority neglects to set forth its reasoning for its determination that a victim affiant has a unique legally cognizable interest that is substantial, direct, and immediate, and, therefore, is “aggrieved” by a district attorney’s disapproval of a private complaint. See generally id.
¶4 I conclude that under Rule 106, there is no distinction between an affiant who is a victim and one who is not, and, therefore, both are entitled to petition the Court of Common Pleas for review of a district attorney’s decision disapproving a private complaint. The district attorney is a quasi-judicial officer who represents the Commonwealth. See Commonwealth v. Long, 258 Pa.Super. 312, 392 A.2d 810, 811 (1978). A district attorney “is both an administrator of justice and an advocate; ... [the] duty of the prosecutor is to seek justice, not merely to convict.” Commonwealth v. Collins, 462 Pa. 495, 341 A.2d 492, 493 (1975) (citations and quotation marks omitted). However, the ultimate authority for the administration of justice in our Commonwealth is our Supreme Court. See Pennsylvania Const, art. V, § 10; Stout v. Commonwealth, 521 Pa. 571, 559 A.2d 489, 496 (1989). Therefore, although the judiciary affords broad deference to a district attorney’s decision to prosecute, this decision is nonetheless, subject to review by the courts. See Commonwealth v. DiPasquale, 431 Pa. 536, 246 A.2d 430, 432 (1968); Commonwealth v. Ragone, 317 Pa. 113, 176 A. 454, 460 (1935); In re Piscanio, 235 Pa.Super. 490, 344 A.2d 658, 661 (1975).
¶ 5 One of the unique functions of the Supreme Court is to promulgate various rules of procedure that “have the force and effect of statutes.” Stout, 559 A.2d at 496. In promulgating Rule 106, the Supreme Court established the procedure by which one aspect of the administration of criminal justice would be subject to a system of “check[s] and balances.” Piscanio, 344 A.2d at 661. The Supreme Court vested the Court of Common Pleas with the authority to hear petitions requesting review of a district attorney’s decision disapproving a private complaint. See Pa.R.Crim.P. 106. Furthermore, the Supreme Court conferred the right to bring such a petition on one class of individuals, the affiant of the private complaint. See id. Thus, the affiant of the private complaint serves as a conduit for the Supreme Court’s supervisory authority over our system of criminal justice and is the sole potential trigger for this mechanism of review. A prerequisite of standing is a component of this review mechanism only to the extent that the *384Court of Common Pleas determines whether the petitioner is the affiant of the private complaint. For all the foregoing reasons, I disagree with the Majority’s decision to superimpose upon Rule 106 a traditional standing analysis.
¶ 6 Alternatively, I find that any affiant of a disapproved private complaint satisfies the traditional three prong standing analysis. In this case, Judge Sarmina ruled that the private complainant, Leon A. Williams, Esquire, had standing to petition the court for review of the district attorney’s decision disapproving Williams’s private complaints. Our scope of review of the trial court’s ruling on standing is plenary. See In re T.J., 559 Pa. 118, 739 A.2d 478, 481 (1999) (concluding that a trial court’s standing determination is a question of law that invokes plenary review). Our standard for reviewing Judge Sarmi-na’s standing determination is whether there was an abuse of discretion or an error of law. See id. As I conclude, for the reasons that follow, that Judge Sarmi-na did not abuse her discretion or commit an error of law in ruling that Williams had standing, I find it necessary to address the issue of whether Judge Sarmina erred in ordering the district attorney to prosecute on the private complaints.
When an appeal is brought from a common pleas court’s decision regarding the approval or disapproval of a private criminal complaint, an appellate court is limited to ascertaining the propriety of the trial court’s actions. Thus, our review is limited to determining whether the trial court abused its discretion or committed an error of law.
Commonwealth v. Cooper, 710 A.2d 76, 80 (Pa.Super.1998).
¶ 7 In determining who may bring a particular cause of action in our courts, our jurisprudence demands that a party instituting an action have standing to do so. See T.J., 739 A.2d at 481.
Standing is a requirement that parties have sufficient interest in a matter to ensure that there is a legitimate controversy before the court. In determining whether a party has standing, a court is concerned only with the question of who is entitled to make a legal challenge and not the merits of the challenge.... [A] person who is not adversely affected in any way by the matter he seeks to challenge is not aggrieved and has no right to obtain judicial resolution of his challenge.
Id. Therefore, whether a party has standing to bring an action depends on whether that party has been adversely affected by the matter he or she seeks to challenge; i.e. whether the person is “aggrieved.” Our Supreme Court has consistently stated that “[i]n order to be aggrieved a party must (a) have a substantial interest in the subject-matter of the litigation; (b) the interest must be direct; and (c) the interest must be immediate and not a remote consequence.” Beers, 633 A.2d at 1161.
¶ 8 The focus of any petition under Rule 106 is whether it was proper for the district attorney to disapprove the complaint. To determine whether the private complainant is aggrieved, the standing analysis must necessarily focus on the causal connection between the district attorney’s disapproval and the private complainant’s interests as a complainant. For the reasons that follow, I conclude that the private complainant’s relationship to the underlying crime is irrelevant in this analysis.
¶ 9 First, in order for a private complainant to be aggrieved by the district attorney’s disapproval of a complaint, the private complainant must have “a substantial interest in the subject-matter of the litigation.” Id. “A substantial interest is an interest in the outcome of the litigation which surpasses the common interest of all citizens in procuring obedience to the law.” South Whitehall Township Police Serv. v. South Whitehall Township, 521 Pa. 82, 555 A.2d 793, 795 (1989) (emphasis added) (citations omitted). The litigation in this case is a petition in the Court of Common Pleas seeking review of the district attor*385ney’s disapproval of a private complaint. Therefore, the private complainant may only have standing to seek review if his interest in the outcome of the review is greater than the “common interest of all citizens in procuring obedience to the law.” Id.
¶ 10 In Commonwealth v. Malloy, 304 Pa.Super. 297, 450 A.2d 689 (1982), we discussed the interests of the various parties in a criminal prosecution:
It is a well-settled principle of law that a crime is an offense against the sovereignty, a wrong which the government deems injurious not only to the victim but to the public at large, and which it punishes through a judicial proceeding in the Commonwealth’s name. Though the same wrongful act may constitute both a crime and a tort, the tort is a private injury which is to be pursued by the injured party. Criminal prosecutions are not to settle private grievances but are to rectify the injury done to the Commonwealth. The individual who is the victim of a crime only has recourse in a civil action for damages.
450 A2d at 691. Therefore, although it is to be expected that a victim’s desire for retribution will impel his or her efforts to see the wrongdoer prosecuted, the victim has no legally cognizable interest in achieving this result. See Linda R.S. v. Richard D. and Texas, 410 U.S. 614, 619, 93 S.Ct. 1146, 35 L.Ed.2d 536 (1973) (stating that “in American jurisprudence at least, a private citizen lacks a judicially cognizable interest in the prosecution or nonprosecution of another”). It is only the Commonwealth that has a legally cognizable interest in convicting criminals. See Malloy, 450 A.2d at 691. As our Supreme Court said long ago, “[the district attorney] represents the [CJommonwealth, and the [C]ommonwealth demands no victims. It seeks justice only, — equal and impartial justice, — and it is as much the duty of the district attorney to see that no innocent man suffers as it is to see that no guilty man escapes.” Appeal of Nicely, 130 Pa. 261, 270,18 A. 737, 738 (1889).
¶ 11 However, when a private complainant embraces his civic duty and swears out an affidavit of probable cause alleging criminal conduct on the part of a fellow citizen, the complainant has stepped away from the masses of our citizenry and has stepped into the role of a private prosecutor. “The private prosecutor, even if he or she was the victim, ‘has no legitimate interest, other than as a member of the general public, in seeing a violator of the laws brought to justice and punished for his misdeeds.’ ” Commonwealth v. Pritchard, 408 Pa.Super. 221, 596 A.2d 827, 831 (1991) (emphasis added) (quoting Piscanio, 344 A.2d at 661-62). Therefore, even when a citizen is willing to burden himself or herself with the responsibility of swearing out a private complaint, he or she does not attain an interest that surpasses that of the general public in seeing the wrongdoer brought to justice. See id.
¶ 12 However, having sworn out the complaint, the private complainant does have an interest in ensuring that the district attorney properly exercises his or her authority to approve or disapprove the complaint. Rule 106 protects this interest by providing an avenue of judicial review for the affiant of a disapproved private complaint. See Pa.R.C.P. 106; Piscanio, 344 A.2d at 661. The Majority holds that only the victim of the underlying crime can access this avenue of review. I disagree. As discussed above, a victim has no greater interest in the prosecution of a criminal than does any other member of the public. However, a private complainant, by virtue of the fact that he or she has sworn out an affidavit of probable cause and submitted it to the district attorney for approval, does have an interest in seeing that the district attorney exercises his or her discretion properly. See id. Moreover, though a private complainant’s interest in seeing a criminal prosecuted is no greater than that of any member of the general public, the complainant’s interest in seek*386ing review of his or her disapproved complaint “surpasses the common interest of all citizens in procuring obedience to the law” because the private complainant was the individual who filed the complaint. South Whitehall Township Police, 555 A.2d at 795. Accordingly, I conclude that a private complainant has a “substantial interest” in seeking judicial review of his or her disapproved complaint. See South Whitehall Township Police, 555 A.2d at 795.
¶ 13 The next step in determining whether a party is aggrieved is whether that party has a direct interest in the litigation. See Beers, 633 A.2d at 1161. “A direct interest requires a showing that the matter complained of caused harm to the party’s interest.” South Whitehall Township Police, 555 A.2d at 795. When a district attorney disapproves a private complaint, the private complainant has an interest in ensuring that this decision was based in law and was not reached on improper grounds. See Piscanio, 344 A.2d at 661 (decided under the substantially similar former Rule 133 and stating that “Rule 133(B) protects the interest of the private complainant by allowing for the submission of the disapproved complaint to a judge of a court of common pleas”). “The district attorney is vested at common law with the responsibility of determining whether or not a criminal accusation should be pressed to trial, and is expected to be impartial in abstaining from prosecuting, as well as in prosecuting. While a case is under the control of the prosecuting attorney any agreement he may make with reference to the disposition thereof is binding so far as it is proper and legal.” Ragone, 317 Pa. at 118 n. 1, 176 A. at 456 n. 1 (emphasis added) (citations and quotation marks omitted). To assure the district attorney’s adherence to law, our legislature conferred upon a private complainant the right to seek review of a district attorney’s refusal to prosecute, thereby recognizing a private complainant’s interest in seeing that the district attorney acts in accordance with the law. See 16 P.S. § 1409. In pertinent part, section 1409 states: “If any district attorney shall neglect or refuse to prosecute in due form of law any criminal charge regularly returned to him ..., the prosecutor may present his petition to the court of the proper county, setting forth the character of the complaint, and verify the same by affidavit.” Id. The judicial review of a district attorney’s decision available under section 1409, similar to the judicial review provided by our Supreme Court in Rule 106, recognizes the need to “check and balance[ ] the district attorney’s decision and further hedge against error.” Piscanio, 344 A.2d at 661.
¶ 14 The Majority holds that a private complainant has no interest in ensuring that a district attorney’s decision is proper and legal unless the complainant is a victim. Section 1409 establishes the contrary, vesting the private complainant with a direct interest not held by the victim of the underlying crime. A private complainant, who is also the victim, suffers no greater harm than any other private complainant when a district attorney disapproves his or her complaint. This follows from the fact that when a person commits a crime, the violation of a law is an injury to the Commonwealth and is separate from the injury to the victim. In Commonwealth v. Walker, 468 Pa. 323, 362 A.2d 227 (1976), our Supreme Court distinguished the private wrong (harm to the victim) from the public wrong (violation of the Commonwealth’s laws):
The private wrong was not merged in the public one, nor is the public prosecution intended to supersede the private action. Their purposes are entirely different. The person wronged is not chargeable with the conduct of the prosecution, and therefore not affected by an acquittal.
362 A.2d at 231 (emphasis added). When a private complainant petitions the Court of Common Pleas for review of a district *387attorney’s disapproval of a complaint, the complainant is seeking to protect his or her interest, recognized under Section 1409, in ensuring that the district attorney has reviewed the allegation of wrong to the Commonwealth and has come to a proper and legal decision to disapprove the complaint. Notwithstanding, the foundation of the Majority’s decision is that only a victim of the underlying crime has a stake in seeing that the district attorney prosecutes a private complaint. The Majority rejects a rule that would confer standing upon a private complainant when “the victim is alive and has made a personal decision not to proceed with judicial review.” Majority Opinion at 380. However, a victim has no interest that surpasses that of the general public in seeing a wrongdoer brought to justice for an alleged wrong against the Commonwealth. See id. Thus, a victim’s “personal decision” is irrelevant in determining whether the district attorney properly or improperly decided to prosecute the alleged offender. By contrast, the private complainant who’s complaint is declined by the Commonwealth suffers injury to a right recognized by statute to participate as an inter-venor in the process of criminal justice. Accordingly, I conclude that a private complainant has a direct interest in seeking review of his or her disapproved complaint.
¶ 15 The final step in determining whether a party is aggrieved, and thereby has standing, is whether the party has an immediate interest in the subject matter of the litigation. See Beers, 633 A.2d at 1161. “An immediate interest involves the nature of the causal connection between the action complained of and the injury to the party challenging it and is shown where the interests the party seeks to protect are within the zone of interest sought to be protected by the statute or constitutional guarantee in question.” South Whitehall Township Police, 555 A.2d at 795. As stated in the previous discussion, section 1409 clearly recognizes the interest of a private complainant in seeing that the district attorney’s decision to disapprove the complaint is proper and legal. I reiterate that the injury complained of is not the harm suffered by the crime victim. Clearly, there is a causal connection between a disapproval of a complaint and the district attorney’s reasons for such disapproval. Thus, I conclude that a private complainant has an immediate interest in seeking review of a district attorney’s disapproval. For all the foregoing reasons, I conclude that a private complainant has standing to file a petition in the Court of Common Pleas seeking review of a district attorney’s disapproval of his or her private complaint.
¶ 16 Having determined that the private complainant had standing, I must next address the Commonwealth’s argument that the trial court erred “in overriding the District Attorney’s policy-based decision to disapprove the private criminal complaint!.]” Brief for Appellant at 4. When a district attorney disapproves a private complaint on policy grounds, he or she must be prepared to articulate the particular policy and establish its existence. See Hearn v. Myers, 699 A.2d 1265, 1266-67 (Pa.Super.1997).
A policy must embrace the general principles by which the prosecutor is guided in the management of its public responsibilities. A policy connotes a definite course or method of action selected in light of given conditions to guide and determine both present and future decisions. Therefore, it is expected that a prosecutor should be prepared to advance evidence that confirms the establishment of the policy, as well as corroborates its application to matters of similar, or like, import.
This in no way suggests that the common pleas court may substitute its judgment for that of the prosecutor. But where the prosecutor seeks to rest the decision not to prosecute on policy grounds, the prosecutor must be prepared to come forward with a clear statement as to the particular policy that dictates [withholding prosecution as *388well as how that] policy relates to the particular facts being advanced by the private prosecutor.
Id. (emphasis added) (quoting Commonwealth v. Brown, 447 Pa.Super. 454, 669 A.2d 984, 990 (1995) (en banc) (plurality decision) (affirmed by an evenly divided court, 550 Pa. 580, 708 A.2d 81 (1998))). The trial court concluded that the district attorney utterly failed to articulate a legitimate policy for disapproving the complaint under the foregoing standard. The court stated:
The District Attorney, however, without further explanation, has simply stated that the decision not to file charges against Hickson and Martinez was made because the County Investigating Grand Jury did not return a presentment.
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In the opinion of this court, the District Attorney has failed to come forward with the requisite “clear statement” that dictates withholding the prosecution of Hicks and Martinez, and has not even mentioned how that policy relates to the particular facts being advanced by Williams[, the private complainant]. The District Attorney offered nothing in support of the claim that policy considerations existed that required the disapproval of the private criminal complaint of Williams because the grand jury had not returned a presentment. The District Attorney merely asserted that in the past 22 years that office had never filed a criminal complaint where that occurred. Accepting that as true, this argument cannot serve as the basis for a policy that requires the disapproval of these private complaints and is rejected as ambiguous and inadequate.
Trial Court Opinion, 7/17/99, at 9, 11-12 (footnote omitted). On appeal, the Commonwealth has also failed to meet its burden. A review of the Commonwealth’s fifteen pages of argument on this single issue fails to reveal even a cursory argument as to why it is sound policy for the district attorney to rely on the grand jury’s failure to return a presentment as reason to decline prosecution on a private complaint. Rather, the Commonwealth takes an almost indignant position. In response to the trial court’s conclusion that the district attorney failed to articulate a legitimate policy or substantiate that policy with argument or evidence, the Commonwealth states:
The law, however, does not remotely require the prosecutor to offer statistics in justification of a policy decision. The lower court further stated in its opinion that the prosecution “provided no authority” for its policy ..., as if policy were an open question that the lower court has to establish through litiga-tion_The office of the District Attorney does not need to cite authority for its own authority to make its own policy.
Brief for Appellant at 36. Based on the foregoing, the Commonwealth seems to be of the opinion that it may simply fashion any “policy” to support its disapproval of a private complaint without even attempting to substantiate the prudence of the policy, its benefit to the public, and most importantly, its congruence with “the general principles by which the prosecutor is guided in the management of its public responsibilities.” Myers, 699 A.2d at 1266 (quoting Brown, 669 A.2d at 990). The Commonwealth’s interpretation of the law is clearly at odds with this Court’s rationale in Myers. Id. In Myers, we held that the following policy statements by a district attorney were both sufficient to support the district attorney’s disapproval of a private complaint: 1) “when an individual initially declines to press charges for personal reasons, he cannot be permitted months later to change his mind and institute a criminal prosecution;” and 2) that the case should be pursued in civil court rather than in criminal court. Id. By contrast, a policy statement that the district attorney will not prosecute when the grand jury does not return a presentment is essentially an abdication of re*389sponsibility of the decision to prosecute. Clearly, the discretion to act upon a complaint, whether private or sworn out by law-enforcement officers, remains with the district attorney even if a grand jury does not return a presentment. See Commonwealth v. Slick, 432 Pa.Super. 563, 639 A.2d 482, 488 (1994) (stating that “[s]o long as the prosecutor has probable cause to believe that the accused committed an offense defined by statute, the decision whether or not to prosecute, and what charge to file or bring before a grand jury, generally rests entirely in his discretion”) (quoting Wayte v. United States, 470 U.S. 598, 607, 105 S.Ct. 1524, 84 L.Ed.2d 547 (1985)).
¶ 17 In the trial court, and on appeal, the Commonwealth has taken the position that a district attorney’s policy determination is unassailable. Though I recognize that a district attorney’s decision whether or not to prosecute is to be accorded great deference, see id., a district attorney cannot simply defer his or her decision to the investigating grand jury without substantiating the soundness of this policy. The Commonwealth has failed to present this Court with any argument as to the good sense of a policy that would require the Commonwealth to abstain from prosecution whenever an investigating grand jury fails to return a presentment. Most importantly, the Commonwealth has not directed us to any record evidence or argument in the trial court that would support a conclusion that the trial court abused its discretion in rejecting the district attorney’s bald rebanee upon the proffered policy reason for not approving the private complaint. Therefore, I am constrained to conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in this case. See Cooper, 710 A.2d at 80. Accordingly, I would affirm the trial court’s order.