Court Opinion

ID: 9703181
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:43:56.403166+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:13:23.718978
License: Public Domain

FLAHERTY, Justice,
concurring.
I join the majority opinion authored by Mr. Justice Kauff-man but am compelled to write separately to emphasize several points.
Appellant argues that the trial court’s order denying appellant’s motion to dismiss the charge for first degree murder is reviewable by this Court as an interlocutory appeal on double jeopardy, due process grounds. He also argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion to dismiss the charge of first degree murder on double jeopardy, due process and equal protection grounds.
Our holding in this case does not change or expand the holding in Commonwealth v. Bolden, 472 Pa. 602, 609, 373 A.2d 90, 93 (1977) that the denial of a pre-trial application to dismiss an indictment on double jeopardy grounds may be appealed before the new trial takes place. We decide appellant’s due process claim in this case pursuant to our extraordinary jurisdiction, 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 726, only for the purposes of clarifying an apparent misunderstanding as to the relationship between due process and double jeopardy and of laying to rest the notion that due process claims will be heard in Bolden appeals.
The first of appellant’s propositions — that this Court may review the trial court’s denial, on double jeopardy, due process and equal protection grounds, of appellant’s motion to dismiss the charge — must be denied. Bolden permits an interlocutory appeal on double jeopardy grounds only. Due process and equal protection claims may be heard after *134retrial is completed if they have been properly preserved for appeal.
The second of appellant’s propositions — that the trial court erred on due process, equal protection and double jeopardy grounds in denying appellant’s motion to dismiss the charge — is also without merit. The trial court properly denied the motion to dismiss the charge. In cases such as this, the due process claim, as the majority opinion states, arises out of the possibility that a defendant’s invocation of his appellate rights will ■ be chilled by fear that greater punishment may be imposed after a successful appeal or collateral attack. But this claim will fail unless (1) there has been an implied acquittal on the same charge that is again brought against a defendant or there is (2) prosecutorial or (3) judicial vindictiveness toward the defendant for having pursued a successful appeal or collateral attack on his original conviction.
Where a criminal defendant has pled guilty to less than the highest degree of all charges contained in the indictment, but then successfully attacks his plea-bargained conviction, the prosecutor, as in this case, may bring charges supported by the evidence and contained in the indictment. The essence of plea bargaining is that the prosecutor induces a criminal defendant to give up his constitutional right to a jury trial in return for conviction on a lesser charge than he would be exposed to at trial. Plea bargaining, by definition, chills the exercise of certain rights. But plea bargaining does not violate due process because when balancing the good to be achieved against the evil — unclogging an already overburdened criminal justice system as against chilling (not denying) the exercise of the right to a trial — the benefit to society manifestly outweighs the constitutional detriment to a criminal defendant.
When a defendant challenges his conviction on a bargained plea, he is asserting that the plea was improperly entered. This assertion, if true, would involve the abrogation of the defendant’s due process right to a trial. The proper remedy in a case where the court grants the defend*135ant’s petition to challenge his plea — the remedy consistent with due process — is to return the defendant to his original position by awarding him a trial on such charges in the indictment as the prosecutor may bring, so long as there has been no prior opportunity for a conviction on those charges * and there is no prosecutorial or judicial vindictiveness.

 See the discussion in the majority opinion, at 404-A05, for an explanation of when there has been a prior opportunity for a conviction.