Court Opinion

ID: 9711745
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:38:17.67877+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:07.244524
License: Public Domain

FLAHERTY, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the result, but reach the same conclusion through an analysis somewhat different from that employed by the plurality.
There is no federal or state constitutional right to a preliminary hearing. Commonwealth v. Ruza, 511 Pa. 59, 511 A.2d 808 (1986). The right is statutory, embodied in Pa.R.Crim.P. 141, 42 Pa.C.SA., which sets forth the purpose and procedure of the preliminary hearing. The purpose is to determine whether there is a prima facie case of the defendant’s guilt. Pa.R.Crim.P. 141(d). To establish a prima facie case, the Commonwealth must produce evidence *420which presents “sufficient probable cause to believe that the person charged has committed the offense stated.” United States v. Johns, 4 U.S. (4 Dall.) 412, 413, 1 L.Ed. 888 (1806). The evidence must be such that “if presented at the trial in court, and accepted as true, the judge would be warranted in allowing the case to go the jury.” Commonwealth v. Wojdak, 502 Pa. 359, 368, 466 A.2d 991, 996 (1983) (emphasis in original).
Though there is no constitutional right to a preliminary hearing, inasmuch as state law provides the hearing, assigns to it the functions it serves, and attaches to it the consequences which presently exist, there is a constitutional right to be represented by an attorney at the hearing. Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U.S. 1, 90 S.Ct. 1999, 26 L.Ed.2d 387 (1970). The United States Supreme Court has implied in dictum, but has not held, that other rights, such as the right to confrontation and the right to cross-examination, are constitutionally protected at the preliminary hearing. Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 95 S.Ct. 854, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975).
These principles provide a framework for our decision, but do not answer the question presented to us: whether hearsay testimony, standing alone, may constitute sufficient evidence to establish a prima facie case at a preliminary hearing. I conclude that it cannot.
I deem this to be a requirement of due process. In Commonwealth, Unemployment Compensation Board of Review v. Ceja, 493 Pa. 588, 616, 427 A.2d 631, 645 (1981), a plurality of this Court referred to “this Commonwealth’s long-standing requirement that administrative findings must be supported by some evidence that would be admissible over objection in a court of law.” This author expressed the view that “[fjundamental due process requires that no adjudication be based solely on hearsay evidence.” Id., 493 Pa. at 619, 427 A.2d at 647. The reference in Ceja was to a final adjudication of property rights, but the principle a fortiori applies with equal force in a preliminary hearing — a *421critical stage of a criminal proceeding in which life, death, liberty, and property are all at issue.
Applying this principle to this case requires the conclusion that the hearsay statement of the police officer was insufficient, vel non, to establish a prima facie case against appellant. It was a hearsay statément which could not be admitted over objection in a criminal trial and thus, standing alone, it was insufficient to establish a prima facie case, which, according to Wojdak, supra, must be based on evidence which could be presented at the trial in court. I therefore concur in the judgment that the Commonwealth’s evidence at appellant’s preliminary hearing failed to establish a prima facie case, and that appellant is entitled to discharge.
This analysis does not require us to address issues not squarely presented by the facts of this case, viz., the applicability and implementation of the constitutional rights of confrontation and cross-examination of witnesses who testify at the preliminary hearing in a criminal prosecution. In this case the declarant did not testify, and we need not offer an opinion as to what would have happened had she done so. It is sufficient to hold that a prima facie case cannot be established at a preliminary hearing solely on the basis of hearsay testimony.
Accordingly, I concur in the result.
CAPPY, J., joins this opinion.