Court Opinion

ID: 9759843
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:29:20.93246+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:05.231747
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, Judge,
concurring:
While I agree with the majority’s result, I am apprehensive that its opinion may be taken to announce a rule *417that no violation of the time limits of Pa.R.Crim.P. 140(f) will warrant quashing an indictment unless the defendant can show that he was prejudiced by the delay.
When courts do not follow rules, it seems right to expect that sanctions will be imposed. In many cases, this expectation is realized. For pertinent example, when there is a violation of Rule 140(f)’s requirement that a preliminary hearing be given a defendant who has not waived his right to it, the sanction is to quash the indictment. Commonwealth v. Rose, 437 Pa. 30, 261 A.2d 586 (1970). Quashing also results from a failure to notify an accused that his case will be presented to a grand jury other than that to which he was bound over. Commonwealth v. Collemacine, 429 Pa. 24, 239 A.2d 296 (1968); Commonwealth v. Rosenfield, 220 Pa.Super. 105, 283 A.2d 870 (1971). In both examples, quashing is automatic; no inquiry is made into possible prejudice to the defendant.1 See Commonwealth v. Jones, 456 Pa. 270, 273, 318 A.2d 711, 713 (1974); Commonwealth v. Shirk, 228 Pa.Super. 356, 364, 323 A.2d 99, 103 (1974) (concurring opinion by HOFFMAN, J.).
If the choice were open to me, I should argue for application of such an automatic sanction in cases like the present, for it invites disrespect of the judicial system to say that a court may break its own rules; especially is this so when the requirement of showing prejudice is added. If a court breaks its own rules, at the very least it should be up to the court to show that no harm was *418done. There should be no burden on the defendant, who is entitled to expect that the rules will be followed.2
I cannot make this argument, however, for the Supreme Court has recently held that it is not appropriate to quash the indictment in a case where the defendant has shown no prejudice and there has been “substantial compliance” with Rule 140(f). Commonwealth v. Hailey, 470 Pa. 488, 368 A.2d 1261 (1977).3 I have emphasized “and” because as I read Hailey, the Court has not foreclosed the possibility that quashing the indictment may be appropriate in another case, where the violation of Rule 140(f) is more flagrant than it was in Hailey; nor has the Court said that in such a case a defendant must show prejudice.
Even reading Hailey as I do, however, I acknowledge that it is controlling here. In Hailey there was no prejudice, and compliance was missed by only one day; here there was no prejudice, and compliance was missed by only four days. I submit that Hailey has put us on a difficult course. Who knows, or can predict, what “substantial compliance” means? The course having been set, however, it is our obligation to follow it.
I therefore concur in the reversal.

. It might be suggested that a finding of prejudice was implicit in Rose in that there (as far as may be told from the opinion) the defendant was in jail. However, we held in Commonwealth v. Brabham, 225 Pa.Super. 331, 309 A.2d 824 (1973) (WRIGHT, P. J., WATKINS and CERCONE, JJ., dissenting), that the defendant was entitled to the protections of a preliminary hearing notwithstanding that he was at the time incarcerated in another county on another charge and therefore could not be said to be prejudiced by unlawful detention.

. We held recently in Commonwealth v. Jones, 245 Pa.Super. 487, 369 A.2d 733 (1977), that we have no power to impose sanctions for violation of Pa.R.Crim.P. 2009. That holding has no applicability to a case like the present, which involves a court’s obligation to comply with its own rules. Jones involved non-compliance by the police, over whom this court has no supervisory power. This case involves non-compliance by a district justice. If lower courts have the power to quash indictments for failure to comply with the court’s rules, as they do, see Commonwealth v. Rose, supra; Commonwealth v. Collemacine, supra, we have the same power.

. In Hailey the defendant complained that although he was arraigned on June 4, 1973, a preliminary hearing was not conducted until Feb. 5, 1974. The Court found that a Juvenile Court certification hearing held on June 15, 1973, “provided substantial compliance with Rule 140(f).” At 508, 368 A.2d at 1271. In its discussion the Court focused only on the effect of the Commonwealth’s failure to include a second complainant’s name on the certification petition; but I conclude from its silence that the Court also decided that a preliminary hearing held eleven days after arraignment (instead of ten) was “substantial compliance.”