Court Opinion

ID: 9638947
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:59:29.211342+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:10.879213
License: Public Domain

BROSKY, Judge,
concurring:
I am constrained to join with the majority in light of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decisions in Commonwealth v. Luckenbaugh, 520 Pa. 75, 550 A.2d 1317 (1988), and Commonwealth v. Passaro, 504 Pa. 611, 476 A.2d 346 (1984), which deny a recaptured fugitive any right to appellate review.
*32The Supreme Court in Passaro stated that, “[A] defendant who elects to escape from custody forfeits his right to appellate review. It would be unseemly to permit a defendant who has rejected the appellate process in favor of escape to resume his appeal merely because his escape proved unsuccessful.” Id,., 504 Pa. at 616, 476 A.2d at 349.
Such a position relative to a recaptured fugitive can be unduly harsh. While we are aware that escape from official detention is something that must be discouraged in the strongest terms, there are escape statutes that cover this situation. See 18 Pa.C.S. § 5121(a),(d)(1)(i). Escape of a convicted defendant is a third-degree felony, and depending on a defendant’s prior record score, carries a possible penalty of eight-to-eighty months imprisonment. Id., 42 Pa.C.S. § 9721.
Our Supreme Court recognized in Passaro that the right of appeal is guaranteed by Article 5, Section 9 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, and that the past decisions of that court have emphasized that this right is a personal one which may be relinquished only through a knowing, voluntary, and intelligent waiver. However, the Passaro court found that the failure to comply with the procedures for appeal, established by the Supreme Court, would result in a waiver of the right to appeal; escape from detention would be considered a failure to comply with the procedures established for appeal.
While we do not disagree with the reasoning utilized by the Supreme Court in Passaro, we believe that an across-the-board prohibition against any appeals is overly restrictive. A better holding would be to allow for exceptions in certain circumstances, such as competency to stand trial, an illegal sentence, an involuntary guilty plea, or an illegal arrest. Certainly to avoid injustice or the extreme harshness of an illegal sentence, these should be capable of consideration for review by an appellate court. Our court did recognize, in Commonwealth v. Luckenbaugh, 356 Pa. Super. 355, 514 A.2d 896 (1986), reversed at 520 Pa. 75, 550 A.2d 1317 (1988), before it was appealed to the Supreme *33Court, at footnote 1, that certain claims, such as competency to stand trial and a challenge to the legality of a sentence, could not be waived. I therefore believe that this approach would better serve the ends of justice, and avoid the fundamental unfairness that could inure to a defendant, albeit one who escaped and was recaptured, who was given an illegal sentence or who was incompetent to stand trial in the first place.