Court Opinion

ID: 9363066
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-01-13 17:07:44.705555+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:15:28.299785
License: Public Domain

J-A16008-22

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

    COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA               :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
                                               :        PENNSYLVANIA
                       Appellant               :
                                               :
                                               :
                v.                             :
                                               :
                                               :
    ROBERT REDANAUER                           :   No. 1631 EDA 2021

                  Appeal from the Order Entered July 15, 2021
    In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at
                       No(s): MC-51-CR-0007444-2021,
                            MC-51-CR-0007445-2021

    COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA               :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
                                               :        PENNSYLVANIA
                       Appellant               :
                                               :
                                               :
                v.                             :
                                               :
                                               :
    ROBERT REDANAUER                           :   No. 1632 EDA 2021

                  Appeal from the Order Entered July 15, 2021
    In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at
                       No(s): MC-51-CR-0007444-2021,
                            MC-51-CR-0007445-2021

BEFORE: McLAUGHLIN, J., McCAFFERY, J., and PELLEGRINI, J.*

DISSENTING MEMORANDUM BY PELLEGRINI, J.: FILED JANUARY 13, 2023

        I respectfully dissent.      The Commonwealth filed a single criminal

complaint charging Redanauer with misdemeanor crimes of simple assault,

recklessly endangering another person (REAP), possessing instruments of

____________________________________________

*   Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.
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crime (PIC), and terroristic threats with two victims. For reasons unclear from

the record, the Philadelphia Municipal Court (PMC) docketed two cases rather

than one in violation of our Rules of Criminal Procedure. The offenses against

the minor victim were docketed at 7444-2021 and those against Daniel Taylor,

the adult victim, were docketed at 7445-2021.        See PARS Report, Docket

7444-2021 (“Juvenile Complainant”); PARS Report, Docket 7445-2021

(“Daniel Taylor”). The Commonwealth filed a certification exercising its right

to a jury trial.

      Despite stating on the record that the proceeding was merely a

preliminary hearing, the committing judge retroactively declared it to be a

trial and found Redanauer not guilty at docket 7445.        Because the judge,

sitting essentially as a committing magistrate, lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate

the merits, double jeopardy never attached because Redanauer was never in

jeopardy. I would reverse and reinstate the charges.

      The majority’s holding has two unintended consequences. First, it would

somehow allow committing judges to convert a preliminary hearing into a trial

and declare the defendant guilty even though the defendant did not even know

he was going to trial. While on its face that is absurd, that is the necessary

implication of the majority’s decision. Moreover, it would allow defendants

charged with serious crimes to escape prosecution because of perfidy on the

part of the committing judge to find someone not guilty after what is

undeniably a preliminary hearing.

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                                               I.

        The majority aptly summarizes the facts of the alleged offenses. The

certified record reveals that a single criminal complaint (Criminal Complaint)

describing alleged crimes was filed in support of the charges relating to Daniel

Taylor and A, his minor brother.1               Additionally, two criminal complaint

documents with the “PARS”2 logo were filed. These pages had different PMC

docket numbers but the same control number as the Criminal Complaint. In

the area for describing the facts of the offenses, they read, “Legacy Warrant

Complaint.”     Otherwise, these two pages differed in that one was labeled

“Child Victim” and the other “Misdemeanor.” The Child Victim complaint has

a computer-generated time and date stamp of “04/22/2021 9:37 AM,” while

the Misdemeanor complaint is stamped “04/22/2021 9:38 AM.”

        As the Commonwealth argues, Rule of Criminal Procedure 505(B)

requires that “[w]hen more than one offense is alleged to have been

committed by one person arising from the same incident, the issuing authority

shall accept only one complaint, and shall docket the matter as a single case.”

Pa.R.Crim.P. 505(B). Further, “[w]hen one or more such offenses are charged

in a single complaint or series of complaints against one defendant, all shall

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1This Criminal Complaint has all the required attributes of a complaint under
our Rules of Criminal Procedure, save for a notation of whether the defendant
has been fingerprinted. See Pa.R.Crim.P. 504.

2   Philadelphia’s Preliminary Arraignment System.

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be joined in the same Municipal Court case. . . .”        Pa.R.Crim.P. 1001(B)

(emphasis added). For reasons unclear from the certified record, the Rules

were plainly not followed in this case.3 The Child Victim and Misdemeanor

cases were assigned separate, successive docket numbers, even though the

crimes described in the accompanying Criminal Complaint were allegedly

committed by Redanauer in a single incident.

       The majority reasons that “[w]hile the statute addresses multiple

offenses by one person arising from the same incident, it is silent as to multiple

victims. As such, Rule 505(B) is inapplicable in determining whether these

two cases should have been considered and docketed as a single case.”

Majority Memorandum at 8. I find this reading of the Rule strained. The Rule

does not distinguish between “multiple offenses” and “multiple victims”

because when a crime involves “multiple victims” it would, by definition,

involve “multiple offenses.” Moreover, even setting aside Rule 505(B), Rule

1001(B) mandates that the cases be joined and proceed together.

       Because the Commonwealth filed a certification to proceed to a jury trial

in the lead docket number of a case that should, per Rules 505(B) and

____________________________________________

3 The Commonwealth posits in its brief that the charges were docketed
separately due to a quirk of the filing software in PMC, which requires a
separate PMC docket number for each complainant at the preliminary
arraignment stage. See Commonwealth’s Brief at 7-8 n.2. It goes without
saying that the programming features of the PMC’s software cannot supersede
our Rules of Criminal Procedure.

                                           -4-
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1001(B), have only one docket number, I would hold that the certification

applied to the erroneously-generated docket as well.       Further, the record

demonstrates that this was the trial court’s understanding of the proceedings

as well, at least until the defendant belatedly asserted that the proceeding

that had already concluded was, in fact, a trial, not a preliminary hearing.

Previously, the committing judge cut off the Commonwealth’s examination of

the victim during the “trial” as irrelevant, stating “[w]e are at a preliminary

hearing. . . . Don’t waste my time. . . . It is completely irrelevant with

what we are doing here today. Have you been doing this long?” N.T.,

7/15/21, at 9-10 (emphasis added.) The Commonwealth cannot be faulted

for proceeding as if at a preliminary hearing when it was admonished by the

committing judge that is what it was!4

       I would hold that after the Commonwealth filed its certification to

exercise its right to a jury trial in the Court of Common Pleas and the matter

was listed for a preliminary hearing, PMC lacked jurisdiction to proceed on the

case as a trial. See Pa.R.Crim.P. 1001(D) (“Upon receipt of the certification,

the President Judge promptly shall schedule a preliminary hearing, and the

case shall be conducted as provided in Rules 541, 542, 543, and 1003(E).”

(emphasis added)).

____________________________________________

4 I also observe that other procedures to protect Redanauer’s due process
rights were not observed during this “trial,” such as a colloquy on his right to
testify on his own behalf. Understandably, Redanauer did not challenge these
omissions.

                                           -5-
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      Under the rules governing preliminary hearings, the committing judge

was required to either hold the charges for court if it found that the

Commonwealth had established a prima facie case or dismiss the charges if it

did not. See Commonwealth v. Davis, 242 A.3d 923, 937-39 (Pa. Super.

2020) (discussing a magisterial district judge’s powers under Rules 542 and

543); see also Commonwealth v. Oliver, 869 A.2d 1167, 1171 (Pa.

Cmwlth. 2005) (district justice’s sua sponte decision at preliminary hearing to

convict defendants of summary offenses under Solid Waste Management Act

rather than determine existence of prima facie case to hold defendants for

trial on charged misdemeanor offenses was unlawful and a legal nullity).

                                      II.

      Ignoring the committing judge’s sleight of hand in converting a

preliminary hearing into a trial, the majority finds that since Redanauer was

found not guilty at docket 7445 and the facts at that docket are the same as

docket 7444, arise from the same incident and involve the same offenses, the

charges are barred at docket 7444 based on double jeopardy principles. That

holding is based on the false assumption that a trial took place at docket 7445

when it did not.   What was taking place was a preliminary hearing – the

committing judge said so.

      Because the Commonwealth exercised its right to a jury trial in the Court

of Common Pleas, a trial on the merits on these charges could not have taken

place because there was never an issuing authority’s finding of a prima facie

                                     -6-
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case, which is a prerequisite to requiring the defendant to stand trial and risk

a criminal conviction.    Absent a finding of a prima facie case (or an

unambiguous waiver of a preliminary hearing under Rule of Criminal Procedure

541), “the defendant is not exposed to a finding of responsibility for the

alleged errant conduct and jeopardy does not attach.”        Liciaga v. Ct. of

Common Pleas of Lehigh Cty., 566 A.2d 246, 248 (Pa. 1989) (opinion

announcing judgment of court) (citation omitted); see also Commonwealth

v. Cordoba, 902 A.2d 1280, 1284–85 (Pa. Super. 2006).

      The majority ignores that jeopardy never attached because Redanauer

was simply “never subjected to the risk of being convicted” at his preliminary

hearing, Commonwealth v. Hunter, 674 A.2d 306, 307–08 (Pa. Super.

1996), and because “[y]ou can’t have double jeopardy without a former

jeopardy,” United States v. Torres, 28 F.3d 1463, 1465 (7th Cir. 1994), and

“double jeopardy” would not bar further prosecution on docket 7444. See

Hunter, 674 A.2d at 307–08; see also Commonwealth v. Smith, 570 A.2d

559, 161 (Pa. Super. 1990) (reiterating the “‘fundamental’” point that “‘an

accused must suffer jeopardy before he can suffer double jeopardy’”) (quoting

Serfass v. United States, 420 U.S. 377, 393 (1975)).

      Imagine a committing judge telling a defendant that what was going to

occur was a preliminary hearing to determine whether he was going to be held

for trial, but at the end of the proceeding, the committing judge nevertheless

adjudicates him guilty after deciding that what actually occurred was a trial

                                     -7-
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on the merits.    Because, in the majority’s view, there were no procedural

impediments, the defendant’s only relief would be through the normal

challenges to a conviction. Further imagine if the charge at an erroneously-

created consolidated PMC docket number was for aggravated assault or

homicide arising out of the same incident. Under the majority’s view, charges

against the defendant would have to be dismissed because double jeopardy

had attached after the initial trial-cum-preliminary hearing.      Both of those

outcomes are possible under the majority’s decision.

      Accordingly, I would conclude that the trial court’s adjudication on the

merits was a legal nullity, as it lacked jurisdiction to proceed to trial after the

Commonwealth filed its certification. I would remand for a new preliminary

hearing on a single case involving both victims in accordance with Rules

505(B) and 1001(B).

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