Court Opinion

ID: 9728766
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:16:00.181662+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:51.860045
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Justice,
dissenting.
I must dissent. The Commonwealth, the appellant in this case, has filed a petition with this Court indicating that the issue presented by this appeal is now moot and requesting that the present appeal be withdrawn. See Pa.R.A.P. 1972(4), 1973. There is thus clearly no basis for this Court to express what is only an advisory opinion on the issue which was once presented by this case. Accordingly, I agree with Mr. Justice Kauffman that the majority is in error in failing to exercise the appropriate restraint and dismiss this appeal. Because the majority is unwilling, however, to refrain from expressing its views on the merits, I must also express my complete disagreement with those views.
As the majority acknowledges, this case is controlled by Rule of Criminal Procedure 4010(A)(1). This Rule, which was not in effect at the time of our plurality decision in Commonwealth v. Fowler, 451 Pa. 505, 304 A.2d 124 (1973), provides:
“The defendant shall not be released on bail upon a finding of guilty of an offense which is punishable by death or life imprisonment. However, if post-verdict motions are not disposed of within a reasonable period of time thereafter, the judge may in his discretion allow bail.”
*152This Rule expressly and most clearly leaves the decision to grant bail to the sound judgment of the trial court. There is no indication in the text of this Rule that the trial judge must wait four months before he may exercise that judgment. Yet by a remarkable ipse dixit the majority today imposes just such a four month rulé, prohibiting all trial judges from granting bail during that period of time. If our Rules of Criminal Procedure are to be so casually ignored, one may well wonder why we have procedural rules at all.
In any particular case the trial judge and not this Court is in the superior position to perceive when the disposition of post-verdict motions is being unduly delayed. In the absence of some showing that a trial judge has abused his discretion, I see no basis for this Court to substitute its own judgment as to whether delay in a given case has been unreasonable.
In this case the trial judge denied the defendant’s first application for bail. Only on subsequent reapplication, when it appeared that post-verdict motions would not be decided for some time, did the trial court see fit to reinstate bail. The record plainly demonstrates that the trial judge soundly exercised discretion, and I would not disturb this ruling.