Court Opinion

ID: 9712377
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:52:33.978048+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:11.716148
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Me. Justice Pomeeoy:
. Appellant was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to, life imprisonment on March 18, 1961. This Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Littlejohn, 433 Pa. 336, 250 A. 2d 811, was filed on January 24, 1969. The majority opinion necessarily decides sub silentio that Littlejohn is retroactive in effect; otherwise, it would not be proper for the Court sua sponte to search, the record in the case at bar to determine whether appellant’s failure to appeal his conviction was caused by fear that he would receive the death penalty on retrial if his appeal proved successful.
.In my view, the Court in Littlejohn did not address itself to the matter of retroactivity. The Court there held, that “A decision not to appeal because of such fear [fear of receiving the death penalty on retrial] cannot, as a matter of law, be a knowing and voluntary waiver of .the right to appeal.” This newly-enunciated rule of law, with which I agree, was not ■stated as a mandate that it should be applied retroactively.
The majority states that “if appellant in the instant case did not exercise his right to appeal because of. fear of - the death penalty, he cannot be said to have waived his Douglas rights.” If in fact it- were clear, that Douglas,right” was at issue, there would be no question as to retroactivity. Douglas v. California, 372 U.S. 353 (1963), reh. denied, 373 U.S. 905 (1963) set forth an indigent defendant’s right to the assistance of free counsel in the prosecution of a first appeal granted-*455as of right,* and that decision is to be applied retroactively. See, e.g., Daegele v. Kansas, 375 U.S. 1 (1963) and Commonwealth ex rel. Stevens v. Myers, 419 Pa. 1, 213 A. 2d 613 (1965). But I do not understand Douglas or the cases which follow it to require retroactive application of all newly enunciated rules of law which might have influenced a particular defendant’s decision as to whether an appeal should be taken. Specifically, I do not regard those cases as support for the majority’s present conclusion that appellant cannot be deemed to have waived his “Douglas rights” if he failed to prosecute an appeal because of fear of the death penalty. Indeed, in view of the Court’s treatment of this case I do not see that appellant’s putative waiver of his Douglas rights is at issue. That question was presented by this appeal, but the Court here holds that it need not reach the issue.
The issue of Littlejohn’s retroactivity has not been raised by the parties to the present proceeding, and this Court has not had the benefit of briefs or the argument of counsel on this point. The Court may have come to the right result on this issue. On this I have no present opinion, but I am not disposed to reach so important a question concerning the rule of law which Littlejohn announces until it is properly raised and presented to the Court. Because the record of the first PCHA hearing indicates that the problem addressed in Littlejohn is relevant to this case, I would set the case down for reargument limited to the question of Littlejohn’s retroactivity.

 Appellant’s right of appeal in the present ease is guaranteed by state law. See Pennsylvania Constitution of 1874, Article V, Section 24 (Article V, Section 9 of the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1968) ; and Act of February 15, 1870, P. L. 15, §1, 19 P.S. §1186.