Court Opinion

ID: 9767230
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:13:28.603152+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:29.635131
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, Judge,
dissenting:
I am unable to subscribe to the majority’s opinion for two reasons. First, the majority’s arithmetic is in error. It is contradicted by the record, which shows that the trial did not occur on the 180th day but on the 197th day. But even on the majority’s view of the record, the trial was held too late. Second, the majority finds that anyway, the Commonwealth exercised due diligence. For my part, I agree with the lower court’s finding, which is more than amply supported by the record, that the Commonwealth did not exercise due diligence.
The Commonwealth filed its criminal complaint against appellee on June 24, 1977. In the ordinary course, Rule 1100 required the Commonwealth to bring appellee to trial by December 21, 1977, unless it applied for, and showed that it was entitled to, an extension under Rule 1100(c).
*204On September 12, 1977,1 appellee failed to appear for arraignment and a bench warrant was issued for his arrest. On November 2 appellee was hospitalized as a result of serious injuries that he sustained in an incident involving the police. He remained hospitalized until May 3, 1978, when he was released and placed in the medical center of Graterford Prison.
Meanwhile, on December 8, 1977, the Commonwealth filed a petition for an extension of the Rule 1100 period. On February 22, 1978, a hearing was held on the Commonwealth’s petition. The Commonwealth requested a 90-day extension. Appellee’s counsel did not oppose the request, and the lower court extended the time by which the Commonwealth had to bring appellee to trial to May 22, 1978.
On May 17, 1978, the Commonwealth filed a second petition for an extension. On August 16 a hearing was held on the petition, and on August 17, over appellee’s objection, the lower court extended the time for trial to August 28.
Appellee was tried on August 28, and was convicted. He renewed his objection to the second extension in a motion in arrest of judgment, and on April 3, 1980, the lower court granted the motion. On April 15 the court dismissed the charges against appellee and ordered him discharged. It is from that order that the Commonwealth has appealed.
1
a
The majority finds that the date appellee failed to appear for arraignment was August 29, 1977.' At 1239. This finding is contradicted by the record, which shows that the date that appellee failed to appear was September 12.
No docket entry identifies August 29 as the date for appellee’s arraignment. Indeed, there are no docket entries for August 29, 1977. For September 12, 1977, there is the following entry: “Bench warrant issued—Fail to appear for *205arraignment—...” The Commonwealth’s first petition for an extension, dated December 8, 1977, states that on September 2 the Commonwealth requested that the case be listed for trial during the October term. It is unlikely that if appellee had been missing on August 29, the Commonwealth would have made such a request on September 2. Finally, at the hearing on the second petition for an extension the assistant district attorney stated to the court that “defendant [appellee] failed to appear for formal arraignment on September 12, 1977, and your Honor issued a Bench Warrant for his failure to appear on that date.” N.T. 8/16/78, 7.
I recognize that the lower court says that the arraignment was on August 29. However, while we must defer to findings of fact by the lower court, that is so only if the findings are supported by the record. Commonwealth v. Davis, 491 Pa. 363, 421 A.2d 179 (1980); Commonwealth v. Goodwin, 460 Pa. 516, 333 A.2d 892 (1975). Here the record does not support but contradicts the lower court’s finding.
The majority relies heavily on the fact that on July 22, 1977, appellee acknowledged receipt of a notice stating that arraignment would be on August 29, but that shows only when the arraignment was scheduled, not when it was held. The majority says that the assistant district attorney “misstated” the date of the arraignment, when he told the lower court that it was held on September 12, but that the Commonwealth has now “corrected its error” in its brief. At 197-98 n.l. It is a novel proposition, for which the majority doesn’t, and couldn’t, cite any authority, that a party may by a statement in a brief “correct” a statement made of record. We should abide by the record and ignore the contrary statement in the Commonwealth’s brief. A brief is not part of the record. Pa.R.A.P. 1921; Mansfield v. Lopez, 288 Pa.Super. 567, 432 A.2d 1016 (1981); Commonwealth v. Rini, 285 Pa.Super. 475, 427 A.2d 1385 *206(1981); Gee v. Eberle, 279 Pa.Super. 101, 420 A.2d 1050 (1980).
Had the majority abided by the record, it would have been obliged to find that the trial was held too late. The 180-day period started to run from the filing of the complaint. Commonwealth v. Mitchell, supra. It stopped running when appellee failed to appear for his arraignment. Commonwealth v. Morgan, 484 Pa. 117, 398 A.2d 972 (1979). By stopping the running of the period on August 29, the majority gains time for the Commonwealth. If the running of the period is not stopped until September 12, it will be found by reference to the calendar that the trial was not held until the 197th day.
b
Even if the majority were entitled to find that appellee failed to appear for his arraignment on August 29, still, the trial was held too late.
The majority says:
We agree with the trial court that the sixty-five (65) day period from August 29, 1977 until November 2, 1977 when appellee was a fugitive, and the 183 day period from November 2, 1977 until May 3, 1978, during which appellee was hospitalized, was properly excluded.
At 200.
The majority then concludes:
Consequently, this 183 day period when added to the sixty-five day period noted above produces 248 days of excludable time.
At 202.
Excluding 248 days, the majority finds that the run date was August 26, 1978, but, that being a Saturday, the Commonwealth had until August 28 to try the appellant. At 202.
The difficulty with this reasoning is that the period from November 2, 1977, to May 3, 1978, is not 183 days but 182. *207Thus, the excludable time was not 248 days but 247, so that appellee was tried not on the 180th day but the 181st (or rather, since a weekend intervened, on the 183rd).2
*2082
By its terms, Rule 1100(c) permits an extension of the 180-day period within which a defendant may be tried “only if trial cannot be commenced within the prescribed period despite due diligence by the Commonwealth.” See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Ehredt, 485 Pa. 191, 401 A.2d 358 (1979); Commonwealth v. Mitchell, 472 Pa. 553, 372 A.2d 826 (1977). Thus, the Commonwealth may assert that the defendant is unavailable as a fugitive, Commonwealth v. Mitchell, supra, or because he is incarcerated in another jurisdiction and awaiting disposition of the charges against him there, Commonwealth v. Williams, 284 Pa.Super. 125, 425 A.2d 451 (1981), or because he is hospitalized, Commonwealth v. Haynes, 245 Pa.Super. 17, 369 A.2d 271 (1976), but to prove unavailability, the Commonwealth must always prove by a preponderance of the evidence that it has exercised due diligence in locating the defendant and bringing him to trial within the period set for trial. As this court stated in Commonwealth v. Warman, 260 Pa.Super. 130, 393 A.2d 1046 (1978):
Rule 1100(d)(1) provides that “[i]n determining the period for commencement of trial, there shall be excluded therefrom such period of delay at any stage of the proceedings as results from: (1) the unavailability of the defendant or his attorney.” Mere incarceration in another jurisdiction does not make appellant unavailable. Appellant will be considered unavailable only for the period during which his presence could not be secured despite due diligence by the Commonwealth.
Id., 260 Pa.Superior at 135, 393 A.2d at 1049 (citations omitted).
When one examines the question of the Commonwealth’s diligence, one must conclude that the Commonwealth failed to meet its burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that it was unable, despite its due diligence, to bring appellee to trial by May 22. Commonwealth v. Ehredt, supra, Commonwealth v. Hill, 290 Pa.Super. 399, 434 A.2d 813 (1981).
*209The majority relies on one case to support its conclusion that the Commonwealth showed due diligence in trying to bring appellee to trial within the period of the first extension. Citing Commonwealth v. Haynes, 245 Pa.Super. 17, 21, 369 A.2d 271, 273 (1976), the majority states that “the 183 day period which extended from November 2, 1977 until May 3, 1978, ... is excludable so long as the Commonwealth was ‘satisfied ... that [appellee] was seriously ill and hospitalized.’ ” At 1240. The exact quotation from our opinion in Haynes, and an examination of the record in this case, shows that the two cases are quite different. In Haynes we said:
Testimony of the Philadelphia Detective in charge of the case shows that from August 3, 1973, to October 9, 1973, numerous phone calls to the Delaware County authorities satisfied him that appellant was seriously ill and hospitalized.
245 Pa.Super. at 21, 369 A.2d 273.
There were no “numerous phone calls” here. Instead, the Commonwealth did nothing to determine whether appellee would be able to be tried before the end of the ninety-day extension the Commonwealth received at the hearing on February 22, 1978.
At the hearing on the Commonwealth’s second petition for an extension, the assistant district attorney offered as exhibits three letters from his office to the county court administrator, requesting that this case be listed for trial. N.T. 8/16/78, 43, 44, 48. The letters were dated May 16, July 12, and July 26, 1978.
The court administrator testified that his office had refused to list the case for trial because the court records showed that a bench warrant for appellee was outstanding. On the basis of these records, the court administrator testified, he believed appellee to be a fugitive. N.T. 8/16/78, 27-28. Despite this belief, however, the court administrator’s office never told the district attorney’s office that the case would not be listed for trial. The court administrator acknowledged receiving the letters from the district attorney’s *210office requesting that the case be listed for trial, but instead of acknowledging the letters or otherwise explaining why despite them the case would not be listed, he simply' made a note on the letters that a bench warrant was outstanding, and placed them in his file. N.T. 8/16/78, 29, 31. It appears to have been the court administrator’s position that both he and the district attorney got a copy of the same records, showing a bench warrant outstanding, and that if the district attorney didn’t know that the court administrator considered appellant a fugitive, he should have known. Id.
It was not “[u]ntil about a week,” N.T. 8/16/78, 30, before the hearing on the Commonwealth’s second petition for an extension—in other words, not until almost three months after the date set for trial in response to the Commonwealth’s first petition, that someone from the district attorney’s office telephoned the court administrator and asked why the case hadn’t been listed for trial. N.T. 8/16/78, 30. Then, for the first time, the court administrator expressed his belief—mistaken—that the appellee was a fugitive. The representative of the district attorney’s office called back “in about one hour,” id., said that “we will have him,” id., and a trial date was arranged.
The record further discloses, to quote the opinion of the lower court, “at least three instances of inadequate record keeping” on the part of the district attorney’s office. At 1240 n. 2. As has been mentioned, the district attorney’s office had a bench warrant issued on September 12, 1977, when appellee failed to appear for arraignment. Yet the warrant was never executed until June 20, 1978, or a month after May 22, 1978, the date set for trial in response to the Commonwealth’s first petition. N.T. 8/16/78, 36, 70. Also, although the district attorney knew that appellee was hospitalized, it evidently made no request of the hospital to be advised when appellee would be discharged. Cf. Commonwealth v. Haynes, supra. When the lower court asked the assistant district attorney to whom his office had looked to keep track of appellee (“Montgomery County Police *211Department, or Sheriffs Office, or what?”), the assistant district attorney replied: “It would have been Upper Mer-ion, I believe, was the township where there were charges— they were watching closer to him than we were. They had first claims on him, if you will.” N.T. 8/16/78, 13. Finally, the assistant district attorney learned in mid-May 1978 from reading a local newspaper that appellee had been in the Montgomery County court the previous day, N.T. 8/16/78, 14, 20-23, and yet it was not until mid-August, in the telephone conversation mentioned above, that the district attorney’s office notified the court administrator that appel-lee was not a fugitive but available for trial, N.T. 8/16/78, 30.
It is settled that the Commonwealth’s bare assertion of due diligence without more will not support a finding of due diligence. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Antonuccio, 257 Pa.Super. 535, 390 A.2d 1366 (1978) (per curiam); Commonwealth v. Porter, 251 Pa.Super. 346, 380 A.2d 812 (1977). As our Supreme Court has stated: “When a case has Rule 1100 problems, prosecutors must do everything within their power to see that the case is tried on time.” Commonwealth v. Smith, 477 Pa. 424, 428, 383 A.2d 1280, 1282 (1978). Moreover, this court has held that the Commonwealth must show that it has exercised due diligence in executing a bench warrant. Commonwealth v. Snyder, 280 Pa.Super. 127, 133-34, 421 A.2d 438, 441 (1980) (“mere issuance of a bench warrant does not establish due diligence”); Commonwealth v. Boerner, 281 Pa.Super. 505, 510-11, 422 A.2d 583, 585 (1980) (Commonwealth entitled to unavailability exclusion if it establishes that police acted with due diligence in executing an arrest warrant).
Here for nine months the Commonwealth made no effort to execute the bench warrant. Even though the Commonwealth knew that the period of the first extension was running, it made no effort to keep track of appellee, only accidentally learning of his whereabouts just before the period ended, by reading a newspaper account of appellee’s appearance in the Montgomery County court. And finally, *212there was a complete failure on the part of the district attorney’s office and court administrator’s office to communicate with each other. As the lower court observed, “The assistant district attorney may not be allowed to pass the blame for delay on to the Court Administrator. Both the prosecutor and the Court Administrator are responsible for the management of the court calendar.” At 199 n. 2. See Commonwealth v. Metzger, 249 Pa.Super. 107, 115, 375 A.2d 781, 785 (1977). When the two offices finally did communicate with each other in August, three months after the period of the first extension had expired, the case was at once listed for, and brought to, trial. No matter how read, such a record cannot support a finding that the Commonwealth met its burden of showing due diligence in bringing appellee to trial.
The order of the lower court should be affirmed.

. The majority declines to accept this fact. The record showing that it nevertheless is fact is discussed infra.

. The majority states that it has counted August 29 (the day, according to the majority, that appellee failed to appear for arraignment) as the first day that appellee was unavailable. In similar cases, however, the day that the defendant first became unavailable has not been counted. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Cohen, 481 Pa. 349, 392 A.2d 1327 (1978) (defendants unavailable for 20 days—from June 26, 1975, when they failed to appear for arraignment, until July 16, 1975, when they appeared in court); Commonwealth v. Bell, 283 Pa.Super. 196, 423 A.2d 1056 (1980) (defendant unavailable for 36 days—from December 14, 1976, when he failed to appear for trial, until January 19, 1977, the day he surrendered).
In excluding the day that the defendant first became unavailable in Cohen and Bell, the courts did not cite the Statutory Construction Act. However, the Act provides: "When any period of time is referred to in any statute, such period in all cases, ... shall be computed as to exclude the first and include the last day of such period.” 1 Pa.C.S.A. § 1908. In Commonwealth v. Wade, 475 Pa. 399, 380 A.2d 782 (1977), moreover, it was held that § 1908 is to be used in computing the 180-day period under Rule 1100(a)(2). Since we are to use § 1908 in computing the 180-day period, we should do the same in computing periods to be excluded from the 180-day period under Rule 1100(d)(1).
By computing the periods to be excluded by the method used in Cohen and Bell, supra, that is, not counting August 29, 1977, but counting May 3, 1978, the day appellee was released from the hospital, it will be seen that 247 days are excluded from the period:
1977 August 2
September 30
October 31
November 30
December 31
1978 January 31
February 28
March 31
April 30
May 3
247
When the 247 excluded days are subtracted from the 430 days that elapsed from June 24, 1977, the date the complaint was filed, until August 28, 1978, the date of trial, it is clear that trial occurred on the 183rd day. Because it, mistakenly I suggest, excludes 248 days, the majority concludes that the 180th day was Saturday, August 26, and that therefore, under 1 Pa.C.S.A. § 1908 (when the last day of the period falls on a Saturday or Sunday, such day is to be omitted from the computation), trial could begin on Monday, August 28, without violating Rule 1100. Since only 247 days should be excluded, the 180th day was Friday, August 25, and trial should have begun on that day.