Court Opinion

ID: 9699556
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:33:31.933936+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:53.104409
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
Me. Justice Roberts :
I agree that Spencer Broaddus may not now challenge the admission of his inculpatory statement. No objection was made when the statement was introduced into evidence, and this Court will not consider alleged trial errors for the first time on appeal. Commonwealth v. Agie, 449 Pa. 187, 296 A.2d 741 (1972). In my view, this case begins at the introduction of the statement and ends at its admission without objection.
I must, however, dissociate myself from the majority’s gratuitous historical survey of the misapplication of White v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 59, 83 S. Ct. 1050 (1963), and Hamilton v. Alabama, 368 U.S. 52, 82 S. Ct. 157 (1961), by this Court and the federal courts of this *271circuit. That White and Hamilton require the assistance of counsel at every critical stage in a criminal prosecution cannot be denied. In 1968 I stated my view that the ex parte issuing of a “bring-up” order is a critical stage. Commonwealth v. Dickerson, 428 Pa. 564, 565, 237 A.2d 229, 230 (1968) (dissenting opinion). Today’s majority opinion has done nothing to change my judgment. And the right-to-counsel cases decided since 1968 have only confirmed my Dickerson views.1 Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U.S. 1, 90 S. Ct. 1999 (1970); Adams v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 278, 92 S. Ct. 916 (1972).
It is indeed difficult to imagine an in-custody situation that has greater potential for prejudice than ex parte issuance of a “bring-up” order. Here a prisoner *272held for the grand jury is removed under the authority of a “bring-up” order — a judicial document — and taken not to court, but to police headquarters for interrogation.2
This Court has recently defined “critical stage.” In Commonwealth v. Horner, 453 Pa. 435, 440, 309 A.2d 552, 555 (1973), we rejected the Commonwealth’s argument that Horner’s preliminary hearing was not a *273“critical stage.” Speaking through Mr. Justice Eagen, we stated: “The Commonwealth argues the preliminary hearing instantly may not be considered a critical stage in the prosecution proceedings, because as distinguished from White and Arsenault [v. Massachusetts, 393 U.S. 5, 89 S. Ct. 35 (1968)], it did not involve the entry of a guilty plea. Accepting that the use of the entry of a guilty plea at a preliminary hearing is not the same as utilizing the testimony of the accused that he shot and killed a person in self-defense, nonetheless, prejudice did result to Horner by the trial use of his testimony at the preliminary hearing, and this prejudice renders the preliminary hearing a ‘critical stage.’ ” Even the closest reading of Horner does not reveal how it may be distinguished from the instant case.3
As the majority notes, Horner finds its foundation in White and Hamilton. This fact does not, however, lead to the conclusion that a judicial hearing may be a “critical stage” only when the prejudice complained of arises at that hearing. The Horner test is whether use of the unconstitutionally-obtained testimony results in prejudice. If it does, this prejudice shows that when the testimony was taken, the accused was involved in a “critical stage” of a criminal proceeding.
Had Hamilton and White never been decided, the “bring-up” order interrogation procedure here employed would still be constitutionally impermissible. The majority justifies its denying Broaddus relief by focusing on the date of his confession. Had he been interrogated after Massiah v. United States4 was decided, even the majority concedes, the confession would be inadmissible.
“Only the technical operation of a judicial concept of nonretroactivity prevents the Massiah rule from ap*274plying here. But that technicality cannot make the denial of counsel at a critical stage of a criminal proceeding, which is unconstitutional to-day, wholly unobjectionable when it was experienced ... in 1958. Massiah did not make the procedure there condemned unfair. Rather, judicial perception of unfairness made Massiah.” United States ex rel. Dickerson v. Rundle, 430 F.2d 462, 469-70 (3d Cir. 1970), cert. denied, 408 U.S. 928, 92 S. Ct. 2498 (1972) (Hastie, C. J., dissenting, joined by Freedman and Adams, JJ.)
Like Judge, then Chief Judge, Hastie, I believe the issuance of the “bring-up” order and the interrogation conducted without defense counsel were fundamentally unfair. Use of the resulting confession denied appellant due process of law.
I cannot join an opinion which sanctions this unconstitutional police practice.

 In 1962 Murray Dickerson, Broaddus’ codefendant, contested the legality of his “bring-up” order, Commonwealth v. Dickerson, 406 Pa. 102, 176 A.2d 421 (1962), and one year later requested a writ of habeas corpus. Commonwealth ex rel. Dickerson v. Rundle, 411 Pa. 651, 192 A.2d 347, cert. denied, 375 U.S. 915, 84 S. Ct. 214 (1963). On each occasion this Court denied relief.
The federal district court then granted Dickerson habeas relief because of denial of counsel at the interrogation following the “bring-up” order. United States ex rel. Dickerson v. Rundle, 238 F.Supp. 218 (E.D. Pa. 1965). The court of appeals modified this order and returned the case to the state courts lor the hearing required by Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 84 S. Ct. 1774 (1964). United States ex rel. Dickerson v. Rundle, 363 F.2d 126 (3d Cir. 1966), cert. denied, 386 U.S. 916, 87 S. Ct. 880 (1967). Relief was again denied and this Court affirmed per curiam without opinion. Commonwealth v. Dickerson, 428 Pa. 564, 237 A.2d 229 (1968). This writer filed a dissenting opinion. Id. at 565, 237 A.2d at 230.
Dickerson returned to federal court. The district court, in an unreported order, again granted habeas relief. The court of appeals, after argument before a three-judge panel and two en banc rearguments, reversed by a vote of four to three. Chief Judge Hastie, and Judges Fbeedman and Adams dissented. The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari. Commonwealth ex rel. Dickerson v. Rundle, 430 F.2d 462 (3d Cir. 1970), cert. denied, 408 U.S. 928, 92 S. Ct. 2498 (1972).

 I agree with the analysis of the constitutionality of “bring-up” orders expressed by Mr. Justice Manderino in his dissenting opinion. Further, I wish to note that, contrary to the assertion of the majority (see note 7 of the majority opinion), Commonwealth v. Trunk, 311 Pa. 555, 167 A. 333 (1933), does not indicate that “the propriety of bring-up orders has long been established in this Court.”
Trunk was the County Detective of Montgomery County. His co-defendants were a chief of police and an assistant district attorney. “Thomas Campbell, a negro, prosecuted them charging that they had committed upon him an aggravated assault and battery and had falsely imprisoned him.” Id. at 559, 167 A. at 335. The defendants were sentenced to terms at hard labor and the Superior Court affirmed.
This Court granted the defendants a new trial because of the trial judge’s charge to the jury. That charge, the Court found, characterized the defendants’ conduct in having Campbell removed from the county jail so that they could interrogate him at police headquarters. Specifically this Court found that the trial judge’s charge had improperly removed from the jury’s consideration the issue of the defendants’ good faith. Reversal was based on the trial judge’s jury charge not on the legality of the “bring-up” order.
In my view, a prisoner should be released from jail only upon a proper court order and only when Ms presence is required in court. If police or assistant district attorneys want to interrogate a prisoner being held for grand jury action, they may, like defense counsel or agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, come to the prison and use the interview facilities there available. Transporting an accused from jail to police headquarters for interrogation under the compulsion of a judicial “bring-up” order is, in my view, inherently coercive. Defense counsel should be given .the opportunity to contest the issuance of such a critical order without regard to where the prejudicial event occurs.

 See note 6 of the majority opinion.

 377 U.S. 201, 84 S. Ct. 1199 (1964).