Court Opinion

ID: 9733587
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:11:10.820955+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:42.562805
License: Public Domain

McDERMOTT, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
The appellant was tried for prostitution in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Asked by her counsel “were you ever convicted of a crime?” She answered, “No sir.” Not surprisingly, she was acquitted. Following her acquittal, she filed suit against the county and several police officers alleging a coercive search. Upon receipt of the suit the police determined that in fact she had been previously convicted of prostitution in the State of Delaware. She was indicted for perjury and put to trial. At the perjury trial, Officer O’Leary, a defendant in her civil suit was called to testify that she in fact had said she was not previously convicted. The Superior Court and the majority of this *16Court treat Officer O’Leary as a witness corroborating the perjury and held he was subject to cross-examination for bias because he was made a defendant in her civil suit. O’Leary was neither a corroborating witness nor was his testimony required to posit the charge of peijury. He was called to say she said what she said and no more. His testimony did not prove her a liar and were it so offered it was clearly inadmissible because he could offer no proof of his own knowledge that she in fact had been previously convicted of perjury. Nor was testimony as to what she said necessary because what she said at her prostitution trial was supplied from the official transcript by the court reporter at her trial for prostitution.
Two witnesses are not required to prove what one said under oath. VII Wigmore, Evidence in Trials at Common Law, § 2042(3) (1978). Two witnesses are required to show that what was said under oath was a lie. United States v. Flores-Rodriguez, 237 F.2d 405, 408 (2nd Cir.1956) (“This rule, it must be remembered, deals with the falsity of the oath and not with its making.”) Corroborating witnesses are required to prove that what was said was a lie, not that it was said. Id. That she lied under oath was proved by two court officials from the State of Delaware who presented the official records of her conviction and her Delaware probation officer who testified that pursuant to that conviction she came and remained under supervision. See Holy v. United States, 278 F. 521 (7th Cit.1921), Commonwealth v. Robinson, 332 Pa.Super. 147, 151, 480 A.2d 1229, 1231 (1984), (“An uncorrorborated record of a criminal conviction is sufficient to demonstrate the falsity of a sworn statement that the speaker has never been convicted of a crime.”) The testimony of both was stipulated by counsel for appellant. Hence, the appellant admitted the Commonwealth’s case, that she had been convicted in Delaware. She based her defense on the belief that her conviction was successfully appealed. That defense did not depend upon anything in the testimony or knowledge of Officer O’Leary, nor under the Commonwealth’s evidence did it prove persuasive. In *17short, O’Leary was not necessary to prove the perjury she admitted. Notwithstanding, he was extensively cross-examined on why the perjury indictment was pursued. The majority believes that insufficient because the trial court allowed cross-examination of all but that he was a defendant in the civil suit. While I believe the extensive cross-examination became a side show, I agree with the majority that an issue of selective or vindictive prosecution is a question of law for the court to decide on pre-trial motion and that issue should be remanded for determination by the trial court. Should those contentions prove meritless, I would affirm the conviction of perjury for the reasons stated.