Court Opinion

ID: 9749487
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:47:23.613644+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:19:19.419286
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, Judge,
dissenting:
As the majority notes, appellant challenges the validity of his guilty plea on two grounds: first, that the trial court did *29not inform him that the jurors would be chosen from the community and would be his peers; and second, that the trial court did not inform him that a jury consists of twelve persons. I agree that Commonwealth v. Fortune, 289 Pa.Superior Ct. 278, 433 A.2d 65 (1981), supports the majority’s rejection of the first ground. However, I am unable to agree with the majority’s rejection of the second ground.
In Commonwealth v. Williams, 454 Pa. 368, 312 A.2d 597 (1973), the Supreme Court held that a defendant in a criminal case should not be permitted to waive a jury unless the record demonstrated that
he knew the essential ingredients of a jury trial which are necessary to understand the significance of the right he was waiving. These essential ingredients of a jury, basic to the concept of a jury trial, are the requirements that the jury be chosen from members of the community (a jury of one’s peers), that the verdict be unanimous, and that the accused be allowed to participate in the selection of the jury panel.
Id, 454 Pa. at 373, 312 A.2d at 600.
The majority reasons that because this statement does not specifically refer to the requirement that a jury must consist of twelve persons, that requirement is not an “essential ingredient” of a jury trial of which the defendant must be informed. In other words, the majority reads Williams’s silence on the requirement that a jury must consist of twelve persons as an affirmative statement that there is no need to inform the defendant of the requirement. This reasoning, I submit, reads into Williams something that the Court could not have intended.
Although the Court in Williams did not state that the defendant must be told that a jury consists of twelve persons, it did not have to, for the defendant had been told that “he could have a jury trial in which twelve men would decide his guilt or innoeense.” Id., 454 Pa. at 373, 312 A.2d at 600. Moreover, the Court cited as its authority Commonwealth v. Fugmann, 330 Pa. 4, 198 A. 99 (1938), and in Fugmann the Court said:
*30The essentials of a trial by jury of a defendant in a criminal case as known at the common law were: (1) a jury composed of twelve eligible persons duly summoned, sworn and impanelled for the trial of the issue .... Id., 330 Pa. at 29, 198 A. at 111.
Until today, the essentials of a trial by jury as established by Williams and Fugmann have been observed by the Pennsylvania courts. In Commonwealth v. Coxson, 262 Pa.Superior Ct. 14, 396 A.2d 460 (1978), for example, this court said:
In Williams the court held that the trial court, when accepting a guilty plea, must be assured that the criminal defendant knows that the 12 jurors would be chosen from members of the community .... If these factors are not explained to the accused during the guilty plea colloquy, the court cannot be assured that the waiver of a right to jury trial was knowingly or intelligently made.
Id., 262 Pa.Super. at 16, 396 A.2d at 461.
See also Commonwealth v. Harris, 488 Pa. 141, 411 A.2d 494 (1979); Commonwealth v. Fortune, 289 Pa.Superior Ct. 278, 433 A.2d 65 (1981); Commonwealth v. Tami, 264 Pa.Superior Ct. 535, 400 A.2d 214 (1979); Commonwealth v. Bouie, 263 Pa.Superior Ct. 556, 398 A.2d 716 (1979); Commonwealth v. Friedman, 268 Pa. Superior Ct. 278, 407 A.2d 1355 (1979); Commonwealth v. Guenzer, 255 Pa.Superior Ct. 587, 389 A.2d 133 (1978).
In holding, for the first time, that a defendant may waive a jury even though he does not know how many persons a jury consists of, the majority seems to assume, either that a jury always consists of the same number of persons, or that what the number is is not important. Neither assumption is warranted.
The United States Supreme Court has examined the number of jurors required by the Constitution, Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78, 90 S.Ct. 1893, 26 L.Ed.2d 446 (1970); Colgrove v. Battin, 413 U.S. 149, 93 S.Ct. 2448, 37 L.Ed.2d 522 (1973); Ballew v. Georgia, 435 U.S. 223, 99 S.Ct. 1029, 55 L.Ed.2d 234 (1978), and has concluded that while “the 12 man requirement cannot be regarded as an indispensable *31component of the Sixth Amendment,” Williams v. Florida, supra 399 U.S. at 100, 90 S.Ct. at 1905, any reduction below six would violate the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments, Ballew v. Georgia, supra. In reaching this conclusion the Court recognized that one function of a jury is to prevent oppression by the government:
Providing an accused with the right to be tried by a jury of his peers gave him an inestimable safeguard against the corrupt or overzealous prosecutor and against the compliant, biased, or eccentric judge.” Duncan v. Louisiana, supra [391 U.S. 145], at 156 [88 S.Ct. 1444 at 1451], 20 L.Ed.2d at [491] 500. Given this purpose, the essential feature of a jury obviously lies in the interposition between the accused and his accuser of the commonsense judgment of a group of laymen, and in the community participation and shared responsibility that results from that group’s determination of guilt or innocence. The performance of this role is not a function of the particular number of the body that makes up the jury. To be sure, the number should probably be large enough to promote group deliberation, free from outside attempts at intimidation, and to provide a fair possibility for obtaining a representative cross-section of the community.
Williams v. Florida, supra at 100, 90 S.Ct. at 1905.
On the basis of these decisions, several States have elected to reduce the size of their juries to six.1 Pennsylvania, however, has continued to require that in a criminal case the jury must consist of twelve persons. Only with the consent of his attorney, and the approval of the judge, may a defendant agree to a jury of less than twelve but not less than six persons. See Pa.R.C.P. 1103.2 Therefore, while the *32twelve person jury is not unique to Pennsylvania, it is a distinctive aspect of Pennsylvania jurisprudence, of which the defendant should be informed. Unless he is so informed, he cannot “understand the significance of the right he [is] waiving.” Commonwealth v. Williams, supra 454 Pa. at 373, 312 A.2d at 600.
The order of the lower court should be reversed.

. Among these States are: Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana and Massachusetts. See: Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78, 90 S.Ct. 1893, 26 L.Ed.2d 446 (1970); Ballew v. Georgia, 435 U.S. 223 (1978) at n. 43, 99 S.Ct. 1029 at n. 43, 55 L.Ed.2d 234; Edelstein, Jury Size Question in Pennsylvania, 53 Temple Law Quarterly 89 (1980).

. In Pennsylvania the jury has consisted of twelve persons since 1682, when William Penn and a panel of free men adopted a docu*32ment known as the “Laws Agreed Upon in England.” See, Edelstein, supra n. 1.