Court Opinion

ID: 9698724
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:58:24.696193+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:42.975473
License: Public Domain

TAMILIA, Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
In this appeal from the adjudication and disposition of a juvenile charged with aggravated assault, possession of an instrument of crime and violation of the Uniform Firearms Act, the appellant focuses on the single issue of counsel ineffectiveness and argues the adjudication of the trial court should be vacated and the case remanded for a new trial. The majority treats this case as a seminal case in *59determining the applicability of the concept of ineffectiveness of counsel to juvenile proceedings. As such, I believe our review and direction must paint on a broader canvas and consider the propriety of raising the issue by post-trial motions, as suggested by appellant, and the disparity between adult and juvenile procedures generally including the Post Conviction Relief Act proceedings available to adults but not juveniles.
I agree with the majority that this Court should review the effectiveness of counsel, but I disagree with the majority’s approach in adopting the standards applied to a criminal proceeding in this review. The difficulty in the approach used by the majority is that there is no vehicle by which the appellate court can review objectively or test the effectiveness of counsel in the juvenile proceeding as is the case with a criminal proceeding. Rule 1 of the Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedures provides:
Scope of rules.
(a) These rules shall govern criminal proceedings in all courts including courts not of record. Unless otherwise specifically provided, these rules shall not apply to juvenile or domestic relations proceedings.
At the very outset it is apparent the criminal rules do not govern the procedure either pretrial, during trial or post-trial in relation to juveniles. Additionally, since the Post Conviction Relief Act is incorporated in the Rules of Criminal Procedure, there is no basis for proceeding under that Act to determine whether or not a fundamental right has been violated which is nonwaivable as to a juvenile proceeding. It would, therefore, appear that the concept of ineffectiveness of counsel tested according to the standard provided by the adult criminal proceedings is not adaptable to the juvenile proceeding.1 I believe the majority is correct in its determination that effectiveness of counsel should be as*60sured to juveniles just as it is assured to adults, but since the juvenile proceeding is quasi criminal and the United States Supreme Court has viewed on balance that all of the procedures available to the adult are not necessary in the juvenile proceeding, to bring into play the technical application of the ineffectiveness doctrine in these cases would be unnecessary and perhaps undesirable.
The seminal.decision of In re: Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 1428, 18 L.Ed.2d 527 (1967), established that juveniles are entitled to the assistance of counsel before they can be properly adjudged delinquent. However, the Supreme Court did not extend to the juveniles all rights constitutionally guaranteed to adults. It created a standard for juveniles in which the benefits accorded to a juvenile in the delinquency proceedings were balanced against the need for certain constitutional protections and the court made a clear statement in McKeiver v. Pennsylvania, 403 U.S. 528, 91 S.Ct. 1976, 29 L.Ed.2d 647 (1971), that the standard to be applied in determining what protection a juvenile should have is one of fundamental fairness. The McKeiver case is critical in that it determined the full panoply of protections accorded the adults in the criminal proceeding including the right to a jury trial would not improve the quality of justice for a juvenile and might well impede the rehabilitative process by encouraging the procrastination, delays and technical diversions employed in the criminal justice system. I believe the same concept should be applied to our approach to the effectiveness issue as related to juveniles.
The problem encountered by approaching this issue in the same manner as that used in the adult criminal procedure is pointed out by the appellant in insisting that the only manner in which this issue should initially be raised is by a post-adjudication hearing similar to that of adults in post-trial motions. In this case, the trial court had such a hearing which was not required and should not have been granted. Since Rule 1 of the Rules of Criminal Procedure unequivocally stated the rules do not apply to juveniles (with the exception to those proceedings in Magistrate’s *61Court) and In the Interest of DelSignore, 249 Pa.Super. 149, 375 A.2d 803 (1977), held the Post Conviction Hearing Act, 42 Pa.C.S. § 9541 et seq.,2 does not apply to juveniles, the approach to treating ineffectiveness in a similar fashion as that utilized in the criminal court simply is not possible. The argument made by appellant that if this effectiveness issue is not presented at a post-trial motion hearing, there will be delay in obtaining adequate review and the child would be subject to “rehabilitation” when rehabilitation might not be needed. This argument fails in that there should be no distinction between a claim of ineffectiveness of counsel and any other claim which would support an appeal. Prior to the present enactment of the Juvenile Act, 42 Pa.C.S. § 6301 et seq., there was a provision that a rehearing would be granted upon request in a juvenile proceeding before a case would be subject to appeal.3 The legislature in its wisdom determined that such post-trial hearings were not essential and that direct review, as in other cases relating to children and families in support, custody and termination cases, is the way of assuring the most expeditious resolution for correcting errors in juvenile proceedings. If we permit post-trial motions and reconsideration of juvenile cases in matters relating to effectiveness of counsel, we can not prevent similar demands, based on the appellant’s reasoning, for claims as to sufficiency of evidence, weight of the evidence, trial error, prosecutorial misconduct, improper sentence or any of the other myriad claims upon which an appeal could be founded.4 I would not provide for post-trial motions as a means of getting to *62this issue before the appeal to Superior Court under any circumstance. The impact on judicial time and efficiency would be immeasurable.
Since ineffectiveness of counsel cannot be raised in the trial court by trial counsel and it cannot be construed to be an issue which must be preserved for review or it would be! waived, appellate counsel may raise the issue of effectiveness of trial counsel on direct appeal if the basis for ineffectiveness appears in the record of the juvenile proceeding. Case law dictates that the ineffectiveness issue be raised at the first opportunity when different counsel than trial counsel is available to do so. Commonwealth v. Hubbard, 472 Pa. 259, 372 A.2d 687 (1977). In a juvenile case, that can only be on direct appeal. Were it not for the doctrine of waiver, the need to examine conduct of a trial which innured to the prejudice of the juvenile would not require us to call into play the “extraordinary circumstances” which justify the juvenile’s failure to raise the issue in a timely fashion. Waiver was held to apply to juveniles in In re Cowell, 243 Pa.Super. 177, 364 A.2d 718 (1976), and recognized by DelSignore, supra. Repudiation of the waiver doctrine and return to the doctrine of fundamental error in juvenile cases could eliminate this problem. This could be the means adopted by this en banc panel, and I would so recommend. On closer analysis, however, it is not necessary to reintroduce the doctrine of fundamental error renounced by Dilliplaine v. Lehigh Valley Trust Co., 457 Pa. 255, 322 A.2d 114 (1974), since juvenile proceedings require a broad scope of review which in fact limits the application of the doctrine of fundamental error. Lest it appear that I am introducing a novel concept into .juvenile proceedings, I believe earlier determinations by the Supreme Court have held that proceedings, in juvenile cases involving the welfare of the child, in which the state has a paramount interest, require that Superior Court exercise its independent judgment after consideration of the entire record. A telling statement that would have direct applica*63tion here was made in In re Salemno, 369 Pa. 278, 85 A.2d 406 (1952):
[W]here the issue is custody of a minor, it would be incongruous to limit the review when the issue arises under the Juvenile Court Law but require a full review when it arises under habeas corpus proceedings. It has been repeatedly held in habeas corpus cases involving the custody of a minor that it is the appellate court’s duty to examine all the evidence and reach an independent determination. (Citations omitted.)
Id., 369 Pa. at 282, 85 A.2d at 408.5 I know of no case which repudiates this holding and believe it comports with the underlying philosophy of the Juvenile Act and our approach to juvenile matters in general. Thus regardless of the effectiveness of counsel, appellate counsel could point to the defects in the proceeding which would possibly warrant a new trial or reconsideration on the part of the' juvenile without going through the more technical procedures engrafted from adult cases involving ineffectiveness of counsel.
In DelSignore, supra, this problem was touched upon but not resolved by the court which in footnote 3 of that case stated that presumably the ineffectiveness issue may be raised on direct appeal by analogy to the rule in criminal cases. As to PCHA proceedings, Judge Spaeth, the author of the Opinion, clearly recognized the fact that since post-conviction hearings are not available to juveniles, there is no appropriate remedy other than habeas corpus to raise such an issue. Since the Juvenile Court is not encumbered by procedural rules and is totally governed by the procedures contained in the Juvenile Act, supra, there appears to be no need to turn to techniques employed in criminal trials or in the collateral proceedings of the Post Conviction Relief Act to find an extraordinary basis upon which to review *64issues, review of which would be prevented under the waiver doctrine.
In summation, if we retain the holdings of Cowell and DelSignore that the waiver doctrine applies in juvenile cases, and thus prevents issues not preserved from being raised on appeal, while the Juvenile Act and Rules of Criminal Procedure prevent application of the Rules to juvenile proceedings, and PCHA/PCRA proceedings do not apply to juvenile cases, appellate review of ineffectiveness issues does not fit the procedures adapted to criminal cases. Since there appears to be no way to circumvent this problem and since the majority is correct that effective counsel is necessary for an adequate juvenile proceeding, it appears that the least complicated approach would simply be for this Court to exercise a broad scope of review to determine whether the hearing comported with fundamental fairness in compliance with due process.
The line of cases from Gault to the present, reviewed by the United States Supreme Court, requiring fundamental rights to be provided for juveniles, but not necessarily by the same procedures employed in the criminal court, would indicate the Supreme Court believes there is merit in having the trial courts and appellate courts in the individual states make determinations as to juveniles based on fundamental fairness and due process within the context of juvenile and not criminal proceedings. It seems to me that due process requires that errors in the juvenile proceeding be correctable whether or not objection has been made at the trial court and under the analogy to habeas corpus proceédings. I would not want to see this Court move toward a recriminalization of the Juvenile Proceedings by adopting criminal procedures which are under a cloud and being revamped or eliminated in criminal proceedings. The new provisions enacted by the General Assembly for the PCRA, 42 Pa.C.S. § 9543(a)(2)(ii) provide that a petitioner seeking relief on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel must plead and prove that counsel’s stewardship “so undermined the truth-determining process that no reliable adjudication of guilt or *65innocence could have taken place.” This dramatically restricts the inquiry to a review of the record as a whole, eliminating the layered process of analysis developed in Commonwealth ex rel. Washington v. Maroney, 427 Pa. 599, 235 A.2d 349 (1967) and Commonwealth v. Pierce, 515 Pa. 153, 527 A.2d 973 (1987). In Commonwealth v. Durst, 522 Pa. 2, 559 A.2d 504 (1989), the Supreme Court reversed a panel of this Court which vacated a conviction because trial counsel failed to interview potentially exculpatory witnesses. It appears that in emphasizing that ineffectiveness may not be alleged in a vacuum, the Supreme Court has moved very close to holding that despite claimed ineffectiveness, if the record on the whole supports the conviction beyond a reasonable doubt, the claim will fail. This appears to be the same position taken by legislature in its recent enactment (PCRA) cited above. Additionally, in Commonwealth v. Bobby Joe Lawson, 519 Pa. 504, 549 A.2d 107 (1988), the Supreme Court recently closed the door to multiple post conviction relief appeals indicating impatience with a hypertechnical approach. The legislative standard above appears to be one which is easily adaptable to appellate review of juvenile cases and would, pursuant to a broad scope of review, assure the fundamental fairness required without following the formula (which may not be applicable) suggested by the majority.
Since ineffectiveness of counsel will never be raised in juvenile matters, except in the context of a direct appeal, and post-trial motions or PCRA proceedings are not available, that one opportunity must provide for a broad review of the record if the issue is raised on appeal that trial counsel’s stewardship so undermined the truth-determining process that no reliable adjudication of guilt or innocence could have taken place. This is the appropriate time for that determination and is similar in delinquency matters to the broad scope of review provided in custody matters. In In Interest of Leonardo, 291 Pa.Super. 644, 436 A.2d 685 (1981), this Court held “[bjecause the purposes and procedures of the two systems differ in important ways, a *66proceeding held pursuant to alleged violations of the Juvenile Act cannot also serve the function of a proceeding held pursuant to alleged violations of the Crimes Code.” Id., 291 Pa. Superior Ct. at 648, 436 A.2d at 687. This is clearly evident when we look at the Juvenile Act, supra, which provides significant differences in the treatment of juveniles as compared with adult criminal proceedings (§ 6336(a), informal hearings without jury; § 6336(b), non-adversarial in that the district attorney need not be present except at the request of the court; § 6336(c), no need to record hearing unless ordered by the court or requested by the parties; § 6336(d), exclusion of the public; § 6637, counsel may be waived by parents; § 6352(b), limitations on placement; § 6353, limitation on length of commitment; and § 6354, adjudication not to be construed as a conviction of a crime and does not impose civil disability).
The Supreme Court, in In re Wilson, 438 Pa. 425, 264 A.2d 614 (1970), considered the issue of effectiveness of counsel, raised for the first time on appeal, indicating counsel was inadequate, and while recognizing that issue, declined to rule on that basis and turned to the denial of rights guaranteed under Gault in resolving the case. The underlying failure of the trial court in a juvenile proceeding to meet the standards of fairness imposed by the Juvenile Act and pursuant to Gault, whether counsel was effective or not, cannot be ignored by this Court on appeal. The doctrine of parens patriae is battered but not dead. This appears to be the procedure which is most easily adapted to juvenile cases and indeed is that procedure which has been followed so well thus far as to limit any serious concern as to the effectiveness issue. Juvenile proceedings have never been purely adversarial and in theory and in practice the district attorney need not participate, with the trial judge assuming a much expanded role in the proceeding than in a criminal case. The informality of hearings, the fact that many if not a preponderance of hearings are held by masters, as permitted by the Juvenile Act, would mean that great numbers of juvenile cases would be assailable if the *67technical approach applicable to criminal actions was applied to juvenile cases. At the same time, because of the waiver doctrine and the ease with which the ineffectiveness litany can be recited to preclude relief, the fairness required by Gault can easily be circumvented. Short of converting the juvenile proceeding into the technical equivalent of a criminal trial, the standard applied for testing effectiveness of counsel developed in criminal proceedings cannot work. I would, therefore, eschew those tests developed for gauging effectiveness announced by Maroney and Pierce (underlying issue of arguable merit, whether course of action chosen by counsel had a reasonable basis designed to effect the client’s best interest, and whether he was actually prejudiced by counsel’s ineffectiveness). It is not necessary to follow these court structured guidelines for criminal proceedings to determine whether counsel was competent pursuant to Gault in the context of the juvenile proceeding.
The differences clearly mandated in the Juvenile Act as to the manner of dealing with juveniles after disposition, which are not available to adults, eliminate the need for PCRA inquiries. The juvenile dispositions are time-limited by short placements or sentences; jurisdiction is ended by the child attaining majority (sentences imposed before majority to continue until completed after 18 but no longer than 21) and provisions in the Juvenile Act require review hearings before any extension of commitment can be made; review hearings every six months and disposition review hearings at least every nine months are required. See 42 Pa.C.S. § 6353, Limitation on and change in place of commitment. Post Conviction Relief Act proceedings were enacted to provide a procedural means to routinely review claims of serious miscarriages of justice which were formerly only reviewable by habeas corpus actions. The Juvenile Act has built in procedures making such proceedings unnecessary.
Having proposed a procedure which will resolve the issues raised, whether they be ineffectiveness of counsel or failure to provide a fair hearing or failure of counsel to *68object in á timely fashion, so as to permit appellate review of those issues, I concur with the result proposed by the majority and would affirm the decision of the court below. A review of the record, the evidence presented and the conduct of counsel in this case establishes there was no error in the finding of delinquency and the stewardship of counsel was not such as to undermine the truth determining process so that no reliable adjudication of delinquency could have taken place. There was no evidence to suppress under the circumstances of this case and counsel’s failure to make timely objections in the fashion detailed by appellate counsel had no bearing on the hearing or its outcome and, therefore, the Order of the trial court must be affirmed.
When, at the end of the process, we add a review procedure tailored to adult ineffectiveness of counsel proceedings, which must presuppose a fully structured, detailed and delineated series of steps, processes and rights, which are enunciated in criminal rules and cases, to a procedure which is essentially different and to which these standards do not apply, we are inviting confusion or worse, recriminalization of the juvenile law. I do not believe we can apply the adult concept of ineffectiveness of counsel, as delineated by the majority, without incorporating, by indirection, requirements in juvenile cases not presently mandated by legislation or case law. In doing so, we destroy the inherent flexibility, expediency and fairness of juvenile philosophy, restrict the broad powers of the juvenile judge, incorporate the full antagonisms of the adversary system and turn more certainly from rehabilitation to punishment in disposition.
I believe the United States Supreme Court recognized these dangers in limiting its strictures on juvenile procedures, acknowledging that the less formal approach provided more advantages than disadvantages, more rehabilitation than punishment and society required a different approach to adults than juveniles. I am not willing to concede that we should turn away from this approach when it is apparent that most of the desirable techniques presently avail*69able in adult corrections were derived from advances in juvenile justice, and the superiority of juvenile justice proceedings and dispositional techniques continues because there has wisely been no across-the-board application of adult criminal process to the Juvenile Court. I believe the approach suggested in this Concurring and Dissenting Opinion continues to maintain the required balance of protecting the rights of the child and serving the interest of society while maintaining a benign proceeding to assure this process.
CXRILLO, President Judge, joins.

. The majority acknowledges these deficiencies but would create procedural rights to post-trial proceedings which have been specifically rejected by the legislature in its promulgation of the Juvenile Act of Dec. 6, 1972 (No. 333) as codified in the Judicial Code, 42 Pa.C.S.A. 6301 et seq., and likewise rejected by the Supreme Court Criminal Rules Committee.

. Effective April 13, 1988, the Pennsylvania Legislature repealed in part and substantially modified in part the Post Conviction Hearing Act, renaming it the Post Conviction Relief Act. Act of April 13, 1988, No. 47 § 3, 1988 Pa.Legis.Serv. 227, 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 9541-9546.

. Act of 1933, June 2, P.L. 1433, § 15, 11 P.S. § 257 (repealed) Act 1972, Dec. 6, P.L. 1464 (repealed) Act 1978, April, 28 P.L. 202.

. From reports filed in the Pennsylvania Bulletin, 18 Pa.B. 1111 et seq., it appears the Rules of Criminal Procedure are to be amended to impose rigid time restraints on post-trial motions, with consideration to eliminating them entirely in the future because of the serious delay occasioned by the procedures embodied in Pa.R.Crim.P. 1123. POST VERDICT MOTIONS.

. While In re Salemno was concerned with a dependent child and this case involves a delinquent child, since the issue revolves around the custody of the child and habeas corpus principles are implicated, the scope of review is the same.