Court Opinion

ID: 9692545
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 15:56:59.078227+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:35.272382
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Justice
(concurring).
I join the Opinion of the Court only on the assumption that it is fully in accord with Commonwealth v. Young, 456 Pa. 102, 317 A.2d 258 (1974).
In Young, this Court granted the appellant a new trial because the record failed to show that the trial court fully and accurately delivered an instruction on reasonable doubt. En route to our holding, we were confronted with the statement in the trial court’s filed, written opinion that a complete reasonable doubt charge had been given. Relying in part on Commonwealth v. Kulik, 420 Pa. 111, 216 A.2d 73 (1966), and the failure to comply with the Act of May 11, 1911, P.L. 279, § 4, 12 P.S. § *221199 (1953), we rejected this non-statutorily-authorized attempt to supplement the record. We stated:
“Consistent with our responsibility to view only the record facts, we cannot accept the assertions in the trial court’s written opinion that any reasonable doubt instruction was given other than that which appears in the record.”
456 Pa. at 115-116, 317 A.2d at 264-265.
And in Young, we were especially persuaded by the existence of prejudice.
“Young’s case presents manifold prejudice: the omission of a highly significant element of the reasonable doubt charge resulted in a jury deciding appellant’s guilt without any guidance on its responsibility to convict only if it found appellant guilty, as the Constitution requires, beyond a reasonable doubt.”
456 Pa. at 114, 317 A.2d at 264. Here, however, appellant was in no way prejudiced by the three superficial changes made in the transcript.
As I see it, our instant. decision simply holds that where a non-statutorily-authorized change is made in the record, and that change is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, a defendant is on this basis not entitled to a new trial.