Court Opinion

ID: 9618730
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:16:24.617734+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:31.627343
License: Public Domain

WELSH, GANEY and CLARY, District Judges
(dissenting).
No extended discussion is required to set out the views of the minority. The majority opinion holds that the action of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in the case of Commonwealth ex rel. Smith v. Ashe, Warden, 364 Pa. 93, 71 A.2d 107 disposes of the federal constitutional questions involved in this case and that a review of the factual situation is not warranted in this proceeding.
The case is before this Court on the petition for the writ of habeas corpus and the return of the respondent’s thereto. The record discloses that no testimony was taken in the proceeding before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Whether the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania had any facts before it or whether it actually made any findings of fact is not clear. Relator challenges the right of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania to make any fact determinations on the record before it.
In the state of the record in that regard, in fairness to the applicant and prerequisite *106to any legal decision, in our view of the case it appears necessary to have specific findings of fact on which to base such a legal determination. In a matter involving important federal constitutional questions the facts should be very clear. No testimony was taken in this Court Judge Welsh in granting the rule to show cause determined that sufficient facts had been alleged which warranted factual investigation. We are not .persuaded that the present state of the record warrants legal determination. We feel that the real facts should be determimbd from testimony taken at a hearing. The Judicial Code, 28 U.S.C.A. § 2243, provides, in part, that where either a writ of habeas corpus or a show cause order has been granted “The court shall summarily hear and determine the facts, and dispose of the matter as law and justice require.”
We, therefore, cannot join in an action which we believe at this time to be premature.