Court Opinion

ID: 9697383
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:15:22.286075+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:32.003970
License: Public Domain

*630CASTILLE, Justice,
concurring.
I agree that there was no violation of Rule 1100 in this matter, even though the Commonwealth failed to comply with the trial court’s order mandating the commencement of appellee’s criminal trial within sixty days after his re-arrest as a fugitive. Because the time period afforded by this Court’s own rules in which to bring a criminal defendant to trial had not expired when the charges were dismissed, the trial court ignored a basic and long-standing rule of criminal procedure and relied on its own shortened time frame for granting a defendant an outright dismissal of the charges against him. This drastic relief to a fugitive who evaded apprehension for nearly two and a half years not only ignores the clear language of Rule 1100, but also contravenes this Court’s previous decisions and the interests of justice.
On June 27, 1991, appellee was arrested and charged with aggravated assault,1 simple assault,2 and harassment3 after attacking his wife in their home and assaulting a police officer who responded to her emergency call. Appellee was released on bail on July 9, 1991, and trial was ultimately scheduled for December 2, 1991. Appellee failed to appear and a bench warrant was issued for his arrest. On January 7, 1992, the Commonwealth filed a “Petition to Extend Time of Trial” until “the last day of the term of jury trials which begins at least sixty (60) days following the defendant’s availability.” Appellee did not respond. By Order filed on January 29, 1992, the trial court purported to grant the Commonwealth’s petition, but, rather than specifying the language in the extension request highlighted above, the court merely “extended” the date on which trial could commence until “Sixty (60) days after availability” of defendant. In so doing, the trial court not only afforded the Commonwealth less time than it had requested, but it shortened the time period specifically allowed by this Court for the Commonwealth to try a defendant under Rule 1100.
*631Appellee was not apprehended until May 3, 1994 and trial was immediately scheduled for June 6, 1994. On that date, however, the assigned assistant district attorney was on vacation. Moreover, the Lebanon County Court of Common Pleas periodically schedules criminal trials only during the first week of each month and schedules no criminal trial term during the month of July. Thus, appellee’s trial was rescheduled for the next possible trial date of August 1, 1994.4 On July 6, 1994, appellee filed a motion to dismiss the complaint due to the Commonwealth’s failure to bring appellee to trial within sixty days of his apprehension, in accordance with the trial court’s January 29, 1992 Order. After a hearing on July 20, 1994, at which the parties stipulated to the facts, the trial court granted appellee’s motion for discharge.
Thus, the sole basis for discharging this defendant, who faced the serious charges of assaulting his wife and a police officer, is the trial court’s order purporting to “grant” the Commonwealth’s request to extend the Rule 1100 time period, but in actuality failing to grant the Commonwealth the time it had initially requested, thereby shortening the Rule 1100 period by more than four months.5 That result certainly is not what was intended when the Commonwealth sought to extend Rule 1100 and when the trial court “granted” the *632extension request.6 Regardless of the trial court’s action, however, it is within the province of this Court to determine the time period within which a criminal defendant must be tried, and this Court has unequivocally determined that the interests of justice are best served by setting that time period at 365 days and also by excluding from the 365 days any period of delay resulting from the unavailability of the defendant. Further, there is nothing in our jurisprudence affording a trial court the authority to shorten that time period. Because the trial court had no authority to enter an order which shortened the time period fixed by this Court within which to bring appellee to trial, that order was void and had no effect. See Barnes v. McKellar, 434 Pa.Super. 597, 644 A.2d 770, allocatur denied, 539 Pa. 663, 652 A.2d 834 (1994) (when court takes action beyond power conferred upon it by law, its action is a nullity). It was, therefore, error to discharge appellee because of the Commonwealth’s failure to comply with that order.
Assuming that the trial court’s order “granting” the Commonwealth’s “extension” request is valid, the dismissal of the criminal complaint in this matter was nonetheless error. This Court has made clear that a defendant’s voluntary absence from trial on a day set within the Rule 1100 time period is a waiver of that rule, and trial after a defendant’s voluntary absence is to be at the reasonable convenience of the court and prosecuting authorities. Commonwealth v. Steltz, 522 Pa. 233, 235, 560 A.2d 1390, 1391 (1989) (one’s voluntary absence from a day set for trial within Rule 1100 is a waiver of that rule).
In this case, although appellee’s dismissal was founded on a trial court order rather than on Rule 1100, the rationale of Steltz is applicable: Trial after a defendant’s re-arrest as a fugitive from justice is to take place within a reasonable time. Here, where appellee absconded for two and a half years and was not apprehended until May, 3, 1994, the trial scheduled for three months later, August 1, 1994, was at the reasonable *633convenience of the trial court and assistant district attorney.7 Thus, appellee should not have been discharged due to the Commonwealth’s failure to comply with the trial court’s January 29, 1992 Order, just as the appellee in Steltz was not discharged when he was not tried within the confínes of Rule 1100. Indeed, because in this case, unlike Steltz, there was no violation of a statute, the discharge granted to appellee is all the more unwarranted.8
This Court has repeatedly recognized that society’s interest in law enforcement must be given its due concern before a criminal defendant is discharged under circumstances such as those presented here. For example, in the context of consid*634ering a trial court’s authority to enforce its orders when a prosecutor fails to comply, we observed that discharge of a defendant unnecessarily defeats the interests of public justice:
While a trial court must have authority to regulate attendance upon its schedule and concomitant authority to sanction a breach, the sanction must be visited upon the offender and not upon the interests of public justice ... Criminal cases involve issues of public justice; issues that transcend the immediate parties. In criminal cases, sanctions may be imposed upon individuals, including counsel for either side; sanctions that vindicate the authority of the court to maintain its schedule and enforce its orders.
Commonwealth v. Carson, 510 Pa. 568, 571-572, 510 A.2d 1233, 1235 (1986).9 We then concluded that in order to justify the discharge of a criminal complaint, a prosecutor’s “failure must involve a failure of justice or prejudice to a defendant.... When such interests are not involved, the [prosecutor] may be otherwise sanctioned without defeating the public interest.” Id. Certainly, in this case, the prosecutor’s failure to comply with the trial court’s January 29, 1992 Order implicated neither a failure of justice nor prejudice to the defendant.
Similarly, in the Rule 1100 context, we have recognized that, where there exists no Commonwealth misconduct designed to deprive an accused of his rights to a speedy trial, society’s interests in law enforcement cannot be ignored. Commonwealth v. Genovese, 493 Pa. 65, 69-70, 425 A.2d 367, 369 (1981) (“So long as there is no misconduct on the part of the Commonwealth in an effort to evade the fundamental speedy trial rights of an accused, Rule 1100 must be construed in a manner consistent with society’s right to punish and deter crime”). Here, society’s right to punish and deter crime was virtually ignored.
Thus, although this Court has consistently recognized that a criminal complaint is not to be dismissed on the ground of *635prosecutorial delay without careful consideration of the public’s interest in seeing that those accused of violent crimes are brought to trial, the trial court, on the basis of an inartful trial court order, has completely defeated that important societal interest by granting appellee the windfall of a complete discharge. Given the circumstances of this case — where appellee evaded apprehension for two and a half years, where trial was scheduled for only three months after appellees’ re-arrest, where the Rule 1100 time period had not come close to running, and where appellee could not possibly claim prejudice from the delay — society’s interest in law enforcement demands a different result.
NEWMAN, J., joins this concurring opinion.

. 18 Pa.C.S. § 2702(a)(3).

. 18 Pa.C.S. § 2701(a)(1).

. 18 Pa.C.S. § 2709(1), (3).

. While the date of August 1, 1994 was more than sixty days after appellee’s re-arrest, it was within "the last day of the term of [criminal] jury trials which [began] at least sixty days following the defendant’s availability.”

. Pa.R.Crim.P. 1100(a)(3) affords the Commonwealth 365 days from the date a criminal complaint is filed within which to bring to trial a defendant who is at liberty on bail. Further, it is axiomatic that any period of delay resulting from the unavailability of the defendant is to be excluded from the computation of that time period. Pa.R.Crim.P. 1100(c).
Here, it is undisputed that appellee’s original trial date was only 159 days after his arrest. It is further undisputed that only 78 additional days passed from the time appellee was re-arrested until the time the charges against him were dismissed. Plainly, the 365-day period which the legislature has unambiguously provided to the Commonwealth to bring defendants to trial had not run and would not have expired until late November, 1994. Further, appellee has not, and indeed could not, claim that he was prejudiced by the short delay attributable to the Commonwealth.

. Ironically, the Commonwealth had no obligation to file for an extension of time, but apparently did so only out of an abundance of caution.

. The Commonwealth apparently could have proceeded to trial on June 6, 1994 by reassigning the case to another assistant district attorney. However, the law as set forth in Steltz does not require a District Attorney’s Office to rearrange its schedule to meet that of a criminal defendant who was a fugitive for two and a half years, where, as here, the Commonwealth’s inability to proceed as scheduled resulted in a delay of only two months (until August 1, 1994), and the defendant was not at all prejudiced. In Steltz, after being arraigned on three counts each of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault, and corruption of minors, appellee was released on his own recognizance. Trial was scheduled for February 9, 1987 (the rule 1100 run date expired on February 28, 1987). After a jury was empaneled, appellee failed to appear and could not be located by his attorney. The trial judge recessed until 9:30 a.m. the following day. Appellee still failed to appear. Upon his apprehension eleven days later, a new trial date was set for May 4, 1987, almost three months after the expired Rule 1100 run date. He then filed for dismissal under Rule 1100. This Court found that when one “voluntarily absents themselves [sic] [from trial], for whatever reason, they go to the end of the line and must wait their turn after the convenience of the others the absence delayed." 522 Pa. at 235, 560 A.2d at 1391.

. The majority chastises the prosecutor for allowing her personal vacation to take precedence over the trial of a criminal case to which she had been assigned some weeks before the vacation was to take place. There is no evidence in the record, however, about when the prosecutor had planned her vacation, the reason for her vacation from work, why it may have been necessary for the prosecutor to schedule her time out of the office for that particular week, or any hardship she might have suffered if forced to change her plans. Rather, the majority’s criticism of the prosecutor appears to be based on the mere assumption that she could have easily scheduled her vacation for another time. Because there is nothing in the record to support that assumption, the suggestion that the prosecutor was inexcusably at fault for the short delay in the trial of this long-time fugitive who happened to be apprehended shortly before the prosecutor’s vacation is unfair and unfounded.

. In Carson, the trial court dismissed a criminal complaint as a sanction against the Commonwealth for an assistant district attorney appearing late for a criminal trial.