Court Opinion

ID: 9729900
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:51:59.618331+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:02.074844
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Justice,
concurring.
I join in the opinion of the majority, but wish to express my continued adherence to the view expressed by Mr. Justice Manderino in his dissenting opinion in Commonwealth v. Harmon, 469 Pa. 490, 498-503, 366 A.2d 895, 899-902 (1976) (joined by Roberts, J.), that the right to a trial de novo encompasses the right to a de novo hearing on the suppression of evidence. In my view, today’s holding that the right to trial de novo includes the right “to proceed to trial with no evidentiary limitations . . . other than those which would be applicable to an original trial” cannot be reconciled with the holding of the majority in Harmon that a defendant in a criminal trial with a constitutional right to a trial de novo is bound by evidentiary rulings from the first trial which otherwise could be litigated in an original proceeding. It is ironic that our decisions confer upon civil litigants a truly clean slate in a trial de novo, but deny a defendant in a criminal trial the same right.
MANDERINO, J., joins in this opinion.