Court Opinion

ID: 9650231
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:27:20.187699+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:19.115529
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority holds that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it ordered appellant to testify despite his claim that his testimony was privileged under the fifth amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, section nine of the Pennsylvania Constitution. In so doing, the majority places upon the witness the burden of proving that he is protected from testifying by the privilege against self-incrimination. The majority, in effect, requires appellant to protect himself from a criminal contempt conviction by demonstrating the merit of his Post Conviction Hearing Act petition. Moreover, he must convince the court, without revealing any incriminatory information, that his testimony *592may reveal criminal conduct heretofore unknown to law enforcement officials. Such a holding places an undue burden on appellant’s exercise of his state and federal rights against compelled self-incrimination.
“There is no prerequisite to the exercise of the privilege against self-incrimination that the pleader must first establish affirmatively his good faith and lack of frivolity in entering the plea.”
Board of Public Education v. Intille, 401 Pa. 1, 22, 163 A.2d 420, 430 (1960). I therefore dissent.
In Commonwealth v. Rodgers, 472 Pa. 435, 372 A.2d 771 (1977), this Court was asked to review the propriety of a trial court’s grant of the witness’ claim of privilege and the court’s subsequent ruling that that witness was “unavailable” for purposes of the hearsay rule. Here, in sharp contrast, we are reviewing appellant’s conviction of criminal contempt for refusing to testify after the court ruled the privilege against self-incrimination inapplicable. Whatever discretion the trial court possesses in granting a claim of the privilege, it is circumscribed where the privilege is denied. Indeed, the values inhering in the privilege and the established procedure for judicial administration of a witness’ claim of privilege demand this conclusion. Id. (Opinion Announcing The Judgment of the Court).
In Commonwealth v. Hawthorne, 428 Pa. 260, 263, 236 A.2d 519, 521 (1968), this court unanimously held:
“ ‘. . . for the court to properly overrule the claim of privilege, it must be perfectly clear from a careful consideration of all the circumstances, that the witness is mistaken in the apprehension of self-incrimination and the answers demanded cannot possibly have such tendency: Hoffman v. United States, [341 U.S. 479, 71 S.Ct. 814, 95 L.Ed. 1118 (1951)].’ ” (Emphasis in original).
Id., 428 Pa. at 263, 236 A.2d at 521. See Commonwealth v. Lenart, 430 Pa. 144, 150, 242 A.2d 259, 263 (1968); Commonwealth v. Carrera, 424 Pa. 551, 553, 227 A.2d 627, 629 (1967). Moreover,
*593“if the witness, upon interposing his claim, were required to prove the hazard in the sense in which a claim is usually required to be established in court, he would be compelled to surrender the very protection which the privilege is designed to guarantee. To sustain the privilege, it need only be evident from the implications of the question, in the setting in which it is asked, that a responsive answer to the question or an explanation of why it cannot be answered might be dangerous because injurious disclosure could result.”
Hoffman v. United States, 341 U.S. 479, 486-87, 71 S.Ct. 814, 818, 95 L.Ed. 1118 (1951).
The burden of proving that the witness has reasonable cause to apprehend danger of self-incrimination cannot be put on the witness as the majority would have it. Under Hawthorne, for the trial court to rule the testimony is not privileged, it must be “perfectly clear” that the witness has absolutely no cause to apprehend danger of self-incrimination were he to be compelled to testify.
Here, the record indicates that appellant had reasonable cause to apprehend danger of self-incrimination. In the absence of any discussion regarding the substantive aspects of appellant’s Post Conviction Hearing Act claim, it cannot be assumed that appellant unreasonably believed that his petition would result in an order for a new trial. In the event appellant is retried on charges of being an accomplice after the fact, the potentially incriminatory nature of his testimony is obvious.1
Further, I am unable to accept the majority’s conclusion that appellant was clearly mistaken in his fear that he could be subject to subsequent prosecution based upon the armed robbery with regard to which he was to testify. Section *594110(l)(ii) of the Crimes Code and our decision in Commonwealth v. Campana, 452 Pa. 233, 304 A.2d 432 (1973), vacated and remanded, 414 U.S. 808, 94 S.Ct. 73, 38 L.Ed.2d 44 (1973), on remand, 455 Pa. 622, 314 A.2d 854 (1974), cert. denied, 417 U.S. 969, 94 S.Ct. 3172, 41 L.Ed.2d 1139 (1974), allow subsequent prosecution based on conduct arising from the same criminal episode which was not “known to the appropriate prosecuting officer at the time of the commencement of the first trial.”2 The majority would place the burden on appellant of proving that the District Attorney was not aware of the information appellant’s testimony could reveal at the time of the first prosecution. Such an allocation of the burden of proof is clearly unsupported by our prior decisions in Lenart and Carrera. To sustain this burden of proof, appellant would “be compelled to surrender the very protection which the privilege is designed to guarantee,” Hoffman v. U. S., supra. Indeed, injurious disclosure could result from any explanation that appellant would have to make to fulfill this burden.
Moreover, I can find no merit in the majority’s view that the District Attorney’s unauthorized attempt to grant appellant immunity indicated that, at the time of appellant’s prosecution, the District Attorney was aware of the subject matter of appellant’s present testimony. Logic does not support such a conclusion. The District Attorney’s promise of immunity may well have been fostered by his interest in convicting the defendant then on trial, rather than certainty that he would be barred by Campana from subsequently prosecuting appellant. Further, the Federal Constitution demands that in order to compel privileged testimony there must be a valid grant of immunity,3 coextensive with the boundaries of the Federal constitutional protection against self-incrimination. See Kastigar v. United States, 406 U.S. 441, 92 S.Ct. 1653, 32 L.Ed.2d 212 (1972) (“use immunity” satisfies the fifth amendment).
*595Finally, there is no indication on the record that the trial court considered the total scope of the privilege before he sanctioned appellant’s failure to testify. In Hoffman v. U. S., supra, the Supreme Court stated:
“The privilege afforded not only extends to answers that would in themselves support a conviction . . . but likewise embraces those which would furnish a link in the chain of evidence needed to prosecute.”
Appellant may have been justifiably concerned that his testimony would provide the essential link in a chain connecting him with a wholly different criminal episode than the one for which he had been previously convicted. Even to state that such a fear is a basis for claiming the privilege endangers the very interests that the privilege protects. The record does not address the question whether under the facts and circumstances known to the trial judge there was any reasonable cause for appellant to fear incrimination of this nature.
A careful consideration of all the circumstances appearing on the record does not reveal that it is “perfectly clear” that appellant mistakenly feared the testimony demanded could tend to incriminate him. I would reverse the judgment of sentence and discharge the appellant.
MANDERINO, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.

. The majority misinterprets the significance of North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969) in this context. Pearce held that in order to impose a more severe sentence after retrial, objective reasons for so doing must appear in the record. That rule enhances the potentially incriminating nature of appellant’s testimony. In direct response to a question, he may well have been forced to reveal information that would support an increased sentence on retrial.

. 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 110(l)(ii).

. District Attorneys in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have no statutory authority to grant immunity in criminal prosecutions. Commonwealth v. Carrera, 424 Pa. at 554-55, 227 A.2d at 630.