Court Opinion

ID: 9749408
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:41:54.037044+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:48.119189
License: Public Domain

*384ZAPPALA, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority contends that the lengthy stay of the proceedings does not violate the principle of double jeopardy because there was neither a final judgment nor multiple prosecutions or punishments. For purposes of applying the double jeopardy concept, I perceive no distinction between multiple prosecutions and the piecemeal prosecutions afforded by the hiatus between the trial and the “continuation” of the trial in this case. The “continuance” in this case effectively terminated the trial — what the Appellant now seeks is to prevent a second trial on the misdemeanor charges.
Article 1, § 10 of the Pennsylvania Constitution states, in relevant part, that “No person shall, for the same offense, be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb____” The protection afforded under the double jeopardy clause seeks to ensure that an accused will not be subject to the harassment of successive trials. It is facetious to suggest that a trial on the misdemeanor charges would not be a successive trial. No final judgment on those charges was entered in 1980, but prosecution of those charges was certainly undertaken. Jeopardy attached in this case when the trial judge began to hear evidence.
There are varying circumstances that will call into play the double jeopardy clause, but this case presents only the very simplest of those. It is unnecessary to string cite cases, or engage in intellectual debate, to see that this factual scenario was exactly what Article 1, § 10 was intended to guard against.
The trial of the Appellant was terminated without a verdict on the misdemeanor charges when the Commonwealth appealed from the trial court’s order sustaining the demurrer to several of the charges. This was not a mere “continuance”; nor is the second trial a “resumption” of the first. Whatever the practice in the Commonwealth may have been in November, 1980, the double jeopardy clause may not be reshaped to accommodate the Commonwealth’s reliance on that practice. The double jeopardy clause pro*385tects the accused. It may not be reinterpreted to protect the Commonwealth.
I need look no further than our own Constitution for the protections afforded to the Appellant and do not address the double jeopardy clause of the federal Constitution for that reason. I dissent.
LARSEN, J., joins in this Dissenting Opinion.