Court Opinion

ID: 9631033
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:27:18.707694+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:47.747835
License: Public Domain

POMEROY, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. The majority ignores the application of the Juvenile Act of December 6,1972, P.L. 1464, No. 333,11 P.S. § 50-101 et seq. (Supp.1977-78) to this case, and improperly concludes that the charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder stand or fall, for purposes of Pa.R.Crim.P. 1100, with the lesser charges arising out of the same criminal transaction.
I.
On July 28, 1974, appellant, aged 16, was arrested and charged with murder, conspiracy, and several lesser of*378fenses1 in connection with the shooting death of Robert Henry Davis. On August 22, 1974, a certification hearing was held in juvenile court on the lesser charges, and appellant was certified to be tried as an adult on these charges and held for action by the grand jury. Under Section 28(a)(4) of the Juvenile Act, 11 P.S. § 50-325(a)(4), the juvenile court was required before making such a certification to find, inter alia, that there was a prima facie case established against appellant.
The judge at the certification hearing did not, however, consider the murder charge against Earp, for the Juvenile Act “makes a clear distinction between juveniles charged with murder and those charged of delinquencies of a lesser nature.” Commonwealth v. Keefer, 470 Pa. 142, 147, 367 A.2d 1082, 1084 (1976) (footnote omitted). Thus Section 2(2) of the Act, 11 P.S. § 50-102(2), provides that a “ ‘delinquent act’ shall not include the crime of murder,” and Section 28(e), 11 P.S. § 50-325(e), provides, with an exception not here relevant, that when a delinquency petition “alleges conduct which if proven would constitute murder, the court shall require the offense to be prosecuted under the criminal law and procedures.”
Given these provisions of the Juvenile Act, it follows that the preliminary hearing held on September 4, 1974, which dealt with the charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder, was not, as the majority implies, conducted in disregard of Pa.R.Crim.P. 131(b),2 under which all charges arising out of a single criminal transaction are to be treated as a single case. Rather, the separate channels of the two preliminary proceedings in this case were occasioned by the requirements of the Juvenile Act. Moreover, these require*379ments are not affected by either Rule 131(b), which does not suspend the operation of the procedures contemplated by the Juvenile Act,3 or the decision on which that rule is based, Commonwealth v. Campana, 452 Pa. 233, 304 A.2d 432, vacated, 414 U.S. 808, 94 S.Ct. 73, 38 L.Ed.2d 44 (1973), on remand, 455 Pa. 622, 314 A.2d 854, cert. denied, 417 U.S. 969, 94 S.Ct. 3172, 41 L.Ed.2d 1139 (1974), which was decided under this Court’s supervisory powers. See In re Juvenile “A”, 70 D. & C.2d 160, 27 Bucks Co.L.Rep. 50 (C.P.1975). The conclusion in Campana that all charges involved in one criminal episode are to be tried together does not dictate that they likewise must necessarily be dismissed together. Indeed, appellant has not at any time contended that the dismissal of the murder and conspiracy charges on September 4 should have operated as a dismissal of the lesser charges.
II.
According to the majority, “[s]o long as a portion of the proceedings arising out of the shooting of Robert Davis remained pending, the Commonwealth’s obligation to bring these proceedings against appellant to trial within 180 days [from the initiation of the original proceedings] remained unaltered.” Opinion of the Court, ante at 375. This is so, the Court says, because the charges of murder and conspiracy, for purposes of Rule 1100, relate back to the date of the original arrest in July, 1974. This conclusion is erroneous.
Rule 1100, as we have said, “contemplates the commencement of the running of the mandatory period at the point criminal proceedings are initiated.” Commonwealth v. Mitchell, 472 Pa. 553, 559, 372 A.2d 826, 829 (1977). When the murder and conspiracy charges against Earp were dismissed on September 4 because of the Commonwealth’s failure to establish a prima facie case, the proceedings on those charges were not, as the majority implies, suspended, they were terminated. So far as those two charges were concerned, appellant was completely at liberty from Septem*380ber, 1974 until February, 1975. To conclude, as the majority does, that the new proceedings for murder and conspiracy subsequently commenced against appellant must relate back to the date of the original arrest ignores the effect of the dismissal of the original charges. The Commonwealth was required to bring a wholly new prosecution against appellant on those charges if it chose to proceed further on them at all,4 and nothing in Rule 1100 dictates that this new proceeding be treated, for purposes of the rule, as something different from what it actually was. Accordingly, the 180-day period of Rule 1100(a)(2), as applied to the murder and conspiracy charges, should be held to have begun anew at the time when appellant was again prosecuted for these charges in February, 1975. See Commonwealth v. Mumich, 239 Pa.Super. 209, 361 A.2d 359 (1976), allocatur denied, 239 Pa.Super. xxviii. This is especially so since the lesser charges which the majority uses to require, for speedy trial purposes, a relation back of the major charges to the date of the July arrest, remained outstanding as a result of a separate hearing mandated by the Juvenile Act.5
*381The majority argues that the murder and conspiracy charges and the lesser charges could not be tried separately under the joinder rules of Commonwealth v. Campana, supra; that the lesser charges were dismissed with prejudice on Rule 1100 grounds; and that therefore the murder and conspiracy charges must also be dismissed, and cannot be tried by themselves. This to me is a non sequitur that loses sight of the salutary purposes which both rules seek to serve. As noted above, the rule announced in Campana that all related charges must be joined for trial did not dictate that because one charge is dismissed at the preliminary hearing stage, all charges must be so dismissed. Similarly, the Campana rule of joinder does not mandate that all such charges must be considered to have been brought on the same date for purposes of Rule 1100, with the consequence that if one charge is to be dismissed with prejudice under that rule, all must be dismissed. Appellant was tried but *382once on the charges arising out of the shooting of Robert Davis that were then outstanding against him, and hence no violation of the principles of Campana occurred. The trial of these charges, which were brought in February, 1975, was begun in August of that year, as contemplated by Rule 1100.
That appellant remained incarcerated on the lesser charges6 until after his rearrest on February 10, 1975 is, for purposes of speedy trial on the previously dismissed major charges, irrelevant. Whatever “pre-trial suspicion and uncertainty” may have existed for Earp during the interim period, Opinion of the Court, ante at 375, could not have existed with respect to the murder and conspiracy charges, which a judicial officer had dismissed as unfounded. Such burdens were present only as to the lesser charges for which appellant was held and as to which, as the Court notes, he later secured a complete discharge because he was not brought to trial thereon within 180 days.
III.
The majority declares that to treat this murder and conspiracy prosecution as a new proceeding with a new 180-day period for trial under Rule 1100 “would allow the Commonwealth to grant itself in cases such as this an extension of time for trial, without in any way reducing the burdens of the accused or the public.” Opinion of the Court, ante at 375. This statement is insupportable. The Commonwealth does not contend that the time for trial on the lesser charges should have been extended by the new prosecution for murder arid conspiracy; it argues only that the trial for murder and conspiracy could properly be started at any time within 180 days following the commencement of the new criminal proceeding on those charges. This is plainly not a case in which the Commonwealth has acted in bad faith or intentionally sought to evade the mandate of *383Rule 1100.7 It is clear from the record that Earp was discharged at the preliminary hearing on September 4 only because the Commonwealth did not succeed in persuading the hearing judge that there was a prima facie case of murder against appellant.8 As the trial judge noted in denying appellant’s motion to dismiss the murder and conspiracy charges for non-compliance with Rule 1100, “there was no evidence in this case of purposeful delay . . . ” N.T. (5/19/75) at 45. Thus there is simply no basis for a conclusion that the Commonwealth somehow sought to extend the time for trial on any charge when it lost its case at the September preliminary hearing.
The majority’s discussion of “burdens” reflects similar confusion. As above noted, the burdens on appellant as an accused person during the period from September 4, 1974 to February 10, 1975 stemmed only from the pendency of the lesser charges that were ultimately, in April, dismissed with prejudice because of violation of the speedy trial rule, a result not contested here by the Commonwealth. There were no other charges outstanding against appellant during this period, and any burdens suffered by him as a result related to a period of pre-arrest delay, not pre-trial delay. This is because appellant was not held for trial on the murder and conspiracy offenses until after his second arrest, and because the provisions of Rule 1100 are not concerned with the prejudice to one’s defense that may be caused by delay in the bringing of criminal proceedings. Whatever *384prejudice to appellant’s defense may have resulted from the lapse of time between the shooting of Robert Davis on July 28, 1974, and Earp’s second arrest for murder on February 10, 1975 — and I emphasize that no prejudice has been shown — is a matter which affects the accused’s right to due process of law, not his right to a speedy trial under Rule 1100. See United States v. Lovasco, 431 U.S. 783, 97 S.Ct. 2044, 53 L.Ed.2d 752 (1977); United States v. Marion, 404 U.S. 307, 92 S.Ct. 455, 30 L.Ed.2d 468 (1971); Commonwealth v. Crawford, 468 Pa. 565, 364 A.2d 660 (1976); Commonwealth v. De Rose, 225 Pa.Super. 8, 307 A.2d 425 (1973).
The burdens on society identified by the Court (e. g., delay in law enforcement, loss of valuable evidence) would also, so far as the murder and conspiracy charges in this case are considered, be caused by a delay in arrest. And society’s interest in law enforcement, I suggest, is ill-served by the discharge of this appellant on a tenuous and novel application of Rule 1100 to a situation with which it was not designed to deal, and which was caused by a false start that was made in good faith. I dissent.
O’BRIEN and LARSEN, JJ., join in this opinion.

. The other offenses were possession of instruments of crime, possession of offensive weapons, aggravated assault, simple assault, and recklessly endangering another person.

. Pa.R.Crim.P. 131(b) provides:
“When more than one offense is alleged to have been committed by one person arising out of the same incident, the issuing authority shall accept only one complaint, and shall docket the matter as a single case.”

. See Pa.R.Crim.P. 159.

. The dismissal of these charges in September, 1974, was plainly not a final determination under Pennsylvania law; the appellant remained subject to rearrest and a new prosecution. Commonwealth v. Hetherington, 460 Pa. 17, 22, 331 A.2d 205, 208 (1978); Riggins Case, 435 Pa. 321, 254 A.2d 616 (1969); McNair’s Petition, 324 Pa. 48, 187 A. 498 (1936).

. The majority argues that its disposition is in accordance with the relevant provisions of the ABA Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to Speedy Trial § 2.2(a) (Approved Draft, 1968). Section 2.2(a) provides:
“The time for trial should commence running, without demand by the defendant, as follows:
“(a) From the date the charge is filed, except that if the defendant has been continuously held in custody or on bail or recognizance until that date to answer for the same crime or a crime based on the same conduct or arising from the same criminal episode, then the time for tried should commence running from the date he was held to answer;”
In my view, this reliance is misplaced, for nothing in the Standards or the commentary thereto indicates that the drafters contemplated the kind of bifurcated pre-trial procedure envisioned by the Juvenile Act. Indeed, the drafters indicate that Section 2.2(a) is primarily concerned with cases in which a defendant is held in custody before “a written statement [is] filed in a court which accuses a person of *381an offense and which is sufficient to support a prosecution . . . ” id. § 2.3(f), Commentary, at 30.
It seems more useful to examine the Standards’ treatment of the effect which dismissal of charges at a preliminary stage of a case has on the computation of time allowed for compliance with the speedy trial requirement. Section 2.2(b) of the Standards provides that if a charge has been dismissed on defendant’s motion and a new charge is thereafter brought, the time for trial should begin to run anew from the date of the new charge. The Standards further provide that “[i]f the [original] charge was dismissed upon motion of the prosecuting attorney and thereafter a charge is filed against the defendant for the same offense or an offense required to be joined with that offense, the period of delay from the date the charge was dismissed to the date the time limitations would commence running as to the subsequent charge had there been no previous charge,” id. § 2.3(f), is to be excluded from computing the time for trial; that is, the speedy trial period would be tolled until the new charge is brought. See id. § 2.3(f), Commentary, at 30-31.
The Standards, under which “[t]he critical distinction ... is whether dismissal was at the instance of the prosecutor or the defendant,” id., Commentary to § 2.2(b), at 24, do not directly address the situation presented by the instant case, since the record indicates that the murder and conspiracy charges were dismissed without a motion from either side. N.T.Prel.Hng. (9/4/74), at 15-16. But I cannot see why the clock must continue to run under Rule 1100 when there is a sua sponte dismissal by the court, whereas under the Standards the clock does not keep running when dismissal is at the behest of either the prosecution or the defense.

. The record indicates that appellant was unable to make bail.

. Compare Commonwealth v. Whitaker, 467 Pa. 436, 359 A.2d 174 (1976), in which the Commonwealth moved for a nolle prosequi two days before the expiration of the mandatory time period.

. Appellant contends that there were eight witnesses available and known to the Commonwealth at the time of the first preliminary hearing. Although it is true that the Commonwealth presented one of these witnesses at the first hearing, this, without more, proves nothing. The record does not indicate that these witnesses would have testified at the first hearing, or that their possible testimony would have established a prima facie case against appellant. The Commonwealth’s decision to present only one witness could have been motivated by any number of reasonable considerations, and it is not for an appellate court to second-guess the manner in which the Commonwealth presented its case.