Court Opinion

ID: 9762800
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:31:22.418097+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:37.548945
License: Public Domain

WIEAND, Judge,
concurring:
The members of this Court are agreed that appellant is not entitled to have her conviction set aside on grounds that she failed to receive a speedy trial in accordance with Pa.R.Crim.P. 1100. The record discloses a criminal action for violation of the obscenity laws which was prosecuted diligently by the Commonwealth. The delay was caused solely by the defense. Therefore, I concur in the Court’s determination that appellant is not entitled to be discharged on Rule 1100 grounds.
Assuming, without deciding, that the constitutionality of a criminal statute can properly be challenged by an omnibus pre-trial motion filed pursuant to Pa.R.Crim.P. 306, it seems clear, in any event, that a pre-trial hearing on an omnibus motion can be equated with the commencement of trial only by creating a fiction regarding the commencement of trial. This, in my judgment, is unwise. I agree with President Judge Spaeth that the trial in this case did not commence when the court began to hear the pre-trial omnibus motion.
I agree also that appellant sought to delay the trial in order to obtain a ruling on the constitutional issue and thereby, in a practical sense, obtained a postponement or continuance of the trial. The fact that appellant was able to delay the trial by continuance, however, did not result in excludable time for purposes of computing the time for trial in accordance with Rule 1100. The amendment to paragraph (d) of Rule 1100, which excluded “any continuance granted at the request of the defendant or his attorney,” became effective and applied only to continuances requested on or after January 1, 1982. The postponement in this case for the purpose of allowing the court to decide the constitutional issue came to an end with the court’s decision on October 16, 1981:
*364The criminal complaint was signed on February 11, 1981. The pre-trial hearing was commenced on July 22, 1981, the 161st day. On that day, appellant waived Rule 1100 for a period of thirty-seven days. The adjusted run date, therefore, became September 16, 1981.1 However, trial could not be commenced until some time after October 16, when the trial court rendered a decision on appellant’s pre-trial motions. In the interim, as President Judge Spaeth has observed, appellant’s pre-trial motion had, in effect, rendered her unavailable for trial.
In the meantime, the Commonwealth had also filed a petition for an extension of time, as permitted by Pa.R. Crim.P. 1100(c), because of the undecided pre-trial motions, and the court had set a hearing on the petition for October 30, 1981. On or about October 20, 1981, the parties were notified that trial would commence on November 9, 1981 and that the hearing on the Commonwealth’s petition for extension would be heard immediately prior to trial. Subsequently, both the trial and the extension hearing were continued until December 7, 1981; and appellant agreed to waive Rule 1100 for the period from November 9, 1981 through December 7, 1981. This continuance was made necessary by appellant’s announced intention to file a petition in the Superior Court to allow an appeal from the interlocutory order denying the relief requested in the pretrial motion.
The mischief for Rule 1100 purposes was caused by appellant’s attempt to file an interlocutory appeal. On November 18, 1981, at appellant’s request, the trial court certified the constitutional issue for appellate review and entered a supersedeas which stayed all further proceedings in the trial court. As a consequence, trial did not commence on December 7, 1981, and the Commonwealth’s pending extension petition was not heard. A petition for special *365allowance of an appeal was filed in the Superior Court, but this Court, on February 10, 1981, denied the petition and rejected the appeal. The case was thereupon remanded for trial. Trial was scheduled for April 19, 1982, but commencement of trial, because of defense requested continuances, was further delayed until June 7, 1982.
When the Superior Court denied appellant’s petition for allowance of an appeal, a petition for an extension of time within which to commence trial under Rule 1100 .was pending in the trial court. This petition was not heard before trial. In my judgment, a hearing thereon was unnecessary. After February 10, 1982, the Commonwealth had a period of 120 days within which to commence trial. Appellant was tried within that time. The trial, therefore, was timely.
Pa.R.Crim.P. 1100(e) provides as follows:
(e)(1) When a trial court has granted a new trial and no appeal has been perfected, the new trial shall commence within one hundred and twenty (120) days after the date of the order granting a new trial.
(2) When an appellate court has granted a new trial, or has affirmed an order of a trial court granting a new trial, the new trial shall commence-within one hundred and twenty (120) days after the appellate court remands the record to the trial court. The date of remand shall be the date as it appears in the appellate court docket.
The comment to the rule suggests that the rule has application also to the “withdrawal, rejection of, or a successful challenge to a guilty plea” and to “the period for commencing trial following the declaration of a mistrial.” The same considerations which make the rule necessary in these enumerated situations require that a period of 120 days be extended for the commencement of trial after an appellate court, for whatever reason, has remanded the action to the trial court to start again the guilt determining process. It makes no sense to me to hold that an additional 120 days is necessary to commence trial in response to an award of a *366new trial but unnecessary where the case has been remanded for trial after denial of a petition for allowance of an appeal. To require the Commonwealth in such a situation to commence trial immediately upon remand because the 180 day period is about to expire, or, at least to file an immediate petition for extension, does not serve either to protect the accused’s right to a speedy trial or to protect society’s right to effective prosecution in criminal cases. Instead, it can serve only to create a trap for the unwary and thereby encourage the various forms of Rule 1100 gamesmanship which this Court has consistently decried.
The broad interpretation which I would place upon Rule 1100(e) has the advantage of establishing a straightforward, uniformly applied method for insuring a speedy trial in criminal cases which, for whatever reason, have been before an appellate court and are remanded for trial. In all such cases, trial must begin within 120 days after remand.
To the extent that the panel decision in Commonwealth v. Paprocki, 327 Pa.Super. 270, 475 A.2d 792 (1984) suggests a different rule, I would cause it to be overruled. To hold that a petition for allowance of an appeal has no other effect than to stay the running of Rule 1100 temporarily can serve only to encourage manipulation of the rule to avoid trial. If a petition for allowance of appeal can be filed on the 179th day, such a rule would require that the Commonwealth either commence trial on the day following denial of the petition or file a petition for extension. I do not believe that the Supreme Court intended this type of gamesmanship. I would hold that upon remand for trial the Commonwealth in all instances is to have a period of 120 days within which to commence trial.
In other respects, I join the opinion of the majority and its decision to affirm the judgment of sentence.
ROWLEY, BECK and TAMILIA, JJ., join in this concurring opinion.

. The Commonwealth contends that appellant, on September 15, 1981, filed a waiver of Rule 1100 until November 15, 1981 (Appellee’s Brief at pp. 4 and 5). However, my examination of the record fails to produce factual support for this contention.