Court Opinion

ID: 9649828
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:10:31.815268+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:15.250098
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Price, J.:
On January 22, 1974, appellee, Jennylou Yentzer, brought an action for support of an illegitimate child under The Pennsylvania Civil Procedural Support Law.1 The appellant, Gary Carpenter, defendant in the above action, denied paternity. On May 16, 1974, a jury found the appellant to be the father of the appellee’s child. The appellant requested a charge to the jury requiring proof *210of paternity beyond a reasonable doubt, but the court instructed the jury that the burden of proving paternity was by a preponderance of the evidence. The only question raised on this appeal is whether it is reversible error, in a case of disputed paternity, for the judge to instruct the jury that the plaintiff requires only a preponderance of the evidence to establish paternity. For the reasons which follow, I would hold that such a charge is reversible error.
The 1963 Amendment to The Pennsylvania Civil Procedural Support Law made, inter alia, the following change: Under “Duty of Support,” the category “prosecution for failure to support a child born out of lawful wedlock” was added.2 Illegitimate children, not previously protected by this statute, were thus brought within its purview. In Commonwealth v. Dillworth, 431 Pa. 479, 246 A.2d 859 (1968), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court interpreted this amendment, holding that it “was not intended by the legislature to discard the right to a jury trial in the determination of paternity, but, rather the act becomes operative only after a finding of paternity by prior criminal proceedings under The Penal Code.” 431 Pa. at 484, 246 A.2d at 861.
The holding in Dillworth, supra, has been expanded by subsequent decisions. This court, in Commonwealth ex rel. Kolodziejski v. Tancredi, 222 Pa. Superior Ct. 436, 440, 295 A.2d 174, 176 (1972), states that “[sjince the Civil Procedural Support Law contains no provision for trial by jury, Dillworth has been interpreted as requiring a criminal proceeding to determine paternity, with all the safeguards for the rights of the defendant that a criminal proceeding implies.” Earlier, in Commonwealth v. Jacobs, 220 Pa. Superior Ct. 31, 279 A.2d 251 (1971), this court concluded that Dillworth, supra, did not require criminal proceedings in all cases of disputed paternity, but that “Dillworth held that the protections *211inherent in a criminal trial could not be abrogated by the court and that the putative father was entitled to a trial by jury where he insisted upon enforcing that right.” 220 Pa. Superior Ct. at 36, 279 A.2d at 253.
In the present case, the appellant disputed paternity and a jury trial was held.3 Dillworth, supra, Tancredi, supra, and Jacobs, supra, all stand for the proposition that in a case of disputed paternity, the defendant has the right not only to a jury trial, but also to the ancillary safeguards provided in criminal proceedings, including the requirement that guilt be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
Commonwealth v. Jacobs, supra, makes the following exception to the above-stated rule: “Where a defendant chooses a civil determination, he will be deemed to have fully waived his jury trial rights and all other protections ancillary to criminal proceedings including the right to have guilt proven ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’ ” 220 Pa. Superior Ct. at 38, 279 A.2d at 254.
This exception was applied where the defendant expressly chose a civil rather than a criminal determination, on the rationale that the defendant waived the inherent protections of a criminal proceeding in return for the preclusion of an otherwise possible criminal conviction.
The mere choice of a forum, however, be it Civil Division, Criminal Division or Family Division, is not the principal factor in determining whether criminal protections attach. It is the defendant’s knowing and intelligent election of a civil proceeding, and his corresponding waiver of criminal protections, including the stricter burden of proof, that creates the exception.
Further, it is not determinative to this holding whether a defendant may or may not, as a result of an *212adverse verdict, have a criminal conviction upon his record.
In any case involving disputed paternity the defendant is entitled to the inherent protections of a criminal proceeding unless such protections are clearly waived. On the facts herein, appellant was entitled to a jury instruction requiring proof of paternity beyond a reasonable doubt.
The order of the lower court should be reversed and the case should be remanded for a new trial.
Watkins, P.J., and Van der Voort, J., join in this dissenting opinion.

. Act of July 13, 1953, P.L. 431, as amended, Act of August 14, 1963, P.L. 872 (62 P.S. §2043.31) et seq.

. Act of August 14, 1963, P.L. 872, §1 (62 P.S. §2043.32).

. Because the record does not reveal a written motion for a jury trial, I assume that a jury trial was granted pursuant to an oral demand by the appellant.