Court Opinion

ID: 9749928
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 14:06:02.63517+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:00.182078
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
Mr. Justice Musmanno :
I would add to the majority opinion, with which I thoroughly agree, the following observations. It was indeed a grave violation of the defendant’s constitutional rights to a fair trial to try him for lesser offenses (burglaries) prior to, the trial of the major offense (murder) so that at the murder trial he could be pictured as a hardened offender, thereby distracting the jury’s mind from consideration of the murder facts alone. This is what happened in the tragic Sacco-*424Vanzetti case. Vanzetti was tried on a charge of attempted robbery and then, later, with Sacco, for murder. It is fundamental in criminal jurisprudence that a defendant, charged with murder and other offenses, is put on trial first for the murder, if, for no other reason than that, in the event of conviction, there may be no need to prosecute for the lesser offensé. It is now recognized by all serious students of the Sacco-Vanzetti record that the conviction of Vanzetti on the offense of attempted robbery before the murder trial, contributed heavily toward his unjust conviction, with Sacco, on the charge of murder, and, as a result, two innocent men were put to death in one of the most incredible and shocking miscarriages of justice in the annals of the American courts.
In the case at bar, the four burglaries attributed to Edward James McIntyre, occurred after the murder for which he was indicted. What possible light could these burglaries shed on the question as to whether he committed the murder or not? It contradicts every concept of fair play to describe the accused, as wearing, on the day of the crime for which he is being tried, a garment which, in point of fact, he did not acquire until after the tried-for offense. When. Edward James McIntyre stood before the jury charged with murder, he was wearing, for the Commonwealth forced it on him, the crime-bespattered cloak of four committed burglaries, and his judges thus adjudged him in that forbidding garment, when, as a matter of stark chronology, that cloak was not so bespattered until after the murder. What McIntyre did after the murder could not have any possible relation, in point of proof, to the question as to whether he committed the murder or not.
McIntyre’s constitutional rights were additionally violated when the Commonwealth held him for two years before selecting a jury on the murder charge. It *425is no excuse, where the Constitution is involved, to say that the defendant did not clamor for a speedy trial. The clamoring of a man behind bars must travel through many stone walls before it reaches the ears of a court, and in the travel, much of its audibility may be lost. To say that a constitutional guaranty must depend upon noises before it can be accorded respect is to make sounding brass of the Constitution and tinkling cymbals of the Bill of Rights. Whether McIntyre asked for a speedy trial or not, every prosecuting official involved in this case should have heard in his ears, like blasts of trumpets, the Speedy Trial Commandment of. the Constitution.
It is a matter of the simplest observation that a prison cell in itself shouts that the occupant wants out as soon as possible; and, when one is held on an unbailable offense, it is inevitable that the only avenue for exit is through a trial. What could McIntyre want in prison, therefore, except a speedy trial after, of course, obtaining adequate time for preparation for a defense?
No matter how one regards the passage of time, Avhether it be at the height of revelry, when hours fly by on the wings of minutes or in travail, when minutes drag their leaden feet like weary nights, the passage of two years can never possibly be interpreted as speedy. Thus McIntyre was denied the right guaranteed him by Article I, §8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, as well as Amendment IV of the United States Constitution, and it matters not that the prosecuting officials, in the discharge of their other manifold duties, overlooked McIntyre in his cell. No person in government should regard a prison cell other than as a temporary habitation, and it should be the duty of state prosecuting officials to examine all cells at frequent intervals of time to make certain that no one is being denied speedy justice. The Bill of Rights on this subject is of little avail if it does not guarantee that much.