Court Opinion

ID: 9637861
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:24:15.2165+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:01.231412
License: Public Domain

McCAFFERY, J.,
Concurring.
¶ 1 I wholeheartedly join in the well-reasoned Majority Opinion of my esteemed colleague, the Honorable Kate Ford Elliott. However, I am compelled to write separately because I, too, “certainly sympathize with the problems of judges and prosecutors trying to obtain the presence of an incarcerated defendant for trial who is in the state prison system on another case.” Commonwealth v. Mines, 797 A.2d 963, 966 (Pa.Super.2002), appeal denied, 571 Pa. 705, 812 A.2d 1229 (2002). Due to severe overcrowding in the Philadelphia Prison System, the number of probationers/parolees in state institutions, and the problems encountered when bringing defendants down from state custody, I strongly recommend expanding the use of videoconferencing to hold Violation of Probation (“VOP”) hearings. This would significantly decrease the number of times these hearings would need to be continued because a defendant was not brought down, thus benefiting the defendant.