Court Opinion

ID: 9758093
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 23:10:55.084013+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:59:04.049176
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, President Judge,
dissenting:
I believe that the trial judge’s questioning of appellant constituted an abuse of discretion, and that the judgment of sentence should be reversed and the case remanded for a new trial.
Appellant’s defense was alibi and misidentification. On direct examination he testified that on the evening of the *223crime he was with some of his friends: “I was around 12th and Christian for a while. Then I went to 12th and Carpenter. Then around 11th Street until about 11:30. Then I went home.” Id. Appellant’s testimony implied that he was not able to bring any of these friends to court to testify in his defense because he had been in custody since his arrest and had not been able to go out and find any of the friends that he was with that night. Id. On cross-examination the assistant district attorney questioned appellant extensively regarding the identifies of the friends he had been with that night and the efforts that he and his attorney had made to locate them. N.T. 423-37. Nevertheless, the trial judge then also proceeded to question appellant extensively regarding appellant’s efforts and ability to locate these friends through the use of his attorney while he was in prison. N.T. 448-456.
The majority quotes at pages 213 through 216 of its opinion approximately four pages of the judge’s questioning of appellant and states that this constitutes “the essence of the interchange.” Majority Op. at 216. However, the judge’s questioning covered approximately eight pages of the trial transcript, and it is necessary to consider all of it in order to determine whether the judge abused his discretion. The judge’s questioning continued, after the questions quoted by the majority, as follows:
A. Sure. I can give you several names.
MR. BACHMANN: Objection Your Honor.
THE COURT: Objection to what?
MR. BACHMANN: Your Honor’s question.
THE COURT: Overruled.
MR. BACHMANN: Sidebar?
THE COURT: Not necessary.
MR. BACHMANN: Commonwealth vs. To[o]mbs, Your Honor.
THE COURT: This is Commonwealth v. Britton.
MR. BACHMANN: I am aware, Judge.
*224THE COURT: Fine. I don’t think we need to throw out cases in front of the jury after I have denied your request for sidebar, do you understand that?
MR. BACHMANN: Yes, Your Honor. May I re-ask my request for sidebar, Your Honor?
THE COURT: Denied.
BY THE COURT:
Q. You have been in the Philadelphia Detention Center Since May 9th, this is what I am trying to clear up, and during that time you have had opportunities to discuss the case? You can answer that yes or no and then you can explain. Because we are not getting the yes or no answers, we are getting the explanations. I really do need to clarify something, and if there is anything you do not understand just stop me there. You have worked with your attorneys in the preparation of this case, is that a correct statement?
A. Yes.
Q. You told the jury, as I understand it, that you first gave the names of these people to your attorney three weeks ago?
A. Somewhere around there.
Q. Did you give him the addresses of these people?
A. No.
Q. Have you ever visited their homes, these people you have known all your life?
A. They’re my age, 22, 23.
Q. Have you ever visited their homes?
A. Some of them.
Q. Now, did you give your attorney the addresses of those people whose homes you visited that you have known all your life?
A. No, sir.
Q. Why not?
A. Because I was incarcerated. And when I came home, people move, and people don’t usually give you *225their addresses. I mean you see them but they don’t usually, you know give up their addresses.
Q. Mr. Britton, what I am trying to clarify here—
MR. BACHMANN: Request for sidebar, Your Honor?
THE COURT: Denied.
BY THE COURT:
Q. What I am trying to clarify, Mr. Britton, is I thought I understood you to say that you knew these people all your life, you knew their addresses. I am asking you did you give those addresses to your attorney?
A. No.
Q. Why not?
A. Because I didn’t have but maybe one dude that I knew the address. That’s about it.
Q. Did you give him that address?
A. No.
Q. What day did you get out of this hospital or leave?
A. March something, 1st, 2nd, 3rd.
Q. I think maybe you are confused. I think you said April earlier.
A. Yes, April.
Q. I don’t want you to make a mistake.
Sometime in April?
A. Yes, I believe so. In April, somewhere in that vicinity-
THE COURT: No further questions.
Do you have any questions as a result of the Court’s questions, counsel?
MR. BACHMANN: No, sir.
THE COURT: Thank you. Step down.
N.T. 452-56.
The majority states that the judge’s questions were “neutral,” “did not reveal manifest bias,” and were not asked in a “hostile” or “challenging” manner. Majority Op. at 216. I am unable to join in these statements. I submit that no one on the jury could have had the least doubt that the *226judge regarded appellant’s testimony with incredulity and disdain.
English judges may, and often do, manifest their disbelief of a witness’s testimony, including the defendant’s. See Wigmore on Evidence §§ 784, 2551, 2551a (Chadbourn Revision 1970). But, partly because of the colonists’ experience with His Majesty’s judges, id., our tradition is different.
Thus our Supreme Court has said:
Witnesses should be interrogated by the judge only when he conceives the interest of justice so requires. It is better to permit counsel to bring out the evidence and clear up disputed points on cross-examination unaided by the court; but where an important fact is indefinite or a disputed point needs to be clarified, the court may see that it is done by taking part in the examination. The practice of a judge entering into the trial of a case as an advocate is emphatically disapproved. The judge occupies an exalted and dignified position; he is the one person to whom the jury, with rare exceptions, looks for guidance, and from whom the litigants expect absolute impartiality. An expression indicative of favor or condemnation is quickly reflected in the jury box and at the counsel table. To depart from the clear line of duty through questions, expressions or conduct, contravenes the orderly administration of justice. It has a tendency to take from one of the parties the right to a fair and impartial trial, as guaranteed under our system of jurisprudence. Judges should refrain from extended examination of witnesses; they should not, during the trial, indicate an opinion on the merits, a doubt as to the witnesses’s credibility, or do anything to indicate a leaning to one side or the other, without explaining to the jury that all these matters are for them.
Commonwealth v. Myma, 278 Pa. 505, 508, 123 A. 486, 487 (1924).
Moreover, “[t]he fact that it was the defendant himself in the present case who was the target of the judge’s incredulity serves only to magnify the potential harmful effect upon *227the jury.” Commonwealth v. Williams, 468 Pa. 453, 464, 364 A.2d 281, 287 (1976). See also Commonwealth v. Ramirez, 269 Pa.Super. 601, 410 A.2d 863 (1979) (trial counsel ineffective for not pursuing claim in post-verdict motions where trial judge’s questions to defendant manifested disbelief of defendant’s testimony regarding self-defense); Commonwealth v. Toombs, 269 Pa.Super. 256, 409 A.2d 876 (1979) (defendant entitled to new trial where judge’s remarks concerning defense witness’s testimony manifested disbelief of testimony and prejudice was confirmed by judge’s questioning of alibi witness and of defendant that also manifested disbelief of their testimony).
The majority relies on the fact that the judge gave a cautionary instruction before he began questioning appellant. Majority Op. at 213. Before questioning appellant, the judge stated:
THE COURT: I have a few questions. Again, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my questions do not reflect any opinion on my part about the guilt or innocence of the defendant or any other disputed question. They are simply asked for the purpose of clarifying some matters that have been injected into this case at this particular stage.
N.T. 446.
Whatever effect this remark may have had was undone by what followed. The majority’s acknowledgment that the judge’s questions were “repetitious”, Majority Op. at 1301, is, I submit, inadequate. The questions were not simply repetitious; by doing no more than cover ground already thoroughly explored by the assistant district attorney’s extensive cross-examination of appellant, the questions served only to reemphasize the weaknesses in appellant’s testimony; they “clarified]” nothing except the judge’s attitude towards appellant’s defense.
Nor may it be maintained that the judge’s “departure] from the clear line of duty”, Commonwealth v. Myma, supra, was harmless. One can have no doubt that the judge’s manifestation of disbelief of appellant’s testimony *228was “quickly reflected in the jury box.” Id. And see Commonwealth v. Story, 476 Pa. 391, 383 A.2d 155 (1978).
I should reverse the judgment of sentence and remand for a new trial.1
BROSKY, J., joined in this dissenting opinion.

. Because I believe that appellant is entitled to a new trial solely on the ground that the judge’s questioning of appellant constituted an abuse of discretion, I express no view on the remainder of appellant’s arguments.