Court Opinion

ID: 9643249
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:23:51.13344+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:58.837579
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Hoffman, J.:
I am in agreement with the excellent opinion by Judge Cercone for the Court on all issues except appellant’s claim that he is entitled to the protection of the Act of September 8, 1959, P. L. 829, 19 P.S. 1431 (Agreement on Detainers).
At the time of appellant’s request for trial to Pennsylvania authorities, appellant was a federal prisoner and the Federal Government at such time was not a party to the Agreement on Detainers. Had appellant been a prisoner in a state which was a party to the Agreement on Detainers, he would have been entitled to have the instant prosecution dismissed since he was *60not brought to trial within one hundred and eighty days.
Judge Cercone has stated appellant’s argument that “to draw a distinction between inmates imprisoned in Pennsylvania and jurisdictions having complementary legislations and those imprisoned in noncomplementary legislation jurisdictions is violative of the equal protection guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
This argument is identical to that raised in Commonwealth v. Bunter, 445 Pa. 413, 282 A. 2d 705 (1971). In Bunter, Mr. Justice Eagen, speaking for himself and for Mr. Justice O’Brien, held that: “[t]he Equal Protection argument would have merit only if it could be shown that the Commonwealth was discriminating purposefully or intentionally between those whom it had charged with crime, granting to some a speedy trial while denying it to others . . . . [I]t does not follow that there has been purposeful discrimination because such a trial is not provided under the terms of the interstate compact.” 445 Pa. at 423, 282 A. 2d at 710. Ordinarily, such language would be binding upon this Court, but as stated by Judge Cercone, the cited language from Bunter is not precedent in this case.1 Un*61like Judge Cercone, however, I do not find Bunter persuasive.
The scope of the Equal Protection clause has been most recently stated by the United States Supreme Court in Reed v. Reed, Administrator, 404 U.S. 71 (1971), which was decided thirty-one days after Bunter. In Reed, the Supreme Court restated the principle that “[t]he Equal Protection [of the 14th Amendment] does . . . deny to States the power to legislate that different treatment be accorded to persons placed by a statute into different classes on the basis of criteria wholly unrelated to the objective of that statute. A classification ‘must be reasonable, not arbitrary, and must rest upon some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation, so that all persons similarly circumstanced shall be treated alike’. Royster Guano Co. v. Virginia, 253 U.S. 412, 415 (1920). The question presented by this case, then is whether a difference in the sex of competing applicants for letters of administration bears a rational relationship to a state objective that is sought to be advanced by the operation of (the state law).” 404 U.S. at 75-76.
This standard has previously been adopted by our state courts in dealing with Equal Protection claims in criminal proceedings. In Wilson Appeal, 438 Pa. 425, 264 A. 2d 614 (1970), which relied upon Commonwealth v. Daniel, 430 Pa. 642, 243 A. 2d 400 (1968), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court stated that: “under, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution a state may make distinctions only upon the basis of reasonable classifications. ”
Accordingly, the language in Bunter that an Equal Protection Claim may be raised only if the statutory *62discrimination is “purposeful” or “intentional” does not reflect the federal standard which is binding upon us. Reed v. Reed, supra. Rather, an Equal Protection claim lies under established precedent when a statute discriminates between persons, and such discrimination is not reasonable and has no fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation.
With this criteria before us, attention should be focused on the purpose of the Interstate Detainer Act to determine if there is a rational basis for affording its protection to prisoners held in states with complementary legislation and not to prisoners held in jurisdictions with no such complementary legislation.
Article I of the Detainer Act is explicit and conclusive with respect to the purposes of the Detainer Act: “[T]he party states find that charges outstanding against a prisoner, detainers based on untried indictments, informations or complaints, and difficulties in securing speedy trial of persons already incarcerated in other jurisdictions, produce uncertainties which obstruct programs of prisoner treatment and rehabilitation. Accordingly, it is the policy of the party states and the purpose of this agreement to encourage the expeditious and orderly disposition of such charges and determination of the proper status of any and all detainers based on untried indictments, informations or complaints.”
The Detainer Act, therefore, is intended to vest rights in out of state persons extradited to Pennsylvania and to afford them a procedure to secure a tidal within 180 days. The Detainer Act is not intended to confer a benefit on a state. Insofar as cooperation between the states was thought desirable to afford out of state prisoners this right, the Detainer Act provides a comity principle and mechanism to ensure the protection of a prisoner’s right to a speedy trial. Comity, *63however, is not the end goal of the Detainer Act. Otherwise, article IV (c) and article V (c) of the Detainer Act, which provide that a prisoner must be tried within 180 days of his arrival in a receiving state or the indictments against him must be quashed with prejudice, would be anachronistic.
A sending state’s interest in having a prisoner who is serving a term of imprisonment therein and who is extradited to another state for purposes of standing trial returned to the sending state only extends to placing a limitation upon the length of time a receiving state may retain custody of such prisoner for purposes of trying him. The interest of the sending state does not require that the receiving state in addition to returning the prisoner to the sending state if it fails to try him within 180 days must also quash the indictments against the prisoner with prejudice. The latter deterrent provision is designed solely to secure an accused a speedy trial.
In light of the stated purposes of the Detainer Act, therefore, there is no reason why any two out of state prisoners awaiting trial in Pennsylvania should be treated differently, as they both suffer the same kinds of prejudice from pretrial delay. See Klopfer v. North Carolina, 386 U.S. 213 (1967), and Note, Developments in the Law Equal Protection, 82 Harv. L. Rev. 1065, 1082 (1969). Hence, the Detainer Act may not be read to create a disparity in the right of each to a speedy trial.
The remedy for the denial of the speedy trial protection of the Detainer Act with respect to prisoners extradited from nonparty jurisdictions to Pennsylvania is to broaden the protection of the statute so as to apply to such persons. The alternative of striking down the Detainer Act and its protection of the too narrowly restricted class of prisoners now favored *64could hardly be in accord with legislative intent. See the opinion by Chief Judge Wyzanski in United States v. Sisson, 297 F. Supp. 902 (D.C. of Mass., 1969), for an example of a court broadening a statute in order to make it constitutional.2 Therefore, when as in the instant case, the Commonwealth fails, without justification, to try an out of state prisoner upon his request within 180 days, the indictments against such prisoner should be quashed with prejudice.
Article V(c) of the Detainer Act provides that: “. . . [i]n the event that an action on the indictment, information or complaint on the basis of which the detainer has been lodged is not brought to trial within the period provided in article III or article IV hereof, the appropriate court of the jurisdiction where the indictment has been pending [Pennsylvania] shall enter an order, dismissing the same with prejudice, and any detainer based thereon shall cease to be of any force or effect.” (Emphasis supplied). This provision is materially identical to that found in the Act of June 28, 1957, the aforementioned 180 day rule.
The result of quashing of indictments was approved in Commonwealth v. Klimek, 416 Pa. 434, 206 A. 2d 381 (1965), which dealt with a comparable delay violative of then analogous legislation. In Klimek, the Commonwealth failed to bring an accused prisoner to trial within 180 days of his demand for same. As in the instant ease, the court below refused to quash the indictments against him. In this posture, the accused prisoner appealed to the Supreme Court prior to trial. The Supreme Court reversed the lower court and stat*65ed: “The simple truth, is that the district attorney, acting on Ms own, failed to call the indictments for trial. Since the statute was not complied with, the court lost jurisdiction to try the indictments and, under the clear mandate of the statute, the indictments must be dismissed .... The court below in refusing dismissal of the indictments, also placed great stress upon the fact that the district attorney did not wilfully delay the trial. This, of course, is not controlling, nor a valid excuse for noncomplianee with the provisions of the statute.” 416 Pa. at 437.
Accordingly, the lower court in the instant case should have quashed the indictments with prejudice against the petitioner.

 Mr. Justice Eageh’s opinion, which is of federal constitutional dimension, speaks only for two Justices, Mr. Justice Eagen and Mr. Justice O’Brien. Mr. Justice Pomerot concurred in the result in Bmiter, and Mr. Chief Justice Bell dissented. Mr. Justice Cohen, having died before Bunter was handed down, did not participate in the decision of the case. Mr. Justice Jones and Mr. Justice Roberts did not participate in either the consideration or the decision of the case. Accordingly, Mr. Chief Justice Bell’s statement for a five man Court in Commonwealth v. Cooper, 444 Pa. 122, 278 A. 2d 895 (1971), is particularly apposite. There, the Chief Justice explicitly restated the law as set forth in Commonwealth v. Little, 432 Pa. 256, 248 A. 2d 32 (1968), and Commonwealth v. Silverman, 442 Pa. 211, 275 A. 2d 308 (1971), that where the recorded opinion does not express the views of a majority of the Court, the *61opinion is “not decisional” and “cannot be a precedent covered by the stare decisis rule”.

 See also the discussion in Note, Developments in the Law Equal Protection, supra at 1136-1137, relating to the proper considerations in determining whether to strike down a statute or broaden the same, if on its face it fails to provide constitutionally required equal protection.