Court Opinion

ID: 9763551
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:49:02.720455+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:57:26.747611
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Chiee Justice Jones :
I would affirm the order of the Superior Court.
Whether a writ of habeas corpus can be availed of, in certain extraordinary circumstances, to nullify or set aside (prior to a preliminary hearing) the arrest of an accused made pursuant to a valid warrant issued upon a sufficient information before a justice of the peace, alderman or magistrate, seems to me presently unnecessary to consider or decide. I therefore purposely refrain from expressing any opinion in such regard. Nor, by dissenting, am I to be considered as condoning either the motives or the conduct of those responsible for the institution of the assailed prosecution. The facts are fully and fairly set forth in the opinion for the court.
My difference with the majority stems from the fact that, in my opinion, Levine’s arrest did not subject him to such extraordinarily harmful circumstances as to justify an extension of the unusual relief he sought, even assuming the court possessed requisite power in the premises. Realistically, the relator was not likely to endure any greater harm than any other wrongfully arrested person suffers when the illy-advised prosecution is permitted to proceed to final determination in ordinary course. Levine was not a candidate for public office at the imminent municipal election but was merely an active supporter of a nominee to whose candidacy the instigator of the belated prosecution of the relator was openly hostile.
*288As I see it, this court’s present decision approves an extension of the writ of habeas corpus beyond its héretofore recognized, bounds and threatens to introduce a practice that may be used to impede, if not to thwart, orderly and expeditious exercise of the criminal process. The majority’s caution that “We do not intend in this opinion to endorse any generalized application, through habeas corpus or otherwise, to a court to stay warrants of arrest when issued” may well prove ineffectual to stem the efforts of those who will attempt nonetheless to block criminal prosecutions; from which attempts, even though ultimately abortive, much unwarranted litigation is likely to ensue.
The hearing judge appears to have proceeded upon the assumption that the provisions of the Act of July 1, 1937, P. L. 2664, were applicable to the relator’s petition. However, the procedure prescribed by that Act for testing the legality of the proceedings or the sufficiency of the evidence, as a result whereof the accused stands committed, does not become available until after the hearing at which the accused has been committed. The majority opinion expressly recognizes that the Act of 1937 is not applicable to the facts of this case.
There is a still further important aspect of the relator’s status which does not appear to have been thoroughly litigated and determined, i.e., as to whether he was under actual physical custody or restraint when he sought release from his arrest. The habeas corpus Act of February 18, 1785, 2 Sm. L. 275 (12 PS §§1871, 1873, 1879-1891, inc.), which was a re-enactment of the habeas corpus act of 31 Car. 2, c 2, with several added sections not material to criminal matter, contemplates the actual physical restraint , of a relator as a prerequisite to his deliverance pursuant to a writ of habeas corpus. See Respublica v. Arnold et al., 3 Yeates 263, *289265-266 (1801), which was cited with approval in Wales v. Whitney, 114 U. S. 564, 573, and Stallings v. Splain, 253 U. S. 339, 343; see also Commonwealth v. Green, 185 Pa. 641, 647-648, 40 A. 96, and Commonwealth ex rel. Maisels v. Baldi, 172 Pa. Superior Ct. 19, 21, 92 A. 2d 257, where it was correctly said to be “well settled that a person out on bail is not so restrained of his liberty as to be entitled to a writ of habeas corpus.” It is. also interesting to note that the Act of 1937, supra,. likewise contemplates that its provisions shall be available only to those who are suffering actual physical restraint. By the very terms of the Act, it is “the prisoner” who may be discharged upon a proper showing in the premises; and, in legal parlance, a “prisoner” is “One held in confinement against his will”. Nor may an accused create a restraint in order to seek enlargement upon a writ of habeas corpus. For example, a relator, who had been admitted to bail but thereafter surrendered himself to the sheriff, thus vacating the bail, lacked standing to petition for a writ for the reason that his physical restraint had been self-created. Commonwealth v. Green, supra. By like token, an accused at. large on his own recognizance is not entitled to release on a writ of habeas corpus. The physical restraint requisite to the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus must be actual and not merely constructive or fictional..