Court Opinion

ID: 9702681
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:20:58.384785+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:40.512147
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Chief Justice Bell :
The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States provides: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, . . Although this defendant had been incarcerated (in prison) in another State, for a crime committed in that State, the Majority Opinion provides for a remand to our lower Court for a determination of whether defendant was denied a speedy public trial. The Majority wisely attached a condition to the Order of remand, requiring defendant to prove that the delay in bringing him to trial was unreasonably imposed by the Commonwealth and was oppressive and prejudicial.
This question of the right to a speedy public trial has worried me for several years, especially because of the enormous backlog in Philadelphia of undisposed-of murder indictments and of other undisposed-of indictments for felonies. While considerable progress has been made by the District Attorney and the Courts of Common Pleas in reducing these backlogs, there are still, as of August 30, 1971, a total of 350 untried homicide indictments, which include 55 deferred cases. Not including the deferred cases, the range of time within which homicide cases come to trial after indictment, is from eight to sixteen, months, with the “average” length of time about ten months. There are also presently 5,000 additional untried criminal cases in Philadelphia.*
*426The aforesaid Constitutional provision for a speedy public trial is mandatory, but so is the Constitutional prohibitory mandate with respect to the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging of freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right to peaceably assemble as set forth in the First Amendment, or the defendant’s right of confrontation (set forth in the Sixth Amendment). Yet none of these mandated or guaranteed Constitutional rights is absolute! I believe we should and must approach and decide these Constitutional provisions and issues realistically, as has been done by the Supreme Court of the United States in the recent cases of Illinois v. Allen, 397 U.S. 337, Mayberry v. Pennsylvania, 400 U.S. 455, and previously in Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, and in Bloom v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 194. (See DeStefano v. Woods, 392 U.S. 631.)
The tidal wave of crime which is sweeping our Country has made a realistic interpretation an imperative necessity. On this basis and for these reasons, I disagree with the Majority Opinion and must dissent.

 As of August 31, 1971, there was a total of 10,990' civil cases at issue and ready for trial (including both jury and nonjury *426cases). The.average length of time from the certificate of readiness to trial in a civil jury case is 46.8 months, and in a nonjury case 18 months or less.