Court Opinion

ID: 9759762
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:27:12.023664+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:06:06.993911
License: Public Domain

POMEROY, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
By entertaining the present appeal at No. 121 the Court, in my judgment, turns Pennsylvania appellate jurisprudence in criminal cases on its head, and seriously compromises the integrity of the appellate process. The salutary procedures of post-conviction relief have been misapplied so as to wipe out, by the well-meaning but misguided order of a common pleas judge, a decision of and opinions previously filed by this Court. More specifically, this Court has been told by the common pleas court — which the majority now says had the right so to do — that the legal counsel who represented the defendant in his earlier appeal to this Court was ineffective in that representation, and that therefore the trial court is granting the defendant the right to file a new direct appeal, nunc pro tunc, from the judgments of sentence. This unprecedented procedure produces, moreover, the bizarre spectacle of the defendant being granted by the trial court something he had previously been twice denied by this Court, viz., a reargument of his direct appeal. Thus by the stroke of the pen of a court of inferi- or jurisdiction is prior appellate action in the same case rendered nugatory.
As Mr. Justice ROBERTS has well said in a similar context, “It is evident that the orderly administration of justice requires that a criminal controversy, like any other litigation, [must] some day come to an end.” Commonwealth v. Slavik, 449 Pa. 424, 432, 297 A.2d 920, 924 (1972). See also Commonwealth v. Beecham, 450 Pa. 197, 299 A.2d 651 (1973). By refusing to declare that this litigation came to an end at least as long ago as 1973, the Court ignores its own wise teaching. It is for this reason, more fully explicated below, that I must dissent from part I of the Court’s opinion. If, however, I *179were to allow the direct appeal from the judgment of sentence, I would affirm, as the Court does. I also agree that appeal from the post-conviction court’s order is without merit.
1. Procedural Background
A somewhat more detailed recital of the relevant history of the case is necessary to an understanding of the jurisprudential issue. After John Sullivan had been convicted by a jury in 1967 of two counts of murder in the first degree for the deaths by shooting of John Gorey and Rita Janda, post-trial motions were filed and denied by a court en banc.1 A direct appeal to this Court was then taken. With two exceptions, the various points asserted as reasons for a new trial in the trial court were reasserted on appeal,2 and the lack of sufficient evidence to convict was reasserted as ground for arresting the judgment. These several contentions were considered by this Court and dealt with in detail in the opinion in support of the order affirming the judgments of sentence. See Commonwealth v. Sullivan, 446 Pa. 419, 286 A.2d 898 (1969).3
*180Appellant, through new counsel (who continues to represent him), then filed a petition for reargument.4 This petition identified some eight respects in which the Court (i. e., the opinion in support of affirmance) had allegedly misunderstood the evidence or misapplied the law. In a concluding paragraph it was suggested that the evidence of the Commonwealth “is not as a matter of law sufficient to sustain a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree.” These reasons advanced for reargument were premised on two introductory averments in the petition: (1) that the judgments were affirmed by an evenly divided Court; and (2) that the docket “does not reflect the filing of a brief nor the argument of his cases by prior counsel on appellant’s behalf.” After due consideration, the motion was denied by this Court.
Almost a year later there was presented on appellant’s behalf a pleading entitled “Petition for Leave to File Petition for Reconsideration of Petition for Reargument.” In this petition it was asserted again that “no brief was ever filed in support of appellant’s appeal” and that no oral argument was made, prior counsel having made admissions to this effect. The division of the court with respect to affirming the judgments was again noted, and the contention was advanced, citing Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188, 98 S.Ct. 375, 34 L.Ed.2d 401 (1972), which had just been decided, that this division was a denial of appellant’s right of appeal as guaranteed by the Constitution of Pennsylvania, and, when coupled with the failure to file a brief or make argument, amounted to a denial of due process of law. This petition was answered by the Commonwealth and after consideration was denied by this Court March 6, 1973.5
*181Having failed in two attempts in this Court for relief based on the fact that the Court had been evenly divided in its decision and the charge that no briefs or argument had been made in this Court, appellant then filed a petition with the court of common pleas seeking relief under the Post Conviction Hearing Act.6 The petition again set forth the failure of counsel to file a brief or to make oral argument on appeal and the fact that the decision of this Court was by a vote of three to three, and repeated the charge that defendant’s right of appeal had thus been denied him. Numerous other alleged errors of former counsel at trial, together with errors of the trial court, were also set forth as grounds for relief.7
After the taking of extensive testimony,8 the learned hearing judge, noting that this Court had divided evenly, *182concluded that “ [o] ral argument might have persuaded a different decision.” The hearing judge further observed that the “defendant was entitled to a carefully prepared brief by his counsel so that his argument could be fully presented” and found that “it does not appear that that was done.”9 The hearing court then found as a fact that in these respects there was ineffective assistance of counsel, and thereupon entered its order whereby defendant was “granted leave, nunc pro tunc, to refile an appeal to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and to file briefs and present oral argument thereon.” 10
*1832. Scope of the Post Conviction Hearing Act
The basic error of the court below and of this Court, as I see it, lies in a misconception of the scope and proper function of the Post-Conviction Hearing Act. That Act was designed to allow a defendant to assert after trial and conviction the existence of some egregious fault or flaw in the prior proceedings which denied him the benefits of a fair trial and thus deprived him of due process of law or equal protection of the laws or both. PCHA procedure was intended to take the place in Pennsylvania of petitions for writs of habeas corpus, coram nobis and the like, following conviction. Act of January 25, 1966, P.L. (1965) 1580, §§ 2, 3, 19 P.S. §§ 1180-2, 3.
One of the situations frequently recurring in PCHA proceedings is the inability of the Commonwealth to prove that a defendant-petitioner has been advised of his right to file post-trial motions, Commonwealth v. Norman, 456 Pa. 252, 318 A.2d 351 (1974), of his right to appeal the judgments of sentence against him, Commonwealth v. Mumford, 430 Pa. 451, 243 A.2d 440 (1968), and of his right, if indigent, to the services of legal counsel on appeal without cost to himself, Commonwealth v. Sprangle, 442 Pa. 271, 275 A.2d 114 (1971); Douglas v. California, 372 U.S. 353, 83 S.Ct. 814, 9 L.Ed.2d 811 (1963). In such cases the post-conviction court recognizes the right of the defendant to an appeal, and to that end allows the filing and arguing of post-trial motions with the same effect as though this had been done in a timely fashion (“nunc pro tunc”).11
That, of course, was not the situation here, as Sullivan concedes. Appellant’s brief at Nos. 121 and 122, pp. 9-10. Nor did the lower court grant the right to file post-trial motions nunc pro tunc, for such motions had long since been filed and denied. It purported to grant, in*184stead, a nunc pro tunc appeal, apparently accepting defendant’s contention that his purported appeal of 1969 was not an appeal after all because counsel’s brief had not been “carefully prepared” and oral argument had been waived.12 Whether legal services of counsel for a criminal appellant in this Court have been so slip-shod, so careless, so faulty as to add up to ineffectiveness is and must be for this Court, and no other court, to determine.13 John Sullivan was correct in seeking relief in this Court on the theory of ineffective counsel, first in his reargument petition and then more explicitly in the petition for reconsideration.14 This Court having denied *185relief, the court of common pleas should not have undertaken to hear the case at all insofar as the competence of appellate counsel was concerned. Its action in so doing, while undoubtedly taken with the best of intention, was clearly ultra vires under the circumstances.15
3. The claim of ineffectiveness of appellate counsel
The claim that prior counsel’s failure to file a brief and to make oral argument entitles the defendant to a renewed presentation of his case to this Court was considered and rejected by this Court in 1973; it must surely now be considered res judicata.16 Because, however, the Court considers the matter anew and now reverses itself *186by affirming the post-conviction hearing court’s order, I address the question briefly on the merits.
(A) As previously indicáted, a brief was filed on appellant’s behalf. This is a fact of which we have personal, direct knowledge. We also know, from having studiously scrutinized the brief at the time of the prior appeal, that it was a good, lawyerlike brief. It consisted of 37 typewritten pages, the first five and one-half being devoted to a detailed recitation of the facts, the balance to legal argument. The headings of the argument portion of the brief are substantially as follows:
(1) Denial of preliminary hearing was error.
(2) Exclusion of jurors who had scruples against capital punishment was error.
(3) Error was committed in admitting into evidence the statements of an alleged co-conspirator.
(4) The evidence was insufficient, as a matter of law, to sustain the convictions.
(5) Error was committed in allowing color slides of the bodies of the victims to be introduced into evidence.
(6) The lower court erred in refusing to quash the indictment.
These are precisely the topics which were dealt with, with some rearrangement, in the opinion in support of affirmance. See Commonwealth v. Sullivan, 446 Pa. 419 286 A.2d 898 (1969). Indeed, these are the same arguments that are dealt with in the new brief now before us on Sullivan’s behalf in his direct appeal at No. 121 except that the first two points of the original brief have been dropped.17 The primary substantive difference be*187tween appellant’s original brief and the current one is that the latter includes citations to cases decided since 1970.
The court characterizes the brief of prior counsel as “highly unorthodox” because it failed to comply with our rules. (Opinion of the Court, ante 472 Pa. at 145, 371 A.2d at 476). It is true that the brief had no proper backer, one segment was triple-spaced and it lacked a statement of jurisdiction and of questions involved or a summary of argument.18 It is one thing to say that this was careless disregard of our rules relative to the formalities of constructing a brief; it is quite another thing to conclude, as does the majority, that this type of unorthodoxy equates with constitutional inadequacy. We are, unfortunately, treated to non-conforming briefs at session after session, but this does not mean that the content may not be sound, solid and effective advocacy. In my personal judgment, the brief here in issue was just that. The majority, however, like the court below, fails to examine the content of the brief and thus ignores substance while exalting form when it now holds the brief to be legally ineffective.19
*188(B) The other basis on which the PCHA hearing judge and this Court find ineffectiveness by prior counsel is the waiver of oral argument. I agree that it would have been preferable for counsel to make such an argument. While opinions of judges differ as to the value of such arguments, my own view is that, more often than not, they are helpful to the appellate court.20 But to say as much is not to suggest that absence of oral argument is apt to make a difference in the outcome of a case — especially a case that, due to a heavy backlog of cases awaiting disposition, cannot be decided for some time to come.21 That there was nothing unusual in Sullivan’s counsel having waived argument is shown by the fact that in the calendar year 1975, nineteen appeals from convictions of murder in the first degree were submitted to this Court on briefs; in the calendar year 1976, at least twenty-six such appeals were submitted on briefs. Moreover, in no appeals from orders rendered in PCHA proceedings do we permit oral argument except by special order of court, notwithstanding that all such cases appealed as of right to this Court involve felonious homicides. Pa.R.A.P. 2311(b), formerly Supreme Court Rule 71.
*189As to the reason oral argument was waived, Mr. Sullivan testified that Mr. Peruto, his counsel, thought the case should not be argued for political reasons and to avoid a presentation to this Court, in the presence of the families of the victims, of the unpleasant details of the assassination-type killings here involved. In a case where the evidence was circumstantial and a paramount issue was sufficiency, it is understandable that counsel could conclude, in his client’s best interest, that the less said about the factual details, the better.22 In any event, waiver of oral argument cannot be said as a matter of law to have rendered counsel constitutionally ineffective.23
To recapitulate, at No. 127, I would reverse the order of the court of common pleas granting Sullivan leave, nunc pro tunc, to refile a direct appeal to this Court as of November Term, 1966. Since, however, the majority of the Court affirms that order and considers the case anew on its merits at No. 121, I deem it appropriate to indicate my agreement with its conclusion that the judgment of sentence should be affirmed. The appeal of Sullivan from the post-conviction proceeding order at No. 122 is properly before the Court, and I concur in the affirmance of that order.
*190O’BRIEN, J., joins in this concurring and dissenting opinion.

. The court en banc consisted of Judge Barbieri, the trial judge, Judge Greenberg and Judge Bradley of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County. The court was unanimous in denying the motion in arrest of judgment; Judge Bradley noted his dissent from the order denying the motion for a new trial.

. On appeal no claim was made, as it had been post-trial, that the trial judge had erred in his charge to the jury or that the Commonwealth had concealed evidence favorable to the defendant.

. This opinion, authored by the present writer, was joined by Mr. Justice (now Chief Justice) JONES and Mr. Justice O’BRIEN. Mr. Chief Justice BELL and Mr. Justice EAGEN noted their dissents on the ground that the evidence was insufficient to convict. Mr. Justice ROBERTS wrote a dissenting opinion in which he expressed the view that the evidence was insufficient and that prejudicial error had been committed in allowing certain photographs to be introduced into evidence. The death of Mr. Justice COHEN before a decision of this Court was reached occasioned the equal division of the Court.

. The title of the petition was technically in error, since, as will be discussed infra, the case had originally been submitted to the Court on briefs, unaccompanied by oral argument.

. The basic holding of the majority, as justification for entertaining the instant appeal, is that the lower court was correct in finding that Sullivan’s earlier appellate counsel were ineffective, that *181this ineffectiveness denied Sullivan his right of appeal, and that the proper remedy for this is a new direct appeal. See Opinion of the Court, 472 Pa. at -, 371 A.2d at 476. Thus the result which the Court reaches, i. e., that this appeal properly lies, would be the same even had there been a majority vote in this Court for affirmance at the time of the first appeal. Consequently, the fact of even division in the earlier appeal is not here material and is properly not adverted to in the majority opinion, although it was a factor which weighed with the PCHA court. It may be noted in passing that this Court has recently held that an affirmance of a criminal conviction by an equally divided appellate court does not constitute “final litigation” within the meaning of § 4 of the Post Conviction Hearing Act, Act of January 25, 1966, P.L. (1965) 1580, § 4, 19 P.S. 1180-4, of issues otherwise cognizable under that Act. Commonwealth v. Rightnour, 469 Pa. 107, 364 A.2d 927 (1976).
The issues Sullivan raised on his prior direct appeal were not so cognizable, being of non-constitutional dimension.

. The original petition under the PCHA was filed October 30, 1973. An amended petition was filed on April 4, 1974. To each petition the District Attorney of Philadelphia County filed a responsive answer denying the material allegations.

. Sullivan asserts that the real relief being sought by the PCHA petition was not a new appeal to this Court but was the grant of a new trial. See brief of appellant at Nos. 121 and 122 at p. 10.

. Hearings were held on five days between April and August, 1974 before the Hon. Ethan Allen Doty, Administrative Judge. Among those who testified were Sullivan’s two trial counsel, the Hon. G. Fred DiBona, now a common pleas judge, and Charles *182Peruto, Esq., the Hon. Alexander Barbieri, the trial judge, two members of the staff of the district attorney, one of Sullivan’s alleged co-felons, and Sullivan himself.

. Judge Doty’s findings did not bear out the repeated charge that no brief had been filed on appellant’s behalf. Indeed, such an assertion was totally without foundation, and was apparently persisted in because the filing of the brief was not shown in the docket entries of the Prothonotary of this Court. Proper inquiry of members of this Court at an early stage would have laid this question to rest, if indeed verification of the filing of a brief were needed in light of note 1 of the opinion in support of affirmance, 446 Pa. at 419, 286 A.2d 898.

. It is this portion of the PCHA order from which the Commonwealth has appealed. The order also denied any other relief pur- • suant to the Post-Conviction Hearing Act for reasons indicated in the seven numbered paragraphs of the hearing judge’s opinion. From this portion of the order Sullivan has appealed. Four of the other claims for relief, namely, denial of opportunity to challenge the array of the grand jury, wrongful admission of color slides, admission of hearsay evidence, and want of sufficient evidence, were extensively dealt with in the opinion in support of the order of affirmance on the prior appeal. See 446 Pa. at 431-440, 286 A.2d 898. Judge Doty’s opinion states, however, that the photograph issue “can be re-considered” by this Court on reargument, and that on reargument also “there may be a full argument on the question of sufficiency of the evidence.” Errors in the trial judge’s charge to the jury were not considered by this Court on the prior appeal because not raised here, although they had been asserted in support of the new trial motion. See n. 2, supra. Nevertheless, the post-conviction Fearing judge stated in his opinion that the charge to the jury “is also a matter for argument before the Supreme Court.” The opinion similarly disposes in blanket fashion of other points not discussed in the opinion.

. See Commonwealth v. Faison, 437 Pa. 432, 436-7, n. 4, 264 A.2d 94 (1970).

. The hearing court took this action, moreover, with the knowledge that the very points on which he based his decision had been made to this Court in the petition for reargument and rejected. Whether the petition for reconsideration was also part of the record at the PCHA hearing is not clear.

. For cases in which this Court has held that counsel on appeal has failed to meet the standards of effective appellate representation, see Commonwealth v. Stone, 437 Pa. 496, 264 A.2d 406 (1970); Commonwealth v. Haywood, 436 Pa. 522, 261 A.2d 78 (1970); Commonwealth v. Stein, 436 Pa. 330, 260 A.2d 467 (1969); Commonwealth v. Trowery, 435 Pa. 586, 258 A.2d 499 (1969); Commonwealth v. Stancell, 435 Pa. 301, 256 A.2d 798 (1969). In each of those cases, we independently determined that the brief or petition for allowance of appeal filed was inadequate and remanded the case to the Superior Court for the filing of a proper brief or petition. Similarly, had we deemed the brief in this case to be so inadequate as to preclude effective review we would not have hesitated to require the filing of a proper brief.

. I cannot agree with the Court’s opinion (ante, 472 Pa. p. -, 371 A.2d p. 474) to the effect that a claim of denial of the constitutional right of a defendant to representation by competent counsel may be entertained only by a trial judge in a post-conviction hearing. While that forum is appropriate for most claims of ineffectiveness, nothing that I have seen indicates that the PCHA in Section 3(6), 19 P.S. § 1180-3(6), was meant to include appellate counsel in a case where counsel had purportedly finished his task. But see Commonwealth v. Murray, 452 Pa. 282, 305 A.2d 33 (1973). Nor do I agree that the “institutional capability” (opinion of the Court, ante, pp. 474, 475) of this Court inhibits it from passing upon the adequacy of performance to which it and not the lower court or even the client, is witness. If factual determinations are involved relative to matters not of record nor within the direct knowledge of the appellate court, that may be accomplished in a proper case by reference to a master or to a *185trial court to perform a master’s function. Far from being a “drastically new procedure,” as the Court’s opinion states, ante at 474, this is the customary manner for such matters to be handled when they arise. See, e. g., Commonwealth v. Twiggs, 460 Pa. 105, 331 A.2d 440 (1975); Commonwealth v. Jackson, 457 Pa. 237, 324 A.2d 350 (1974); Commonwealth v. Dupree, 442 Pa. 219, 275 A.2d 326 (1971). Thus in the case at bar Judge Doty’s finding of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel should be viewed as advisory only, if it is to be considered at all.

. This is not to suggest that the post-conviction court may not in a proper case deal with a claim of ineffectiveness of appellate counsel. For example, where an issue is tendered in a PCHA proceeding which was not raised on a prior appeal, the hearing court may have to determine whether there exist “extraordinary circumstances,” such as ineffectiveness of counsel, which would avoid a bar of waiver of any issue not actually raised on direct appeal. See PCHA I 4(b), 19 P.S. § 1180-4; Commonwealth v. Wideman, 453 Pa. 119, 306 A.2d 894 (1973); Commonwealth v. Hill, 450 Pa. 477, 301 A.2d 587 (1973).

. Commonwealth v. Cheeks, 429 Pa. 89, 239 A.2d 793 (1968), cited by the majority at 476, is inapposite to the peculiar facts of this case. In this case we were presented not only with a timely petition for reargument but also, as stated above, with another petition for reconsideration, filed approximately a year later. That petition squarely raised the issues of the ineffectiveness of appellate counsel and the denial of Sullivan’s right of appeal. The Commonwealth filed an extensive answer and this Court denied relief. The only possible interpretation of our order at that time is that the Court did not accept the appellant’s arguments. That is, we were not persuaded that prior counsel had been ineffective and therefore did not believe that Sullivan’s appeal rights had been denied.

. The remainder of Sullivan’s present brief (which is concerned with the appeal at No. 122 from denial of post-conviction relief) is devoted to five claims of ineffectiveness of trial counsel, claims which were denied by Judge Doty in the post-conviction proceeding. These points, of course, could not have been presented by original appellate counsel, who were also trial counsel. They *187were thus proper subjects of a PCHA petition, Commonwealth v. Dancer, 460 Pa. 95, 331 A.2d 435 (1975), and are now properly before us in the appeal at No. 122. I agree with the Court in its affirmance of denial of post-conviction relief.

. The brief was prepared by Judge DiBona as a rough draft before he went on the bench and sent by him to his former co-counsel, Mr. Peruto, thereafter. The record is unclear as to who filed it with the Supreme Court, although Mr. Peruto assumed “someone in my office might have done something about it.” N. T. 285a. The Deputy District Attorney, James D. Crawford, Esq., testified that he received his copy of the brief from Mr. Peruto’s office; also that he was “with Mr. Peruto personally in the Supreme Court Prothonotary’s office when they [the briefs of the parties] were filed, or when they had been filed. I don’t know whether they were filed at that date or filed a day or two before.” The attorneys were in the prothonotary’s office to arrange for the submission of the case on briefs. The date was on or about November 26, 1969. [N.T. 454a].

. The opinion of the Court states in wholly conclusory fashion (n. 10, 472 Pa. p. 146, 371 A.2d p. 476 of its opinion, supra) that *188the brief “did not represent the studied exposition of the difficult and complex issues raised in this trial”. I flatly disagree. The only testimony in the post-conviction record as to the quality of the brief filed on appellant’s behalf by his prior counsel, came from James D. Crawford, Esq., the Deputy District Attorney, who was accepted as an expert in appellate practice [452a]. Mr. Crawford characterized the brief as “excellent” [456a, 457a].

. Restrictions on oral argument are being frequently imposed by appellate courts because of their heavy workloads, a condition suffered by each of the three appellate courts of this Commonwealth. See, e. g., the new Rule 12(6) of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, as amended November 18, 1974.

. This Court has always permitted oral arguments to be waived in the first instance, see Pa.R.A.P. 2311(a) formerly Supreme Court Rule 32, but will order argument in a submitted case where it feels that it would be particularly helpful; it may even order reargument in a case already once argued in order to obtain further ' clarification.

. The Third Circuit’s Internal Operating Procedure B.3, entitled Suggested Criteria for application of Rule 12(6), states in part:
“A. Experience discloses that judges usually vote to eliminate oral argument: .
(3) Where the sole issue is sufficiency of the evidence, the adequacy of jury instruction or rulings as to admissibility of evidence and the briefs make adequate reference to the record and the state of the record will determine the outcome.” 19 U.S.Sup.Ct.Digest, L.Ed. (1975 Cum.Supp. — Court Rules at 24).

. I note with interest the following statement by present counsel for Mr. Sullivan at the conclusion of the post-conviction proceedings before Judge Doty:
“Ms. Gelb (addressing the court): We consulted with Mr. Sullivan and he has agreed that there is no need for oral argument. We will submit on briefs.” [N.T. 612a],