Court Opinion

ID: 9649799
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:09:45.792549+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:22:27.719247
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Price, J.:
I respectfully dissent. As the majority notes, this Court has already recognized that: “... the investigating grand jury and the indicting grand jury are separate legal bodies. Although both may have considered the same alleged crimes involving the same individuals, their proceedings, deliberations, and presentments are distinct. Extraneous matters affecting one may not influence the other, and irregularities before one are not always present in the other; the two bodies are unrelated in this respect.” Commonwealth v. Evans, 190 Pa. Superior Ct. 179, 198, 154 A.2d 57, 69 (1959), cert. denied, 364 U.S. 899 (1960), rehearing denied, 364 U.S. 939 (1961). Thus, we have concluded that a motion to quash an indictment should be denied unless it is shown that the indictment by the regular grand jury was tainted by the irregularity alleged to have affected the investigating grand jury. Commonwealth v. Evans, supra. Accord, Commonwealth v. Gross, 172 Pa. Superior Ct. 85, 92 A.2d 251 (1952). Here, even if it is assumed, arguendo, that the lower court improperly replaced six members of the investigating grand jury, I do not believe that it can be concluded from the record before this Court that the indicting grand jury was affected in any way by such irregularity in the investigating grand jury. The majori*411ty fails to hold, however, that the “. . . objected-to-indictment cured the defects of the presentment upon which it was primarily based. ” (emphasis added) Instead, the majority speculatively concludes that “[i]t is clear from the specificity of the presentment that it could have provided the primary basis for the indictments.” There is no evidence that the deliberations and proceedings of the indicting grand jury were not full and complete. A conclusion that the indictment was primarily based upon the presentment is simply not supported by the record. Certainly, an indictment cannot be invalidated by a mere suspicion that a grand jury was actuated by improper influences. Commonwealth v. Gross, supra. “ ‘In the absence of proof to the contrary, the presumption is in favor of the legality and regularity of the proceedings before the grand jury.’ (citations omitted).” Commonwealth v. Gross, supra, at 91, 92 A.2d at 254. Therefore, I would affirm the order of the lower court denying the motion to quash the indictment.
Furthermore, I do not agree with the majority’s conclusion that the “presence on the grand jury of six persons who had not seen or heard witnesses who testified throughout the early phases of the investigation must be deemed inherently prejudicial” to the appellant. As the Court, in United States ex rel. McCann v. Thompson, 144 F.2d 604, 607 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 323 U.S. 790 (1944), stated:
“Since all the evidence adduced before a grand jury — certainly when the accused does not appear — is aimed at proving guilt, the absence of some jurors during some part of the hearings will ordinarily merely weaken the prosecution’s case. If what the absentees actually hear is enough to satisfy them, there would seem to be no reason why they should not vote.”
This rationale is particularly applicable in view of Assistant Attorney General Tischler’s affidavit which avers that “[t]he vast preponderance of testimony and *412evidence pertaining to the charges contained in the ... Presentment ... was presented through live witnesses who appeared before the Grand Jury after January 15, 1975.” Assistant Attorney General Tischler also averred that he read to the Grand Jury the testimony of the appellant prior to January 15, 1975 which formed the basis of the Perjury and False Swearing charges. The testimony of witnesses appearing before March 10, 1975, and all exhibits, were made available to the Grand Jurors for their deliberations. Additionally, the Commonwealth presented an affidavit declaring that more than twelve members of the investigating grand jury as originally impaneled on January 9, 1974, voted in favor of the Presentment. These facts, largely ignored by the majority, clearly indicate that the substitution of the six jury members did not prejudice the appellant. If the presentment itself was not tainted by some prejudicial irregularity, I do not see how the indictment can be quashed on the basis of such presentment.
I would therefore affirm the order of the lower court denying the appellant’s motion to quash the indictment.