412 Pa. 398 | Pa. | 1963
Opinion by
Alberti was incarcerated in Allegheny County following a verdict of the Coroner’s Jury that he be held to await the action of the Grand Jury on a charge of murder. He thereupon filed in the Common Pleas Court a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, asking
Each party relies upon §14 of Article I, of the Constitution of our Commonwealth, which pertinently provides: “All prisoners shall be bailable by sufficient sureties, unless for capital offenses when the proof is evident or presumption great; . . . .”
. This case raises several very important questions. There are no appellate decisions construing this Constitutional provision but it has been considered in the county court cases found in the footnote.
The practice followed in the present case and in a number of lower Court cases of deciding this very important question on the basis of the testimony presented at a coroner’s inquest is condemned and is no longer to be followed. In application for bail in a homicide case, a decision should be made on the basis of the testimony which is presented by the Commonwealth at that hearing, and, of course, under the pertinent tests hereinabove set forth.
The case is remanded to the lower Court for the taking of testimony and an Order based thereon.
Commonwealth ex rel. Chauncey and, Nixon v. Keeper of the Prison, 2 Ashm. 227, 234 (Philadelphia County, 1838); Commonwealth v. Lemley, 10 P. L. J. 122 (Greene County, 1862) ; Commonwealth ex rel. v. Manley, 60 Pa. D. & C. 194 (Lackawanna County, 1947) ; Commonwealth v. Scarsellato, 35 Wash. 234 (1955) ; contra, Commonwealth ex rel. Condello v. Ingham, 54 Pa. D. & C. 253 (Lawrence County, 1945).
See particularly the opinion of President Judge Kino in Commonwealth ex rel. Chauncey and Nixon v. Keeper of the Prison, 2 Ashm., supra, 227, 234.