224 Pa. Super. 461 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1973
Opinion by
Appellant Walter Clay was convicted of aggravated robbery by Judge John A. Cherry, specially presiding, sitting without a jury in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia. Immediately after finding appellant guilty, Judge Cherry deferred sentencing pending the filing of post-trial motions and the receipt of a pre-sentence investigation. Appellant was then released on his pre-trial bail pending sentencing. When appellant appeared for sentencing some six months later, it was not Judge Cherry, but rather Judge Ethan Allen Doty, who sentenced him.
Appellant attacks this substitution of judges at sentencing and seeks a re-sentencing. Ordinarily, both parties to a criminal proceeding are entitled to have the same judge preside over the receipt of evidence and sentencing.
“[T]he practice of substituting judges to hear motions for a new trial, suspending of imposing sentence should be confined solely to cases of necessity. The parties to the litigation, which includes the Commonwealth, ordinarily possess an undoubted right to have the judge who heard the evidence and witnessed all
Nothing in the record indicates the reasons for Judge Cherry’s inability to preside at appellant’s sentencing with the resultant substitution of judges. The fact that he may have been in his home county at the time of sentencing does not rise to the level of “compelling” or “unavoidable” circumstances which would create the “imperative necessity” for a substitution of judges, particularly where the defendant is free on bail pending sentencing. We see no reason why a judge who can travel to a distant county to preside specially at trial cannot also return for sentencing.
In the instant case, however, appellant’s counsel, as admitted in appellant’s brief, failed to object to the substitution of judges at sentencing. We deem this to
The judgment of sentence is affirmed.