171 Pa. Super. 362 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1952
Opinion by
These two appeals, Nos. 31 and 89, October Term, 1952, are from adjudications and sentences for con
Appellant appeared before a special investigating grand jury (March, 1951) which had been charged by Judge Edwin O. Lewis of the Court of Quarter Sessions of Philadelphia County under prescribed limitations. A petition of the District Attorney of Philadelphia County had been presented to the Judges of the Court of Quarter Sessions of the County of Philadelphia setting forth matters which, it was averred, gravely affected the public welfare, so that a thorough and complete investigation by a grand jury was required. The purpose of the grand jury investigation, as the court charged, was to investigate conditions within the county relating to an alliance said to exist between police and other public officials and criminals engaged in the operation of lotteries and other forms of gambling, such relationship being maintained through bribery and corrupt solicitation. Judge Lewis charged this grand jury on March 22, 1951, it being the same as that before which another witness refused to testify. We shall not repeat the questions decided in that appeal (Com. v. Butler, 171 Pa. Superior Ct. 350, 90 A. 2d 838).
On several occasions appellant, when before the grand jury, had refused to answer questions asked by the assistant district attorney in charge of the grand jury investigation; he refused upon the advice of his counsel and claimed privilege against self-incrimination under Article I, §9, of the Constitution of Pennsylvania. The question which appellant refused to answer on September 5, 1951 (appeal No. 31), while first appearing before the grand jury was the following: “Did you ever pay to anybody, to be given to any person employed by the City or County of Philadelphia, any money to influence him in the performance of his
Article III, §32, of the Constitution of Pennsylvania provides as follows: “Any person may be compelled to testify in any lawful investigation or judicial proceeding against any person who may be charged with having committed the offence of bribery or corrupt solicitation, or practices of solicitation, and shall not be permitted to withhold his testimony upon the ground that it may criminate himself or subject him to public infamy; but such testimony shall not afterwards be used against him in any judicial proceeding, except for perjury in giving such testimony, and any person convicted of either of the offences aforesaid shall, as part of the punishment therefor, be disqualified from holding any office or position of honor, trust or profit in this Commonwealth.”
It is argued on behalf of appellant that the question propounded was too broad, and that the payment concerning which inquiry is made must be to a named person in order that appellant shall be required to
We are not impressed with appellant’s contention that he was deprived of due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution on the ground that Article III, §32, of the Constitution of Pennsylvania does not insure due process of law as provided by the Fourteenth Amendment. The prohibition against self-incrimination contained in Article Y of Amendments to the Federal Constitution is not obligatory upon the governments of the several states or their judicial establishment, and regulates the procedure of the Federal courts only. Ensign v. Pennsylvania, 227 U. S. 592, 33 S. Ct. 321, 57 L. Ed. 658, 661. We have said that a statute may not limit the privilege against self:incrimination as given in Article I, §9, of the Constitution of Pennsylvania which is a similar prohibition to that in the Federal Constitution (Com. v. Frank, 159 Pa. Superior Ct. 271, 48 A. 2d 10); but Article III, §32, of the former restricts only the use of the testimony he was compelled to give, and does not confer immunity from prosecution for an offense in relation to which he was compelled to testify. “No one pretends that sec. 32, art. Ill, is not valid and enforceable, and could not do so without ignoring or denying effect to the decisions in Com. v. Gibbons, 9 Pa. Superior Ct. 527, affirmed on appeal in Kelly’s Contested Election, 200 Pa. 430 [50 A. 248], and without asserting also that exemption from compulsory self incrimination is a natural right, or a right secured by the federal constitution, which a state con
We have no doubt whatsoever that appellant was obliged to testify in this grand jury investigation which concerned bribery and corrupt solicitation. Com. v. Bell, supra, 145 Pa. 374, 22 A. 641. And the fact that at the time he was called to testify before the grand jury he was a defendant and under indictment on a lottery charge did not excuse him from testifying under Article III, §32.
In the court below counsel for appellant stated that he did not question the lawfulness of the grand jury investigation. On this appeal, however, he contends that the grand jury investigation here involved was not a lawful investigation (1) as the district attorney’s petition was legally insufficient to justify the summoning of a special grand jury, and (2) as the scope of the grand jury investigation went beyond inquiry into bribery and corrupt solicitation. Consequently, it is
The sentence for contempt in appeal No. 31 was imposed by the court below on September 12,1951. Subsequently, on December 11, 1951, appellant was adjudged in contempt for the second time (appeal No. 89) by the same court for his refusal to answer other questions before the same special investigating grand jury. In the interim appellant had made certain voluntary statements to the members of the district attor: ney’s staff relative to a corrupt alliance between gamblers and police officials. These statements were made in private under an agreement between the district attorney and counsel for appellant.
After an extended discussion with counsel for appellant and the assistant district attorney, the court below ruled (1) that appellant waived his privilege against self-incrimination by reason of his voluntary
The Commonwealth in its brief concedes that the judgment and sentence (No. 89, October Term, 1952) should be reversed.
It is unnecessary for us to pass upon other questions which have been argued on this appeal.
In appeal No. 31, October Term, 1952, judgment and sentence are affirmed, and the record is remitted to the court below, and it is ordered that the defendant, Harry W. Haines, appear in the court below at such time as he may there be called, to the end that the sentence of the court pronounced against him on September 12, 1951, for contempt be fully executed.
In appeal No. 89, October Term, 1952, judgment and sentence of December 11, 1951, are reversed, and defendant is discharged.
In Manko Appeal, 168 Pa. Superior Ct. 177, 77 A. 2d 700, appellants, by name, were accused of crime in the petition of the Attorney General for the summoning of a special investigating grand jury to inquire concerning the defrauding of the City of Pittsburgh, and the judgments were reversed. In Com. v. Bane, 39 Pa. D. & C. 664, the defendants were specifically accused of crime in a petition for a special grand jury to investigate the alleged crime, and the indictments were quashed. Neither of these cases involves Article III, §32, of the Constitution of Pennsylvania.
See Com. v. Bell, 145 Pa. 374, 387, 22 A. 641.