This is an automatic direct appeal to the Supreme Court from the judgment of sentence of death imposed upon appellant, 1 Gary Lee Starr, by the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, Criminal Division. For the reasons set forth below, we vacate the trial court’s judgment of sentence and remand the matter to the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas for a new trial.
Before appellant’s trial in this matter, Dr. Robert Wettstein of the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic conducted three psychiatric interviews with appellant and interviews with his family and friends. After a battery of neuropsychological and neurolaboratory testing, Dr. Wettstein determined that appellant was mentally competent to stand trial. Later, motions were filed with the Honorable Robert E. Dauer of the Alleghеny County Court of Common Pleas in which appellant waived his right to the assistance of counsel at trial and asserted his right to represent himself at trial. Following a hearing and a thoroughly probing colloquy, the trial court permitted appellant to proceed pro se and the Allegheny County Public Defender’s Office was directed to act as standby counsel.
Later, the case was transferred to the Honorable Jeffrey A. Manning, also of the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, and further pre-trial motions were filed. Following a hearing, each motion was denied. However, in addition to denying these motions, Judge Manning revoked Judge Dauer’s earlier order granting appellant the right to self-representation and the court then ordered the Public Defender’s Office to assume control оf appellant’s defense at trial and at sentencing. Defense counsel then moved for a continuance, which the court denied. In accordance with the second trial court’s order, the Public Defender’s Office proceeded with representation of appellant at trial.
The sole issue for our consideration is whether the second trial court erred when it revoked appellant’s right to represent himself by rescinding the first trial court’s June 22, 1988, ruling accepting appellant’s waiver of counsel.
5
At the outset, this Court has long recognized that judges of coordinate jurisdiction sitting in the same case should not overrule each others’ decisions.
See, e.g., Okkerse v. Howe,
In our view, this coordinate jurisdiction rule falls squarely within the ambit of a generalized expression of the “law of the case” doctrine. This doctrine refers to a family of rules which embody the concept that a court involved in the later phases of a litigated matter should not reopen questions decided by another judge of that same court or by a higher court in the earlier phases of the matter. See 21 C.J.S. Courts § 149a; 5 Am.Jur.2d Appeal and Error § 744. Among the related but distinct rules which make up the law of the case doctrine are that: (1) upon remand for further proceedings, a trial court may not alter the resolution of a legal question previously decided by the appellate court in the matter;' (2) upon a second appeal, an appellate court may not alter the resolution of a legal question previously decided by the same appellate court; and (3) upon transfer of a matter between trial judges of coordinate jurisdiction, the transferee trial court may not alter the resolution of a legal question previously decided by the transferor trial court. See Joan Steinman, Law of the Case: A Judicial Puzzle in Consolidated and Transferred Cases and in Multidistrict Litigation, 135 U.Pa. L.Rev. 595, 602 (1987) (citing A. Vestal, Law of the Case: Single-Suit Preclusion, 12 Utah L.Rev. 1,1-A (1967)) {hereinafter “Judicial Puzzle ”).
The various rules which make up the law of the case doctrine serve not only to promote the goal of judicial economy (as does the coordinate jurisdiction rule) but also operate (1) to protect the settled expectations оf the parties; (2) to insure uniformity of decisions; (3) to maintain consistency during the course of a single case; (4) to effectuate the proper and streamlined administration of justice; and (5) to bring litigation to an end. 21 C.J.S. Courts § 149a;
Judicial Puzzle
at 604-605. In our view, these considerations should have weighed heavily on the second trial court’s reconsideration of the first trial court’s order which granted appellant’s right to represent himself. The various policies which motivated the
Further, the limitations on the law of the case doctrine and on the coordinate jurisdiction rule are virtually identical, thereby again suggesting that the Pennsylvania coordinate jurisdiction rule may be properly cоnsidered as part of the family of rules making up the law of the case doctrine. Departure from either of these principles is allowed only in exceptional circumstances such as where there has been an
However, notwithstanding the numerous similarities between the law of the case doctrine and the coordinate jurisdiction rule, the traditional application of the law of the case doctrine in Pennsylvania jurisprudence has been limited to only those cases in which an appellate court has considered and decided a question submitted to it upon appeal
(see, e.g., Brown’s Estate,
Accordingly, by suggesting that this Court will henceforth extend its understanding of the law of the case doctrine to include the concepts embodied not only by the traditional Pennsylvania formulation of that principle but by the coordinate jurisdiction rule as well, we recognize the seeming contrast this creates in our caselaw. However, we feel that although our traditional formulation of the law of the case doctrine comports with the origins and early development of the doctrine as expressed in Foxworthy, supra, our extension today of the law of the case doctrine to include the coordinate jurisdiction rule amounts to nothing more than a distinction withоut a difference. The purposes served by both rules and the limitations regulating both rales are virtually identical; the integration of both rules, then, does not represent any profound departure from the precedential mandate of our traditional formulation of the law of the case doctrine.
Further, we note that in extending the law of the case doctrine to include the coordinate jurisdiction rule we conform the Pennsylvania formulation of that doctrine to that of the federal courts and of the courts of many of our sister states.
See, e.g., Christianson v. Colt Industries Operating Corp.,
Applying this more comprehensive rule to the instant facts, on June 22, 1988, the trial court that first heard appellant’s motion to proceed
pro se
conducted a thorough colloquy into whether appellant knowingly and voluntarily waived his right to the assistance of counsel at trial. Based on its examination, the first trial court admonished appellant that the choice to proceed
pro se
was unwise; nonetheless, satisfied that appellant knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently waived his right to counsel, it ordered that appellant be permitted to represent himself, that the Public Defender’s Office withdraw as appellant’s counsеl, and that the Public Defender’s Office act as
On August 15, 1988, the trial court to which the matter was transferred reopened the first trial court’s order that appellant be allowed to represent himself at trial, conducted its own colloquy on the question of appellant’s understanding of his waiver of the right to counsel, and consequently revoked appellant’s right to proceed pro se on the basis that appellant could not intelligently waive the right to counsel because, inter alia, appellant “[did] not [express] what the Court considers an adequate reason to give up his constitutional right to have a competent attorney represent him.” Transcript of 8/15/88 at 60. The second trial court then appointed the attorneys from the Public Defender’s Office to thereafter assume control of appellant’s defense even though those attorneys admitted on record that they would not be prepared to proceed to trial by the scheduled trial date. Id. at 64-66.
The Commonwealth does not argue and our review of the record does not reveal any new evidence which would have permitted the second trial court, in accordance with the law of the case doctrine, to disturb the prior ruling of the first trial court, a court of coordinate jurisdiction, regarding appellant’s right to self-representation. Moreover, the Commonwealth does not assert and our review of the record does not reveal any substantive change in the relevant legal authority between the time the first trial court ruled upon appellant’s motion and the time the second trial court revisited the issue. Accordingly, the second trial court’s order vacating the first trial court’s order granting appellant’s right to proceed
pro se
represents an abuse of discretion as a matter of law.
See Brown, supra,
at
However, notwithstanding the foregoing analysis of the procedure by which the second trial court issued its order, we also find that, as a matter of substance, the second trial court denied appellant his constitutionally-guaranteed right to represent himself. A criminal defendant has a long-recognized constitutional right to dispense with counsel and to defend himself before the court.
Faretta v. California,
Before a defendant is permitted to proceed
pro se,
however, the defendant must first demonstrate that he knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently waives his constitutional right to the assistance of counsel.
Faretta, supra,
at 835,
Here, the second trial court, the prosecutor, and one of the attorneys representing the Office of the Public Defender each examined and cross-examined appellant regarding whether he understood his right to counsel and whether he understood the consequences of waiving that right.
See
Transcript of 8/15/88 at 23-50. Although this second colloquy was not as extensive as the colloquy the first trial court directed, the second trial court expressly referred to the transcript of the hearing at which the first trial court, the same prosecutor and the same attorney from the Public Defender’s Office had previously conducted a thorough colloquy and accepted appellant’s waiver of his right to counsel based on their collective determination that appellant understood his rights and understood the ramifications of his decision. Transcript of 8/15/88 at 23-24
0referring to
Transcript of 6/22/88 at 12-42). For example, at the first trial court’s colloquy, appellant was questioned about his familiarity with the different degrees of homicide, about the elements of the murder offense with which appellant was charged, about the evidence of aggravating
The remaining question, then, is whether it was error for the second trial court to determine that appellant, who had been adequately informed of the dangers and consequences of choosing self-representation, could not therefore intelligently waive his related right tо counsel because,
inter alia,
appellant “[did] not [express] what the Court considers an adequate reason to give up his constitutional right to have a competent attorney represent him.” Transcript of 8/15/88 at 60. As stated, both the Federal Constitution and the Pennsylvania Constitution require only that in order to validly assert the right to self-representation, a defendant’s waiver of the corollary right to counsel be knowing, intelligent and voluntary.
Faretta, supra,
In that regard, a consideration of the defendant’s best interests (i.e., that the defendant would be subject to less
[C]ourts should not manipulate the knowing and intelligent waiver standard in order to protect the best interests of the defendant. Otherwise, trial сourt judges could second guess not only the decision to waive the right to counsel, but also such matters as waivers of jury trial and other similar rights. This would shift the focus of these decisions away from self-determination and toward the trial court’s view of justice.
Randall B. Bateman, Comment, Federal and State Perspectives on a Criminal Defendant’s Right to Self-Representation, 20 J.Contemp.L. 77, 121 (1994).
Our trial courts are constrained to abide by a collective view of justice as expressed in our state constitution and in the federal constitution and in the opinions of this Court and of the United States Supreme Court. That collective view of justice includes the notion that although a defendant “may conduct his own defense ultimately to his own detriment, his choice [of self-representation] must be honored out of ‘that respect for the individual which is the lifeblood of the law.’ ”
Faretta, supra,
Furthermore, an evaluation of a criminal defendant’s technical legal knowledge and courtroom skill is not relevant to an assessment of his knowing and intelligent exercise of the right to defend himself.
Faretta, supra,
Finally, although the second trial court determined that appellant could not intelligently waive his right to counsel with regard to counsel’s assistance at trial, the court made other
First, in its written opinion on this issue, the sеcond trial court stated that appellant could not intelligently waive his right to counsel because “despite appointed counsels’ repeated advice to the contrary, [appellant] contacted one of the detectives who had been assigned to his case in order to make certain statements relating to a knife found at the scene of the crime” and there he “voluntarily made inculpatory statements ... [and then] filed a
pro se
motion to suppress that very statement.”
Commonwealth v. Starr,
49 Pa.D. & C.3d 144, 149 (Allegheny CCP, Aug. 18, 1988). The court stated that appellant’s action in making a statement to the police without the assistance of counsel did not “[demonstrate] the ‘good judgment and sound reflection’ the law requires of one who is seeking to invoke his constitutional right to waive counsel.”
Id.
at 149. However, on an earlier motion to suppress two earlier incriminating statements made by appellant, the second trial court expressly ruled that appellant chose to forego his right to counsel during the police interrogations conducted on February 21, 1988, by signing a written rights waiver form. Transcript of 7/26/88 at 46-49.
8
In accordance with the second trial court’s finding that appellant validly waived the right to
Accordingly, the second trial court found that for purposes of making incriminating statements to the police, appellant could and, in fact, did intelligently waive the right to counsel; but, that same trial court also found that for purposes of representing himself at trial, appellant could not intelligently waive the right to counsel. We find these two rulings from the same trial court fundamentally contradictory and wholly inexplicable. We know of no authority (and the Commonwealth directs our attention to none) which supports the notion that the standard for finding a valid waiver of the assistance of counsel varies according to the stage at which a putative waiver of that right is asserted. To the contrary, the U.S. Supreme Court’s jurisprudence, which has concentrated primarily on the right to counsel and the prohibition against compulsory self-incrimination, has set an invariable standard for a valid waiver of such constitutional guarantees; i.e., that such waivers be knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently rendered. See Brian R. Boch, Fourteenth Amendment — The Standard of Mental Competency to Waive Constitutional Rights Versus the Competency to Stand Trial, 84 J.Crim.L. & Criminology 883, 889-890 (1994) (citations omitted). Accordingly, because the standard for finding a valid waiver of any of these constitutional rights is invariable, there is no principled basis upon which it may be asserted that the standard for finding a valid waiver of the assistance of counsel varies according to the stage at which the waiver is asserted. It is therefore inconceivable to us how the second trial court could rule on July 26, 1988 (the date of the suppression hearing), that appellant could and did assert an intelligent waiver of the right to the assistance of counsel and then, less than three weeks later, rule that appellant was somehow incapable of asserting an intelligent waiver of the right to counsel.
Finally, the second trial court opined that appellant could not intelligently waive the right to counsel because he had a history of psychiatric illness and because he was then under the influence of two prescriptions for relaxants for which the court believed that “there is sufficient medical information to support our conclusion that these behavior modifying drugs may well have affected and continue to impair [appellant’s] ability to execute an ‘intelligent’ waiver of counsel.”
Starr, supra,
at 150-151.
9
These assertions by the second trial court
We note that “the focus of a competency inquiry is the defendant’s mental capacity; the question is whether he has the
ability
to understand the proceedings.”
Godinez, supra,
— U.S. at - n. 12,
Of these two choices, we find that, based on our exhaustive review of the record, the second trial court erred in denying appellant the right to represent himself at trial. Appellant has a constitutional right to represent himself and must be accorded that right upon a knowing, voluntary and intelligent assertion to do so. In determining that appellant could not enjoy his right to pro se representation, the trial court (1) erroneously reversed the reasoned order of its predecessor court of coordinate jurisdiction without any substantive change in the evidence or controlling law than that considered by the first trial court; (2) erred in considering appellant’s best interests and his technical ability to conduct his own defense; and (3) erroneously considered appellant’s appreciation of the consequences attendant to a waiver of the right to the assistance of counsel at trial as fundamentally different than appellant’s recognized appreciation of the other aspects of the proceedings against him. Simply put, the second trial court’s order denying appellant his constitutionally-guarаnteed right to self-representation is without substantive basis in fact or in law.
Accordingly, the judgment before us is vacated, and the matter is remanded back to the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas for a new trial.
Faretta, supra,
NIX, C.J., concurs in the result.
MONTEMURO, J., is sitting by designation.
Notes
. See 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 722(4), 9711(h)(1); Pa.R.A.P. 702(b) and 1941.
. 18 Pa.C.S. § 2502(a).
. The juiy found the following mitigating circumstances: (1) that defendant was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance (42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(e)(2)); and (2) that there was other evidence of mitigation concerning the character and record of the defendant and the circumstances of his offense (42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(e)(8)).
. The juiy found as an aggravating circumstance that appellant had been previously convicted of the murder of his first wife. See 42 Pa.C.S. § 971 l(d)(l 1) (the defendant has been convicted of another murder, committed either bеfore or at the time of the offense at issue).
. Appellant asserts numerous other issues for this Court’s consideration. However, given that our disposition of this first issue results in an order for a new trial, we need not consider these other issues.
. Appellant frames this claim within the context of the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and of Article 1, Section 9 of the Pennsylvania Constitution but claims no heightened protection of his
. This right to self-representation applies even in a Pennsylvania death penalty case.
Szuchon, supra,
. We also note that the Commonwealth concedes that appellant validly waived his constitutional right to counsel with regard to these statements. See Brief for Appellee at 63 ("Thus, appellant effectively waived not only his Fifth Amendment right to counsel, but more importantly his Sixth Amendment right to counsel in this case at that time of the written waiver.”)
. Inexplicably, the second trial court did not directly cite to any such competent "medical information” to support its broad conclusion that these medications impaired appellant’s ability to understand the nature of the proceedings against him. Rather, the trial court cited the Physician’s Desk Refеrence for the prospect that these medications are prescribed for individuals who are anxious, tense, apprehensive, ove
. On the other hand, the "purpose of the ‘knowing and voluntary’ inquiry ... is to determine whether the defendant actually does understand the significance and consequences of a particular decision and whether the decision is uncoerced.”
Id. (citing Faretta, supra,
. On this point the Commonwealth argues that the trial court’s use of the phrase "competence to waive counsel” was merely a shorthand reference for the "intelligent and competent waiver” standard expressed in
Johnson v. Zerbst,