172 Pa. Super. 12 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1952
Opinion by
Appellant, Michael Hoopsich on September 27, 1950 pleaded guilty to charges of burglary, larceny and attempted burglary. His pleas signed by him, were endorsed on the indictment. He was sentenced to pay a fine and to undergo imprisonment in the Western Penitentiary for a term of from 2 to 12 years. On December 15, 1951, he presented his petition for habeas corpus to the lower court in which he had been sentenced; the writ was refused without hearing. In this appeal from that order appellant contends that he was denied due process because the judge in sentencing him was under a misapprehension as to his past criminal record and was influenced by the opinions of “several [unidentified] people in Oceola” that he had induced a group of younger boys to commit the crimes. The appellant was represented by counsel when sentenced but it is averred that the erroneous assumptions of fact which affected the sentence were not known to either appellant or his attorney at that time. Appellant contends that he first had notice of the facts in a letter from the judge received by him after sentence. It is also averred that a second letter written to him by the sentencing judge indicates that his petition for a writ of habeas corpus was refused by the lower court be
On August 18, 1950, a gasoline station and a garage in Houtzdale were broken into and two generators and a battery tester were taken from tbe service station. In addition to appellant, three others pleaded guilty to all of the offenses although the actual breaking in both instances was committed by one of them, Charles LeForte. On September 29, 1950, the court invited statements from all four defendants and they were examined in open court in the presence of the same counsel who had represented them when their pleas of guilty were entered. From the testimony at that hearing it appears that about 9 p.m. on the day in question appellant in his automobile undesignedly came upon the three other defendants, who had been drinking since early in the evening, and he then invited them to go for a ride. All of the testimony at this hearing was to the effect that appellant was not a party to any plan nor did he have knowledge that burglaries were contemplated by any of the group. At a second hearing before the sentencing judge on October 9, 1950, the three other defendants changed their testimony and then stated that they had perjured themselves at the prior hearing. Two of them then attempted to implicate Hoopsick in the commission of the offenses by testimony to the effect that it was he who suggested the crimes and selected the places to be burglarized. Since appellant’s co-defendants exonerated him at one hearing and charged him with complicity in the crimes at another, their diametrically opposed statements under oath deprived their testimony of all probative value. Cf. Commonwealth v. Billingsley, 160 Pa. Superior Ct. 140, 147, 50 A. 2d 703.
At both hearings Hoopsick denied that he knew of LeForte’s intention to break into either the gasoline
The petition for habeas corpus (inartistically drawn by relator without aid of counsel) in effect alleged that sentence was imposed by the court on a misconception of relator’s past conduct and the extent of his participation in the crimes to which' he had entered pleas of guilty. That his petition Avas not seriously considered by the court is evident from this excerpt from a letter written by the judge to relator after the petition Avas filed: “In vieAV of the fact that you say that the pro
The fact that relator was represented by counsel when he pleaded guilty does not necessarily prevent him from asserting lack of due process under the circumstances. On the principle of Townsend v. Burke, 334 U. S. 736, 68 S. Ct. 1252, relator is not concluded by misinformation of which neither he nor his counsel had notice, which the court accepted as true as a basis
We, however, are not prejudging the case and we do not mean to imply that the above procedure is to be invoked in the final disposition of this case. What we are deciding is that this relator is entitled to the
Order reversed and writ awarded with a procedendo in accordance herewith.