Riggins Case
- Reporters:
- , ,
- Before:
- Brien
Lead Opinion
Opinion by
Mr. Justice O’Brien,This is an appeal by the Commonwealth from an order of the then County Court of Philadelphia County, discharging Louis Riggins from custody. On August 22, 1968, a group of youths burst into a bar. One fired a shotgun and killed a patron. When Rig-gins learned that the police considered him a suspect, he surrendered to them on August 26th, at which time he was formally arrested. He was arraigned on a charge of murder on August 27th, and bail was then fixed at <fl,000.
*323A preliminary hearing was held before Judge Montemuro of the then County Court on December 17th.1 Judge Montemuro ruled that a prima facie case had not been made out, and discharged the defendant. The Commonwealth then took this apрeal.
We need not consider the merits of the question whether a prima facie case had bеen made out, for it is apparent that the appeal must be quashed. In McNair’s Petition, 324 Pa. 48, 54, 187 Atl. 498 (1936), we discussed the procеdure to be followed where a magistrate holds that a prima facie case has not been mаde out: “When the magistrate believes that probable cause to hold the defendant has not beеn proven, he may discharge him. ... If the Commonwealth deems itself aggrieved by his decision it may bring the matter again before any other officer empowered to hold preliminary hearings.” It is clear from this statement that the Commonwealth has not been put out of court, and that the instant appeal is interlocutory.
The Commonwealth is well aware of McNair’s Petition, supra, and admits that ordinarily when the Commonwealth believes that a defendant has been improperly discharged by a committing magistrate its remedy is to have the defendant rearrested and taken beforе another magistrate. Yet it urges that where the committing magistrate who has discharged the defendant is a Cоmmon Pleas Court judge,2 it would be *324unseemly for the Commonwealth to take the defendant before another Common Pleas Court judge and ask the second judge to reach a different decision.3
What the Commonwealth is asking us to do, in essence, is to overturn our long-established rule of interlocutoriness with one of unseemliness. This we will not do, particularly where we are unconvinced that the situation is as unseemly as the Commonweаlth would indicate. In the first place, the Commonwealth will almost always have additional evidence tо present the second time around. If the first judge feels that not even a prima facie case has been made out, even if a second judge were to disagree as to that, the Commonwealth is still well shоrt of a conviction, and it is highly unlikely that it would rearrest with such a weak case. And even if the Commonwealth presented exactly the same evidence to the second judge, we do not envision the same dirе consequences that the Commonwealth forecasts. We are confident that the judges of the Commonwealth will be faithful to their oaths of office and will be moved only by the evidence, and not by any feеling for their fellow judges.
The appeal is quashed as interlocutory.
Notes
It is the practice in Philadelphia, in cases where a juvenile is accused of murder, to hold preliminary hearings before judges of the Juvenile Court. The Juvenile Court’s function was fulfilled in Philadelphia County, prior to the new Judiciary Article, by the County Court. Act of June 12, 1913, P. L. 711, §8,
Actually, at the time he discharged Riggins, Judge Mоntkmubo was a County Court judge. Under the consolidated court *324system instituted by the new Judiciary Article, effective January 1, 1969, he is a judge (Presiding Judge) of the Family Court Division of the Court of Common Pleas. For the purposes of this discussion, we may consider him a Common Pleas Court judge.
Although McNair’s Petition, supra, allows a rearrested defendant to be taken before any other officer empowered to hold preliminary hearings, the practice where the original officer is a lay magistrate is to take the case before a judge of a cоurt of record the second time.
Dissenting Opinion
Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Chief Justice Bell :A Judge of the Family Division of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, sitting as a magistrate, discharged a 17-year-old juvenile who was charged *325with murder and aggravated assault and battеry. He and his companion entered the tavern, each of them carrying a gun. The Judge discharged the defendant, in spite of the fact that there was an eyewitness, namely, the bartender, who was shot and wounded by Riggins just after Riggins’s companion had shot and killed a man named Posey, who was a patron in the tavern. The Commonwealth’s appeal was quashed by the majority because it was interlocutory, in spite of the fаct that a prima facie case of murder by Riggms and Ms partner was made out by the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth has thе option to appeal or to rearrest Riggins and take him before another Judge, seeking to hаve him held for the grand jury, but this, and in some other cases, is impractical.
Gaskins Case, 430 Pa. 298, 305, 244 A. 2d 662, citing five recent Pennsylvania cаses, is directly in point and holds* that if the Commonwealth establishes a prima facie case of defеndant’s guilt of murder by a juvenile, the magistrate or Judge or the Court hearing the proceeding must hold the juvenile fоr Court, and failure to do so entitles the Commonwealth to an appeal to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
For these reasons, I vigorously dissent.
With only one Judge dissenting.