Commonwealth v. Dixon

• Decision Date: 26 November 1973
• Citation: 454 Pa. 444,311 A.2d 613
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Dallas DIXON, Appellant.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

311 A.2d 613

454 Pa. 444

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Dallas DIXON, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

November 26, 1973.

David N. Savitt, Walter LaMar, Jr., Philadelphia for appellant.

Arlen Specter, Dist. Atty., Richard A. Sprague, 1st Asst. Dist Atty., James D. Crawford, Deputy Dist. Atty., Milton M Stein, Asst. Dist. Atty., Chief, Appeals Div., Philadelphia for appellee.

Before JONES, C.J., and EAGEN, O'BRIEN, ROBERTS, POMEROY, NIX and MANDERINO, JJ.

OPINION

MANDERINO Justice.

The appellant, Dallas Dixon, was convicted on March 24, 1971, of second-degree murder in the stabbing death of William Johnson on August 9, 1968. Post-trial motions were denied and the appellant was sentenced to a prison term of not more than ten years. This appeal followed in which we reverse the judgment of sentence.

Appellant contends that his pretrial motion to suppress an allegedly voluntary but unsigned statement should have been granted because the unsigned statement related to an unreasonable delay between appellant's arrest and his preliminary arraignment. The Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure in effect at the time of the interrogation in this case required that a defendant 'be taken without unnecessary delay before the proper issuing authority for a preliminary arraignment.' Pa.R.Crim.P. 118 (formerly rule 116a), 19 P.S. Appendix. In Commonwealth v. Futch, 447 Pa. 389, 394, 290 A.2d 417 (1972), we held that All evidence must be excluded which is obtained during an unnecessary delay between arrest and arraignment Except that which has no reasonable relationship to the delay whatsoever. In Futch, the excluded evidence was obtained after an unnecessary delay of thirteen hours following the arrest. See also Commonwealth v. Wayman, Pa., 309 A.2d 784 (1973) (involving eighteen hours); Commonwealth v. Dutton, Pa., 307 A.2d 238 (1973) (involving eight hours); Commonwealth v. Tingle, 451 Pa. 241, 301 A.2d 701 (1973) (involving twenty-one hours). In this case, the delay between arrest and the obtaining of inculpatory evidence involved a period of approximately fifteen hours.

The significance of rule 118, requiring arraignment without unnecessary delay, becomes fully apparent when that rule is read together with the requirements of rule 119. Under rule 119, at the preliminary arraignment before a neutral authority, the citizen, Who is presumed innocent, must be given 'a copy of the complaint,' informed of his rights, and must be provided an 'immediate and reasonable opportunity' to post bail. The fundamental purpose of the preliminary arraignment is, therefore, to guarantee a citizen substantially the same rights to which he is entitled under the Pennsylvania Constitution, P.S. Some of these rights, for example, are those guaranteed in article I; section 9 of article I, gives a citizen the right to know the 'nature and cause of the accusation against him,' section 14 of article I, provides that 'all prisoners shall be bailacessive bail.' The prohibition in rule 118 ble' and section 13 of article I, requires that bail be reasonable by prohibiting 'exagainst any unnecessary delay between an arrest by an accusatorial authority and a preliminary arraignment minimizes the possibility of any unnecessary abridgment of a citizen's liberty. Such an abridgment would, of course, be unconstitutional. The danger of any such unnecessary and unconstitutional restriction of liberty diminishes significantly when a citizen is brought swiftly before a neutral judicial authority, there to be informed of the charges and provided with an immediate and reasonable opportunity To regain his liberty by the posting of a reasonable bail. Thus, the delay between arrest and arraignment must be closely examined. The only delay permissible is that reasonably required for the administrative processing of the accused citizen. Commonwealth v. Futch, 447 Pa. 389, 290 A.2d 417, 418 (1973). Delay beyond that is unreasonable and constitutes a denial of a citizen's right to know the nature of the charges against him and to receive an immediate and reasonable opportunity to regain his freedom by the posting of bail.

In this case there is nothing in the record to support the fifteen hour delay. It must therefore be concluded that the fifteen hour delay was unnecessary. Our rule is to 'exclude all evidence . . . except that which has no reasonable relationship to the delay whatsoever.' Commonwealth v. Futch, 447 Pa. 389, 290 A.2d 417 (1973). The record discloses that the unnecessary delay alone produced the challenged statements and...