Opinion
June 13, 1962.
September 13, 1962.
Criminal Law — Practice — Habeas corpus — Allegations of petitioner — Failure of court to assign able counsel — Waiver of jury trial — Youth of petitioner — Use of mental hospital report as "evidence".
In a habeas corpus proceeding, in which it appeared that petitioner alleged that failure of the court to assign able counsel was a denial of due process, that his counsel waived jury trial and had petitioner proceed with a nonjury trial without consulting petitioner, that at the time of his trial petitioner was a youth of eighteen and mentally confused, that the testimony of unsworn witnesses was admitted at his trial, and that, after his trial and subsequent to his commitment to a State hospital for observation the trial judge used a report of this institution as "evidence" against petitioner; and in which it appeared from the record that at the trial petitioner, who was represented by the Voluntary Defender, changed his plea to "guilty" on all three bills of indictment (charging sodomy and solicitation to commit sodomy), that testimony was taken before the trial judge, and the male child victim of defendant's act of sodomy (upon which bill defendant was sentenced) in sworn testimony related all the details of the crime, that the unsworn testimony of two youthful witnesses was taken with respect to the two bills charging solicitation to commit sodomy, but when petitioner testified he admitted that what the boys had testified was the truth (and, also, sentence was suspended upon these two bills), that petitioner had previously spent twenty-one months at a penal institution and was not unacquainted with the processes of the criminal law, and that the trial judge considered the hospital report but disregarded the recommendation therein made and, in the exercise of his discretion, imposed a substantially less severe sentence; it was Held that the order of the court below dismissing the petition should be affirmed.
Before RHODES, P.J., ERVIN, WRIGHT, WOODSIDE, WATKINS, MONTGOMERY, and FLOOD, JJ.
Appeal, No. 238, Oct. T., 1962, from order of Court of Common Pleas No. 7 of Philadelphia County, Dec. T., 1961, No. 3010, in case of Commonwealth ex rel. Harvey Miller v. James F. Maroney, Superintendent. Order affirmed.
Same case in court below: 27 Pa. D. C. 2d 753.
Habeas corpus.
Order entered dismissing writ, opinion by GUERIN, J. Relator appealed.
Harvey Miller, appellant, in propria persona.
John F. Hassett and Arlen Specter, Assistant District Attorneys, Paul M. Chalfin, First Assistant District Attorney, and James C. Crumlish, Jr., District Attorney, for appellee.
Submitted June 13, 1962.
The order of the court below dismissing petition for writ of habeas corpus is affirmed on the opinion of Judge GUERIN of Court of Common Pleas No. 4 of Philadelphia County, as reported in 27 Pa. D. C. 2d 753.