On August 7, 2024, the Commonwealth filed a letter indicating that it would not file a response to [Petitioner’s] Petition for Permission to Appeal unless ordered to do so by this Honorable Court.    In the letter, the Commonwealth argued that the denial of a Motion to Dismiss Pursuant to Rule 600 is an interlocutory order and not appealable as of right.   Indeed, this is why [Petitioner] filed a Petition for Permission to Appeal.

The Commonwealth cited Commonwealth v. Meyers, 322 A.2d 131 (Pa. 1974), with the following parenthetical explanation: “where there was a hearing on the issue of a violation of the defendant's speedy trial right, there is no right to immediate review and the defendant's right to a speedy trial can be adequately protected in review following trial.”    (emphasis added).    In the present case, there was no hearing on the issue of the violation of [Petitioner’s] speedy trial right despite [Petitioner’s] repeated requests of the trial court that he be afforded an evidentiary hearing.    In Commonwealth v. Swartz, 579 A.2d 978, 980 (Pa. Super. 1990), this Court distinguished the facts before it from those presented in Meyers.    This Court wrote,

In the instant case, the record reflects that the lower court did not conduct a hearing on the Rule 1100 issue which appellant raised in his motion to dismiss. Without such a hearing, appellant's right to a speedy trial will not be adequately protected in a post-trial review on appeal. Commonwealth v. Myers, supra.

Id.  (emphasis added).

In the letter, the Commonwealth wrote that “[i]f appellant is convicted of the charges, he may seek review of the trial court's order at that time.”  The Commonwealth’s position creates a moral hazard.  The Commonwealth has functionally argued that a violation of Rule 600 need not be substantively addressed until after the defendant is convicted; that the trial court and the Commonwealth can simply ignore the plain language of Rule 600(D) and controlling Pennsylvania case law; and that the defendant can only meaningfully litigate the violation of his right to a speedy trial if he proceeds to trial and is convicted.

The Commonwealth’s position, if adopted by this Court, would effectively nullify Rule 600 as a pretrial remedy.   It would incentivize the trial court and the Commonwealth to simply dispense with pretrial Rule 600 evidentiary hearings.  The Commonwealth could then offer the defendant a favorable plea bargain if the Commonwealth had a concern about a potential Rule 600 violation.  The consequence of the Commonwealth’s position is that the right to a speedy trial would only protect guilty defendants who elect to proceed to trial, not those defendants, guilty or otherwise, who choose to enter pleas.[1] Nor would it protect innocent defendants who are forced to endure the time, expense, and ignominy of a criminal trial, but who are ultimately acquitted.  In other words, the Commonwealth’s position creates the perverse irony where defendants would be forced to proceed to trial to preserve their right to a speedy trial.  Defendants would have to endure the very harm that Rule 600 was designed to protect against.       

Finally, the Commonwealth’s position ignores the obvious and indisputable violation of Rule 600 committed by both the trial court and the assistant district attorney from its own office in this case.  The comment to Rule 3.8 of the Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct states that

[a] prosecutor has the responsibility of a minister of justice and not simply that of an advocate. This responsibility carries with it specific obligations to see that the defendant is accorded procedural justice [. . .].

Pa. R.Prof.J. 3.8, comment 1.

 The Commonwealth plainly failed to meet its burden of proof when the parties convened on June 24, 2024. The Commonwealth simply failed to present any evidence to prove that it acted with due diligence in bringing [Petitioner] to trial within the Rule 600 time period.  The trial court plainly abused its discretion when it attempted to shift the burden of proof to [Petitioner] and then denied the Motion to Dismiss without requiring the Commonwealth to present any evidence to meet its burden of proof. As a “minister of justice” the prosecutor has a professional responsibility to recognize that it has clearly and indisputably failed to meet its burden of proof, and that [Petitioner’s] right to procedural justice to litigate a violation of his right to a speedy trial is not contingent on his conviction following trial.  

Wherefore, [Petitioner] requests that this Honorable Court order the trial court to grant the Motion to Dismiss Pursuant to Rule 600 with Prejudice because the Commonwealth failed to meet its burden of proof that it acted with due diligence in bringing [Petitioner] to trial within the Rule 600 time period.  A remand for a Rule 600 hearing is inappropriate in this case because the trial court and the Commonwealth both blatantly denied [Petitioner’s] right to procedural justice by denying his right to an evidentiary hearing despite his repeated and emphatic requests for a hearing in violation of the express language of Rule 600(D) and well-settled controlling Pennsylvania authority. 

[1] The Commonwealth’s position would incentivize defendants to accept pleas even if they were not guilty.  If defendants understood that the trial court and the Commonwealth could simply ignore the Rules of Criminal Procedure, why would they, generally, and [Petitioner], specifically, believe that the trial court and the Commonwealth would observe all the other rules such that they would get a fair trial?