Commonwealth v. Maddox

¶1Concurring Opinion by

¶2I concur in the decision of the Court. Because, however, I view the guilty plea question in a somewhat different light than does the majority, I add these comments.

¶3If, as I think it may, the Court’s opinion implies that there is in Pennsylvania an existing rule of law which requires as a precondition to acceptance of a guilty plea that the trial court “satisfy itself that there is a factual basis for the plea”, I think it goes too far. In Com. ex rel. West v. Rundle, 428 Pa. 102, 106, 237 A. 2d 196 (1968), the Pennsylvania authority relied on by the majority, we stated only that the trial court “is best advised” to conduct an examination on the record “which should include, inter alia, an attempt to satisfy itself that the defendant understands the nature of the charges, his right to a jury trial, the acts sufficient to constitute the offenses for which he is charged and the permissible range of sentences”. (Emphasis supplied). Nowhere have we laid down a prophylactic rule that a finding of voluntariness of a guilty plea must depend *413upon a finding that the defendant understands “the acts sufficient to constitute the offenses for which he is charged”, or that he expressly admit having committed such acts.

¶4Similarly, if the opinion of the court is meant to suggest that such an understanding by the defendant of the acts sufficient to constitute the offense is mandated by the federal constitution, I again think it is in error. As the Supreme Court of the United States held in North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25, 27 L. Ed. 2d 162 (1970) “[a]n individual accused of crime may voluntarily, knowingly and understandingly consent to the imposition of a prison sentence even if he is unwilling or unable to admit his participation in the acts constituting the crime”. 400 U.S. at 37.

¶5It should be noted that, except for Com. ex rel. West v. Rundle, supra, all the authorities relied upon by the Court are federal, and are based altogether upon Rule 1.1 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure1 and on McCarthy v. U.S., 394 U.S. 459, 465, 22 L. Ed. 2d 418 (1969) (expressly a nonconstitutional holding). That Rule 11 is not of constitutional dimension in its requirement of a finding of a factual basis is made clear in North Carolina v. Alford. See also Halliday v. United States, 394 U.S. 831, 23 L. Ed. 2d 16 (1969), holding that “in view of the large number of constitutionally valid convictions that may have been obtained *414without full compliance with Bule 11, we decline to apply McCarthy retroactively”.

¶6As the majority opinion notes, the Pennsylvania counterpart to federal Bule 11 is Pa. E. Crim. P. 319. That rule, however does not require, as does Bule 11, that the court “shall not enter a judgment upon a plea of guilty unless it is satisfied that there is a factual basis for the plea”. In my own view, our Buie could well be amended to state such a requirement.2 Such a rule, of course, would operate only prospectively.3 I see no justification for a potential invalidation of any guilty plea accepted in Pennsylvania since West because of noncompliance with the advice there given to lower courts, as the majority now appears to be interpreting that advice.