Commonwealth v. Williams

¶1(dissenting).

¶2Assuming that under Rule 1123 of the Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure, 19 P.S. Appendix, a defendant who fails to file post-trial motions following the acceptance of his guilty plea is precluded' from raising by way of direct appeal the validity of his plea and the sufficiency of the evidence to warrant a finding of murder in the first degree,* Rule 1123 has no application here. This rule was adopted on June 8, 1973 (to become effective forty-five days later), long after Williams, the appellant herein, decided to waive his right to file post-trial motions and sentence was imposed. Certainly, the trial court should not be faulted for not anticipating a change in the rules.

¶3Commonwealth v. Robinson, 442 Pa. 512, 276 A.2d 537 (1971), does not give support to the ruling of the majority as its opinion would indicate. In Robinsonwe stated that the filing of post-trial motions, even after a guilty plea, was “preferable” but we did not say it was required.

¶4In my view, we should proceed to determine the merits of the present appeal without further ado.