Matter of Smith

573 A.2d 1077, 393 Pa. Super. 39, 1990 Pa. Super. LEXIS 892, 1990 WL 47675
CourtSupreme Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedApril 20, 1990
Docket02696
StatusPublished
Cited by47 cases

This text of 573 A.2d 1077 (Matter of Smith) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Matter of Smith, 573 A.2d 1077, 393 Pa. Super. 39, 1990 Pa. Super. LEXIS 892, 1990 WL 47675 (Pa. 1990).

Opinions

[42]*42CAVANAUGH, Judge:

This appeal arises from a dispositional order of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County, entered after appellant had been adjudicated delinquent on charges of aggravated assault, possession of an instrument of crime, and violation of the Uniform Firearms Act.

The charges arose from an incident during which Perry Stewart was shot in the leg while attempting to intervene in a disturbance between several individuals outside his home. Stewart was taken to the hospital where, some hours later, the police brought appellant for identification. Stewart recognized appellant as his assailant, and subsequently identified him at an adjudicatory hearing.

At the adjudicatory proceeding appellant was represented by the Public Defender’s Office. Testimony was taken and, at the conclusion of the hearing, appellant was found to be delinquent. Post-trial motions were filed in which counsel alleged, inter alia, her own ineffectiveness. New counsel was appointed, post-trial relief was denied, and appellant was ordered to be committed to the Glen Mills School. After the denial of relief, post-trial appointed counsel withdrew and present counsel entered his appearance on behalf of appellant. This direct appeal followed.

The issues presented all concern the caliber of representation appellant received from trial counsel — the allegation being that appellant’s attorney, in various respects, was derelict in her stewardship of the case. Appellant’s ability to present these assertions is predicated upon the right of juveniles to receive effective assistance of counsel once the right to any counsel has attached. It is the existence of this right which appellant now argues.1 This appears to be an issue of first impression in Pennsylvania.

The United States Supreme Court concluded in In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 1428, 18 L.Ed.2d 527 (1967), that certain constitutional guarantees, including the right to assistance of counsel, were to be extended to juveniles. In [43]*43so holding, the Supreme Court made clear its determination that the quality of representation to be provided was not in question:

A proceeding where the issue is whether the child will be found to be “delinquent” and subjected to the loss of his liberty for years is comparable in seriousness to a felony prosecution. The juvenile needs the assistance of counsel to cope with problems of law, to make skilled inquiry into the facts, to insist upon regularity of the proceedings, and to ascertain whether he has a defense and to prepare and submit it. The child “requires the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him.”

387 U.S. at 36, 87 S.Ct. at 1448 (footnotes omitted, emphasis added).

In a further exploration of the necessity for appointment of counsel, the Report by the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, “The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society” (1967), is quoted at length in Gault. Pertinent to the question before us is the following statement:

The Commission believes that no single action holds more potential for achieving procedural justice for the child in the juvenile court than provision of counsel. The presence of an independent legal representative of the child, or of his parent, is the keystone of the whole structure of guarantees that a minimum system of procedural justice requires. The rights to confront one’s accusers, to cross-examine witnesses, to present evidence and testimony of one’s own, to be unaffected by prejudicial and unreliable evidence, to participate meaningfully in the dispositional decision, to take an appeal have substantial meaning for thé overwhelming majority of persons brought before the juvenile court only if they are provided with competent lawyers who can invoke those rights effectively.

387 U.S. at 38 n. 65, 87 S.Ct. at 1449 n. 65 (emphasis added).

In Pennsylvania, the right of a juvenile to assistance of counsel has been codified in the Juvenile Act, 42 Pa.C.S.A. [44]*44§ 6337. To assume that what is meant by assistance of counsel does not include the concept of able, effective representation is to ascribe to the statute a ludicrous result, that is, that such counsel need not be able to perform appropriately, or indeed at all, to fulfill the legislative mandate. The right to counsel prescribed by the Juvenile Act must be read in pari materia with the Rule of Statutory Construction, 1 Pa.C.S.A. § 1922(1), which specifies that:

In ascertaining the intent of the General Assembly in the enactment of a statute, the following presumptions, among others, may be used.
(1) That the General Assembly does not intend a result that is absurd, impossible of execution or unreasonable.

See also, Gruver v. Gruver, 372 Pa.Super. 194, 539 A.2d 395 (1988).

In Commonwealth ex rel. Washington v. Maroney, 427 Pa. 599, 235 A.2d 349 (1967), and in its progeny, our Supreme Court has reiterated that the right to counsel’s assistance must also include the right to effective assistance. Clearly, it is a fundamental tenet of our system of jurisprudence that, once any right to representation has been established, that representation must be constitutionally adequate. Id., 427 at 601, 235 A.2d at 351. That this is true may be seen from examination of the effective assistance right in other contexts.

The right of a juvenile to effective assistance of counsel has been addressed in dicta by this court in In re DelSignore, 249 Pa.Super. 149, 375 A.2d 803 (1977). Speaking for an en banc court, Judge Spaeth stated:

[sjince this is not a purely criminal case, the doctrine of ineffectiveness of counsel is not automatically available. A criminal defendant’s right to effective counsel is based on the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution, made applicable through the Fourteenth Amendment. Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963); Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 53 S.Ct. 55, 77 L.Ed. 158 (1932). A child’s constitutional [45]*45rights in a juvenile proceeding are based entirely on the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 1428, 18 L.Ed.2d 527 (1967). Thus, the standard for determining whether the right to counsel has been denied may be different depending on whether the defendant is a criminal defendant or a juvenile.

Id. 249 Pa.Super. at 154-155, 375 A.2d at 806.

However, in light of the development of the law relating to the right to effective representation by counsel, the possible effect of the divergent sources of the right to counsel mentioned in DelSignore has become a distinction without a difference.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
573 A.2d 1077, 393 Pa. Super. 39, 1990 Pa. Super. LEXIS 892, 1990 WL 47675, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/matter-of-smith-pa-1990.