HomeMy WebLinkAbout02-0008 MiscCOMMONWEALTH
IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS OF
CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
ROBERTL. BEAR
NO. 02-0008 MISCELLANEOUS TERM
IN RE: OPINION PURSUANT TO PA. R.A.P. 1925
OLER, J., February 20, 2002.
IN the present case, on January 23, 2002, Robert L. Bear filed in the office
of the Clerk of Courts of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, at a Miscellaneous
Docket Number which he had obtained by a prior filing (apparently in a different
case~), a fourteen-page document. The document began with the words: "There is
nothing more terrifying than ignorance in action." it concluded with a question:
"Herr Goethe, are Gale Gross Bear, her Bishop brother, his 'evil men and
seducers' and the Cumberland County Court any less 'hopelessly enslaved'
because they know very well it is too 'terrifying' to confess the utterly obvious,
their 'terrifying ignorance in action?'"
IN lieu of an attempt by the court to summarize the rationale of the
intervening text, the document is attached to this opinion as an appendix. By way
of a caption, the document suggests that Mr. Bear was cited on December 28,
2001, for summary criminal trespass, and that a summary trial on the charge was
scheduled before a Cumberland County district justice, included with the
document was a proposed order, reading as follows:
Now this __ day of January, 2002, upon consideration
of Bear's petition, the undersigned judges concur in granting
Bear's request for a change of venue to a county willing to
~ On January 4, 2002, Mr. Bear had filed a petition in this court requesting that misdemeanor
charges of defiant trespass and stalking, which were apparently pending a preliminary hearing
before a Cumberland County district justice, be dismissed. This petition was denied by order of
court dated January 17, 2002. The document which is the subject of the present opinion was filed
to the Miscellaneous Docket Number which was obtained by Mr. Bear when he filed the earlier
petition.
"buy the truth, and sell it not," which, although we find too
"terrifying" to admit, we cannot deny.
For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.
(2 Corinthians 13:8)
By the court's five judges concurring:
This court subsequently entered the following order in response to the
document:
AND NOW, this 29th day of January, 2002, to the extent
that the attached document filed January 23, 2002, is intended
to be a motion for change of venue (as implied by the proposed
order), the motion is denied.
On February 7, 2002, Mr. Bear filed a Notice of Appeal to the Pennsylvania
Superior Court from the order denying a change of venue. This opinion in support
of the order is written pursuant to Pennsylvania Rule of Appellate Procedure
1925(a).
DISCUSSION
Appeal from interlocutory order. As a general rule, appeals to
Pennsylvania appellate courts may be taken only from final orders as opposed to
interlocutory orders. See Pa. R.A.P. 311, 341; see also Commonwealth v. Bolden,
472 Pa. 602, 657, 373 A.2d 90, 116 (1977) (Nix, J., dissenting) (stating general
rule of limiting appeals to final judgments). A pretrial order in a criminal case
denying a motion to change venue has traditionally been considered a
nonappealable, interlocutory order. Common~vealth v. S~vanson, 424 Pa. 192, 194,
225 A.2d 231, 232-33 (1967) (quashing appeal from order denying a change of
venue as interlocutory); In re Valley Traction Co., 236 Pa. 451, 451, 84 A. 829,
829 (1912) (per curiam).
Principles relating to changes of venue. A motion to change venue in a
criminal case is addressed to the sound discretion of the court. Common~vealth v.
Weiss, 565 Pa. 504, 514, 776 A.2d 958, 964 (2001) (citing Commonwealth v.
Hawkins, 549 Pa. 352, 375, 701 A.2d 492, 503 (1997)). A change of venue is
appropriate where, for reasons typically involving pretrial publicity, a fair trial can
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not be obtained in the vicinage where the offense is alleged to have occurred.
Commonwealth v. Weiss, 565 Pa. 504, 514-15, 776 A.2d 958, 964 (2001) (citing
Commonwealth v. Karenbauer, 552 Pa. 420, 433, 715 A.2d 1086, 1092 (1998));
see also Pa. Const. art. I, § 9. The burden is upon the party seeking a change of
venue to demonstrate its necessity. Commonwealth v. Rucci, 543 Pa. 261, 283-84,
670 A.2d 1129, 1140 (1996), cert. denied, 520 U.S. 1121, 117 S. Ct. 1257, 137 L.
Ed. 2d 337 (1997); Commonwealth v. Faulkner, 528 Pa. 57, 81, 595 A.2d 28, 41
(1991) (holding that defendant must demonstrate "actual prejudice" preventing
fact-finder from being impartial to succeed on change of venue motion).
In the present case, the contents of the document filed by Mr. Bear, which
were in part informed by a grievance of several decades against the Reformed
Mennonite Church,2 did not support the proposition that a fair trial could not be
obtained from a Cumberland County district justice in a summary offense case
involving Mr. Bear.
BY THE COURT,
J. Wesley Oler, Jr., J.
District Justice Gayle A. Elder
Jaime M. Keating, Esq.
Chief Deputy District Attorney
Robert L. Bear
201 Potato Road
Carlisle, PA 17013
Office of the Public Defender
2 See, e.g., Bear v. ReformedMennonite Church, 462 Pa. 330, 341 A.2d 105 (1975).
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