Commonwealth v. Tate

OPINION OF THE COURT

MANDERINO, Justice.

On January 17, 1974, appellant, Gregory Tate, accepted an offer for a negotiated plea to murder in the second degree. The sentence agreed to was seven to twenty years imprisonment. Believing the case to be one of murder in the first degree, Judge Theodore B. Smith refused to accept the plea. The case was returned to the calendar judge who assigned the case to Judge Joseph L. McGlynn for trial the following day. At trial, appellant waived a jury trial and the prosecutor certified that the murder charge rose no higher than murder in the second degree.…