J-S04004-21

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

v.

DMITRIY V. LITVINOV 

Appellant

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 737 MDA 2020

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered November 26, 2019

In the Court of Common Pleas of Centre County Criminal Division at 

No(s): CP-14-CR-0001159-2010

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

v.

DMITRIY V. LITVINOV 

Appellant

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 738 MDA 2020

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered November 26, 2019

In the Court of Common Pleas of Centre County Criminal Division at 

No(s): CP-14-CR-0001161-2010

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

v.

DMITRIY V. LITVINOV 

Appellant

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 739 MDA 2020

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered November 26, 2019

In the Court of Common Pleas of Centre County Criminal Division at 

No(s): CP-14-CR-0001163-2010

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA :

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA
J-S04004-21

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v.

DMITRIY V. LITVINOV 

Appellant

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: No. 740 MDA 2020

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered November 26, 2019

In the Court of Common Pleas of Centre County Criminal Division at 

No(s): CP-14-CR-0001164-2010

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

v.

DMITRIY V. LITVINOV 

Appellant

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 741 MDA 2020

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered November 26, 2019

In the Court of Common Pleas of Centre County Criminal Division at 

No(s): CP-14-CR-0000364-2011

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

v.

DIMITRIY V. LITVINOV 

Appellant

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 742 MDA 2020

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered November 26, 2019

In the Court of Common Pleas of Centre County Criminal Division at 

No(s): CP-14-CR-0001158-2010

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

v.

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA
J-S04004-21

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DMITRIY V. LITVINOV 

Appellant

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: No. 760 MDA 2020

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered November 26, 2019

In the Court of Common Pleas of Centre County Criminal Division at 

No(s): CP-14-CR-0000462-2010

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

v.

DMITRIY V. LITVINOV 

Appellant

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 761 MDA 2020

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered November 26, 2019

In the Court of Common Pleas of Centre County Criminal Division at 

No(s): CP-14-CR-0000464-2010

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

v.

DMITRIY V. LITVINOV 

Appellant

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 762 MDA 2020

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered November 26, 2019

In the Court of Common Pleas of Centre County Criminal Division at 

No(s): CP-14-CR-0001090-2010

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

v.

DMITRIY V. LITVINOV 

Appellant

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 763 MDA 2020
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Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered November 26, 2019

In the Court of Common Pleas of Centre County Criminal Division at 

No(s): CP-14-CR-0001139-2010

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

v.

DMITRIY V. LITVINOV 

Appellant

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 764 MDA 2020

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered November 26, 2019

In the Court of Common Pleas of Centre County Criminal Division at 

No(s): CP-14-CR-0001157-2010

BEFORE: OLSON, J., STABILE, J., and MUSMANNO, J.

MEMORANDUM BY OLSON, J.: FILED APRIL 27, 2021

Appellant, Dmitriy V. Litvinov, appeals from the judgment of sentence 

entered on November 26, 2019 following resentencing, as made final by the 

order entered on April 23, 2020 disposing of post-sentence motions. We 

affirm. 

The trial court summarized the facts and relevant procedural history of 

this case as follows:

Beginning in January of 2010, [Appellant] and his accomplices 

began a spree of, among other things: burglary, armed robbery, 

and kidnapping. Through March of the same year, [Appellant]

robbed numerous individual persons and establishments [in 

Centre County, Pennsylvania]. In carrying out several of these 

crimes, [Appellant] brandished firearms - including a stolen 

WASR-10 - AK style assault rifle. In several instances, [Appellant]

and his accomplices physically assaulted victims and threatened 

their lives at gunpoint. When [Appellant] and his accomplices 

were finally apprehended, the Commonwealth charged 
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[Appellant] with numerous crimes, including [r]obbery, 

[k]idnapping, and [c]riminal [m]ischief. [Appellant] was 

sentenced to several mandatory minimum sentences which were 

legally permissible when imposed [] in 2010. Following the United

States Supreme Court's holding in Alleyne v. U.S., 570 U.S. 99 

(2013), those mandatory minimum sentences were deemed to be 

unlawful. [Appellant] was subsequently resentenced by [the trial 

court] in November of 2019, for an aggregate sentence [] of 

twenty-eight (28) to fifty-six (56) years [of imprisonment]. 

Importantly, [Appellant] was also issued a [f]inal [r]emoval 

[o]rder dated February 23, 2013 [directing deportation] following 

[Appellant’s] original sentencing.

Trial Court Opinion, 4/23/2020, at 2. 

The trial court resentenced Appellant on November 26, 2019. Appellant 

filed a post-sentence motion on December 4, 2019. Following the grant of an

extension, the trial court denied relief by order and opinion dated April 23, 

2020. These timely appeals resulted.

1

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1

 On May 15, 2020, Appellant filed 11 notices of appeal, each bearing, in its 

caption, the 12 trial court docket numbers at which the Commonwealth filed 

the original charges in this case. Upon review of each individual certified 

record, a different docket number is check-marked on each corresponding 

notice of appeal. It does not appear, however, that a notice of appeal was 

included within the certified record of the twelfth case, trial court docket no. 

CP-14-CR-1162-2010. The last recorded entry which appears on that trial 

court docket is the order denying Appellant’s post-sentence motion. Our 

Supreme Court “in Commonwealth v. Walker, 185 A.3d 969 (Pa. 2018) [...]

held that an appeal must be quashed if an appellant fails to file separate 

notices of appeal at each docket number implicated by an order resolving 

issues that involve more than one trial court docket [as] indicated in the Note 

to Pa.R.A.P. 341.” Commonwealth v. Stansbury, 219 A.3d 157, 159 (Pa. 

Super. 2019), appeal denied, 235 A.3d 1073 (Pa. 2020). In Stansbury, 

however, this Court declined to quash an appeal in which the appellant’s notice 

listed two docket numbers where the trial court misinformed Stansbury that 

he could perfect appellate jurisdiction by filing a single notice of appeal. We 

determined that the trial court's failure to properly advise Stansbury of his 

appellate rights amounted to a “breakdown in the court system,” and,
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On appeal, Appellant presents the following issues2for our review:

I. Whether the trial court abused its discretion in accepting or 

potentially accepting, in whole or in part, the prosecution's legally 

incorrect, unsubstantiated, and speculative claim that the final 

order of removal, i.e., deportation order, to the country of 

Kazakhstan that was issued by an administrative law judge from 

the United States Immigration Court due to [Appellant’s] multiple 

convictions for "aggravated felonies" might possibly be 

disregarded by the birth country and[,] as such, there remained a 

strong "need for confinement that is consistent with the protection 

of the public" such that the [trial] court lacked both sufficient and

accurate information necessary to impose its global sentence?

II. Whether the trial court [improperly disregarded the explicit 

statutory commands at 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9721(b) and committed 

legal error by imposing a sentence which focused exclusively upon 

the "need for confinement that is consistent with the protection of 

the public" where the issuance of a final deportation order against 

Appellant substantially diminished the need to consider that 

sentencing factor]?

Appellant’s Brief at 4 (superfluous capitalization omitted).

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therefore, excused his failure to comply with Walker. See Stansbury, 219 

A.3d at 160; see also Commonwealth v. Larkin, 235 A.3d 350, 354 (Pa. 

Super. 2020) (en banc). Similarly, here, at resentencing, the trial court 

misinformed Appellant that he could file a single notice of appeal. See N.T., 

11/26/2019, at 45. Thus, we excuse Appellant’s non-compliance with 

Walker. On July 16, 2020, this Court granted Appellant’s motion to 

consolidate the appeals. Finally, we note our review is not hampered because 

the certified record for trial court docket no. CP-14-CR-1162-2010 lacks a 

notice of appeal. As discussed, Appellant’s claims do not focus upon trial court 

docket no. CP-14-CR-1162-2010 and, instead, challenges the factors relied 

upon by the trial court in imposing his overall aggregate sentence. Thus, the 

certified record contains all of the materials, including the transcripts and 

exhibits from the resentencing hearing, the parties’ briefs on the issue, as well 

as the trial court’s opinions, needed to conduct a proper review of Appellant’s 

overarching appellate claim. 

2 Although presented as two appellate issues, Appellant’s claims are 

inter-related and we will examine them together.
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Appellant contends, “the [r]e-[s]entencing [c]ourt did not place 

sufficient emphasis on the reality that [Appellant] will someday be deported 

and inevitably returned to [his home country,] Kazakhstan[,] because, as a 

non-citizen [of the United States], he was convicted of several "[c]rimes [o]f 

[v]iolence" and multiple "[a]ggravated [f]elonies" as defined by federal law[.]” 

Appellant’s Brief at 18. Appellant contends that the trial court impermissibly 

relied upon the Commonwealth’s suggestion that Appellant may not be 

deported despite a removal order dated February 23, 2013, which was

presented to the trial court at resentencing. Id. at 23. Appellant claims that 

“if, after being paroled, [Appellant] were ever found to be in the United States, 

it would be mandatory that he serve his remaining sentence” in a Pennsylvania 

prison. Id. at 33. As such, Appellant argues:

The required balancing between the three main Section 9721(b) 

[sentencing] factors necessarily must change, mathematically 

speaking, whenever a [d]efendant is subject to a non-waivable 

mandatory [d]eportation [o]rder such as [Appellant,] the need for 

"public protection" is effectively nullified when the person being 

sentenced will be exiled as soon as he is paroled. This singular 

fact should have resulted in a different sentencing scheme being 

utilized by the [r]e-[s]entencing [c]ourt.

Id. at 24.3 

It is well-established that:

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3 While Appellant objects that his overall, aggregate sentence is excessive, 

this Court notes that Appellant does not explicitly challenge the consecutive 

nature of his sentences. 
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The right to appeal the discretionary aspects of a sentence is not 

absolute. To determine whether an appellant has properly 

preserved the discretionary aspects of sentencing for appellate 

review, we must conduct the following four[-]part analysis: (1) 

whether appellant has filed a timely notice of appeal; (2) whether 

the issue was properly preserved at sentencing or in a motion to 

reconsider and modify sentence; (3) whether appellant's brief has 

a fatal defect; and (4) whether there is a substantial question that 

the sentence appealed from is not appropriate under the 

Sentencing Code. The determination of whether a particular issue 

raises a substantial question is to be evaluated on a case-by-case 

basis. Generally, however, in order to establish a substantial 

question, the appellant must show actions by the sentencing court 

inconsistent with the [s]entencing [c]ode or contrary to the 

fundamental norms underlying the sentencing process.

Commonwealth v. Derrickson, 242 A.3d 667, 679 (Pa. Super. 2020). 

Here, Appellant filed a timely post-sentence motion and notice of appeal 

which preserved the sentencing issue raised above. In addition, Appellant’s 

brief complies with our rules. Furthermore, we have previously determined:

an averment that the [trial court imposed a sentence] based solely 

on the seriousness of the offense and failed to consider all relevant 

factors raises a substantial question and an allegation that the 

court considered an impermissible sentencing factor raises a 

substantial question. Moreover, a claim that the trial court failed 

to consider relevant sentencing criteria, including the protection 

of the public, the gravity of the underlying offense and the 

rehabilitative needs of [an a]ppellant, as 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9721(b) 

requires, presents a substantial question for our review. 

Id. at 680 (internal citations, quotations, and original brackets omitted). 

Based on the foregoing, we will proceed to the merits of Appellant’s claims.

Our standard of review is well-settled:

Sentencing is a matter vested in the sound discretion of the 

sentencing judge, and a sentence will not be disturbed on appeal 

absent a manifest abuse of discretion. In this context, an abuse 
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of discretion is not shown merely by an error in judgment. Rather, 

the appellant must establish, by reference to the record, that the 

sentencing court ignored or misapplied the law, exercised its 

judgment for reasons of partiality, prejudice, bias, or ill will, or 

arrived at a manifestly unreasonable decision.

Deference is accorded to the trial court's pronouncement of 

sentence because the trial court is in the best position to 

determine the proper penalty for a particular offense based upon 

an evaluation of the individual circumstances before it. 

When imposing a sentence, the sentencing court must consider 

the factors set out in 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9721(b), that is, the 

protection of the public, gravity of offense in relation to impact on 

victim and community, and rehabilitative needs of the defendant.

Commonwealth v. Wallace, 244 A.3d 1261, 1278–1279 (Pa. Super. 2021) 

(internal citations, quotations, and brackets omitted). “The balancing of the 

Section 9721(b) sentencing factors is the sole province of a sentencing judge.” 

Commonwealth v. Lekka, 210 A.3d 343, 353 (Pa. Super. 2019) (citation 

omitted). “Generally, our review of a sentence is limited in these 

circumstances to whether the sentencing court explicitly or implicitly 

considered the [S]ection 9721(b) factors, and we may not re-weigh the 

significance placed on each factor by the sentencing judge.” Commonwealth 

v. Williams, 69 A.3d 735, 742 (Pa. Super. 2013) (citation omitted).

Initially, we reject Appellant’s suggestion that deportation must be 

considered specifically when fashioning an individualized sentence. There is 

no legal authority to support that proposition. Instead, the trial court was 

required to consider all of the factors set forth in Section 9721(b), including 

the protection of the public. Moreover, there is no legal requirement that the 

sentencing court reevaluate the balancing of factors of Section 9721(b), or 
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that the sentencing matrices change mathematically, whenever a criminal 

defendant is subject to deportation. Here, upon review of the certified record, 

the deportation issue was squarely addressed by the parties and the trial court 

devoted substantial consideration to Appellant’s claim during resentencing. At 

the resentencing hearing, the trial court recognized Appellant’s remorse 

during allocution and that approximately 40 people were present to support 

Appellant. N.T., 11/26/2019, at 26-27 and 44. However, the trial court found 

that the “very brazen acts” of Appellant “absolutely terrorized the victims of 

the various crimes over a period of several months[.]” Id. at 44. In its 

subsequent opinion, the trial court emphasized that Appellant “and his 

accomplices robbed several establishments and individuals at gunpoint, and 

in several instances physically assaulted his victims.” Trial Court Opinion, 

4/23/2020, at 5. As such, the trial court believed that its sentence was 

necessary not only to protect the public, but also because of the gravity of the 

offenses and the effect on the victims and community. Id. at 3. Based upon 

our deferential standard of review, we may not reweigh the significance placed 

on each factor by the sentencing judge. 

Moreover, as Appellant acknowledges, deportation is determined after 

parole.

4

 When fashioning an individual sentence, the trial court is required to 

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4 Appellant may also be paroled into “the custody of the United States 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation prior to the expiration 

of [his] minimum term of imprisonment” if he qualifies under 61 Pa.C.S.A. 

§ 6143. 
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address the current need to protect the public at large5 and should not 

consider imminent or prospective consequences that follow parole. 

For all of the foregoing reasons, we discern the trial court did not abuse 

its discretion in balancing the three factors set forth in Section 9721(b) in 

imposing an individualized sentence. As such, there is no merit to Appellant’s 

appellate sentencing claim.

Judgment affirmed.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 04/27/2021

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5 Appellant’s argument that the trial court should consider deportation as an 

alternative means of protecting the public baldly supposes that the term 

“public,” as defined in Section 9721, refers only to people in the United States. 

Appellant does not cite any relevant authority in support, and we decline to 

read Section 9721 so narrowly.