J-S31019-20

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

v.

GORDON LEE YOUNG 

Appellant

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 185 MDA 2020

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered November 18, 2019

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

No(s): CP-18-CR-0000638-2018

BEFORE: BOWES, J., DUBOW, J., and FORD ELLIOTT, P.J.E.

MEMORANDUM BY DUBOW, J.: FILED JULY 23, 2020

Appellant, Gordon Lee Young, appeals from the November 18, 2019 

Judgment of Sentence entered in the Clinton County Court of Common Pleas 

following his open guilty plea to eight counts of Rape by Forcible Compulsion. 

Appellant challenges the discretionary aspects of his sentence. After careful 

review, we affirm.

On July 1, 2019, Appellant entered open guilty pleas to the above 

charges.1 The trial court deferred sentencing pending preparation of a PreSentence Investigation Report. Following a sentencing hearing on November 

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1 The charges arose from Appellant’s abuse of his teenage stepdaughter over 

a period of two years in the late 1990s.
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18, 2019, the trial court sentenced Appellant to eight consecutive terms of 

five to twenty years’ incarceration.2 

On November 27, 2019, Appellant filed a Motion for Reconsideration of 

Sentence, in which he asserted that his sentence was excessive because: (1) 

he took responsibility for his actions by confessing and pleading guilty; (2) he 

did not contest the Sexual Offenders Assessment Board’s finding that he is a 

Sexually Violent Predator; (3) the court failed to consider the length of time 

that had elapsed between the commission of the crimes in the late 1990s and 

the filing of charges; and (4) it is essentially a life sentence. On December 

30, 2019, the trial court denied Appellant’s Motion for Reconsideration.

This timely appeal followed. Both Appellant and the trial court complied 

with Pa.R.A.P. 1925.

Appellant raises the following issue on appeal: 

Did the [t]rial [c]ourt issue a Sentencing Order that was cruel and 

excessive in sentencing [Appellant] to an aggregate forty (40) 

year to one hundred sixty (160) year sentence when [Appellant] 

entered guilty pleas, took responsibility for his actions, cooperated 

with police, and the incidents giving rise to the matter stemmed 

from actions over twenty (20) years earlier?

Appellant’s Brief at 4. 

Appellant challenges the discretionary aspects of his sentence. 

Challenges to the discretionary aspects of sentencing are not automatically 

reviewable as a matter of right. Commonwealth v. Hunter, 768 A.2d 1136, 

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2 The standard range sentence for Rape by Forcible Compulsion is four to five 

and a half years’ incarceration.
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1144 (Pa. Super. 2001). Prior to reaching the merits of a discretionary 

sentencing issue, we must determine: (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 sufficiently addresses the challenge in a statement included pursuant to 

Pa.R.A.P. 2119(f); and (4) whether there is a substantial question that the 

sentence appealed from is not appropriate under the Sentencing Code. 

Commonwealth v. Evans, 901 A.2d 528, 533 (Pa. Super. 2006).

Appellant has preserved his challenge by filing a timely Notice of Appeal, 

a Motion for Reconsideration of Sentence, and by including a Rule 2119(f) 

Statement in his Brief to this Court. We, thus, proceed to consider whether 

Appellant has raised a substantial question for our review.

Whether an appellant has raised a substantial question regarding 

discretionary sentencing is determined on a case-by-case basis. 

Commonwealth v. Moury, 992 A.2d 162, 170 (Pa. Super. 2010). “A 

substantial question exists only when the appellant advances a colorable 

argument that the sentencing judge’s actions were either: (1) inconsistent 

with a specific provision of the Sentencing Code; or (2) contrary to the 

fundamental norms which underlie the sentencing process.” Id. (citation and 

quotation marks omitted).

Here, Appellant avers that the court abused its discretion in imposing 

“in effect, a life sentence for conduct that had occurred decades earlier.” Id.

at 9. He complains that the court “gave him no deference for the conciliatory 
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manner in which [he] conducted himself” and failed to take into consideration 

that he has lived a “law-abiding life outside of this incident”3 and his military 

service. Id.

Appellant has not identified which provision of the Sentencing Code or 

fundamental norm underlying the sentencing process his sentence violates or 

offends. His argument is that the trial court did not properly weigh allegedly 

mitigating factors. Claims that the sentencing court did not adequately 

consider mitigating factors generally do not raise a substantial question. See 

Commonwealth v. Disalvo, 70 A.3d 900, 903 (Pa. Super. 2013) (“This Court 

has held on numerous occasions that a claim of inadequate consideration of 

mitigating factors does not raise a substantial question for our review.”)

(citation omitted); Commonwealth v. Zirkle, 107 A.3d 127, 133 (Pa. Super. 

2014) (“[W]e have held that a claim that a court did not weigh the factors as 

an appellant wishes does not raise a substantial question.”) (citation omitted). 

We conclude, therefore, that Appellant has failed to present a substantial 

question in challenging the discretionary aspects of his sentence.4

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3 During this “law-abiding” period, Appellant served a sentence of 60 months’ 

incarceration for a federal conviction of Possession of Child Pornography.

4 To the extent that Appellant’s claim that his sentence is “in effect, a life 

sentence” challenges the court’s imposition of consecutive sentences, we note 

that such challenges do not raise a substantial question permitting our review. 

See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Austin, 66 A.3d 798, 807-09 (Pa. Super. 

2013) (where this Court found that the appellant had not presented a 

substantial question when he claimed that the imposition of consecutive 

sentences resulted in a “de facto life sentence”), Commonwealth v. Prisk, 
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Because Appellant has failed to present a substantial question, this 

Court has no jurisdiction to review Appellant’s challenge to the discretionary 

aspects of his sentence.

Judgment of Sentence affirmed.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 07/23/2020

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13 A.3d 526, 533 (Pa. Super. 2011) (rejecting the appellant’s claim that the 

trial court’s imposition of consecutive sentences effectively imposed a life 

sentence raised a substantial question).