Opinion ID: 2284496
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Alleged Arbitrariness of the ARD Policy

Text: The dissent contends that the restrictive ARD policy of the Bucks County District Attorney was arbitrary and contrary to the intent of the legislature. I respectfully disagree. In Commonwealth v. Lutz, 508 Pa. 297, 495 A.2d 928 (1985), our Supreme Court stated unequivocally: . . . the decision to submit the case for ARD rests in the sound discretion of the district attorney, and absent an abuse of that discretion involving some criteria for admission to ARD wholly, patently and without doubt unrelated to the protection of society and/or the likelihood of a person's success in rehabilitation, such as race, religion or other such obviously prohibited considerations, the attorney for the Commonwealth must be free to submit a case or not submit it for ARD consideration based on his view of what is most beneficial for society and the offender. 495 A.2d at 395. (Emphasis in original). The duly elected District Attorney of Bucks County Pennsylvania has decided that ARD shall not be available in Bucks County to any individual involved in a two (or more) vehicle accident while driving under the influence (DUI), regardless of fault or faultlessness on the part of the drunk driver in the causation of the accident. The investigating officer in this case recommended ARD based upon his conclusion that: Stranges was completely free from fault in causing the accident. Moreover, due to the curve in the road and ditches alongside the road, it was impossible for the Stranges to avoid the accident. (N.T. 9/15/88 at 10-11). Perhaps in this case the officer's conclusions may be warranted, though I must confess a lingering skepticism with respect to the degree of certitude expressed by the officer as to the potential for Stranges to have avoided the accident had he been sober. Was the speed so fast, the curve so sharp, the ditch so deep, and the danger so immediate that an alert and sober driver could not have ditched his car or otherwise avoided and/or minimized the collision? Are accident reconstruction techniques so precise? I have my doubts; and, apparently the District Attorney of Bucks County had his. ( See N.T. 9/15/88 at 9-12) (questioning by the assistance district attorney of the investigation officer upon this issue). Regardless, it is the legitimacy of the policy in the aggregate of cases which is at issue here, and not solely its application to the facts of this case. That a bright line rule may reap beyond the purpose for which it was sown is often a regrettable but unavoidable consequence of such rules. That fact, however, does not render such rules arbitrary or capricious. Here, the District Attorney's bright line rule promotes prompt and predictable prosecutorial triage regarding recommendations of ARD in DUI accident cases by avoiding entirely the often problematic issue of causation. I find no abuse of discretion in the Bucks County Prosecutor's decision to decline to devote limited investigative and prosecutorial resources to the difficult task of separating fault involving from purely faultless accidents in deciding which DUI cases to recommend for ARD. Moreover, such a policy might reasonably be based on a belief that one embarrassing miscalculation regarding the attribution of fault in such cases could easily so enrage the public as to endanger the continued allowance of ARD for any DUI cases in that county. There have been counties in this Commonwealth were ARD was simply not available in any DUI cases, largely as the result of public opinion in those counties regarding the seriousness of DUI offenses. Cf. Commonwealth v. Kindness, 247 Pa.Super. 99, 371 A.2d 1346 (1977). [1] In sum, I find the challenged policy to be well within the legitimate bounds of prosecutorial discretion. With these observations noted, I join the majority.