Court Opinion

ID: 9762661
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:28:20.211707+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:36.287835
License: Public Domain

NIX, Chief Justice,
concurring.
I agree with the majority’s resolution of the Pa.R.Crim.P. 1120(d) problem, although I do not agree with the analysis employed in reaching the conclusion. Moreover, I would not undertake a discussion of those issues not properly before this Court.
The Court of Common Pleas of Lackawanna County dismissed the charge against appellee for homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence, 75 Pa.C.S. § 3735, after the jury returned a guilty verdict on the charge of driving under the influence, 75 Pa.C.S. § 3731, but was deadlocked on the homicide charge. Upon appellee’s petition to quash the information, the trial court, reading Rule 1120(d) and 18 Pa.C.S. § 109 in tandem, dismissed the unresolved charge because driving under the influence was clearly a lesser included offense under the homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence provision. Therefore, it reasoned that, pursuant to 18 Pa.C.S. § 109, a conviction of the former entailed an acquittal of the greater offense.
Initially I reject the convoluted analysis employed by the majority in concluding that a violation of section 3731 of the Motor Vehicle Code is not “necessarily” a lesser included offense in the statutory definition of homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence found in section 3735(a).1 Although I would agree with the trial court that these are included offenses, I find that that court erred in applying 18 *502Pa.C.S. § 109 in the instant situation, and for that reason I would reverse the judgment of the trial court.
Section 109 of the Crimes Code reads in pertinent part: When a prosecution is for a violation of the same provision of the statutes and is based upon the same facts as a former prosecution, it is barred by such former circumstances:
(1) ... A finding of guilty of a lesser included offense is an acquittal of the greater inclusive offense, although the conviction is subsequently set aside.
18 Pa.C.S. § 109. Rule 1120(d), Pa.R.Crim.P., which the trial court found dispositive of this case, states in part that “[i]f the jury cannot agree with respect to all the counts in the information or indictment if those counts to which it has agreed operate as an acquittal of lesser or greater included offenses to which they cannot agree, these latter counts shall be dismissed.”
Appellee contends that, read together, these provisions require the dismissal of the charge for violation of section 3735. However, where a defendant has been charged with two separate offenses, both of which happen to be included offenses, and he is convicted of only one in the initial proceeding, section 109 was never intended to apply. To the contrary, this provision is properly applied only where the sole offense charged in the indictment or information is the greater offense and the jury returns a verdict of guilty on the lesser offense. There being no acquittal for purposes of Rule 1120(d), the Commonwealth may reprosecute appellee for the alleged violation of 75 Pa.C.S. § 3735 without offending the Rules of Criminal Procedure.
At this time I would forego the constitutional discussion indulged in by the majority. It has long been the jurisprudence of this Commonwealth to limit our consideration to those issues properly before the court. Since the lower court resolved only the procedural issue and did not reach the double jeopardy challenge, I would reverse this case on *503the procedural ground and would not address the constitutional question.

. The argument of the majority implicitly suggests that the doctrine of lesser included offenses must be confined to common law offenses and not extended to statutory offenses.