Court Opinion

ID: 9644555
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:59:26.846739+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:15.056221
License: Public Domain

NIX, Justice,
dissenting.
For the reasons enunciated in my concurring and dissenting opinion in Commonwealth v. Brown, 455 Pa. 274, 280, 314 A.2d 506 (1974) (Nix, J., concurring and dissenting), I cannot accept the majority’s conclusion that the trial judge’s imposition of a life sentence upon appellant violates the double jeopardy clause of the United States Constitution. The trial judge’s initial sentence, ten to twenty years imprisonment, on the second degree murder convictions was a direct contravention of the then applicable express statutory grant of sentencing power to the judiciary. See, 18 Pa.C. S.A. § 1102(b) (Supp.1978-79), and as such this initial sentence was a legal nullity. Because the first sentence was illegal, appellant in effect remained unsentenced until August 4, 1976 when the trial judge sentenced appellant to life imprisonment in accordance with the legislative mandate. See id. It was at this time that appellant received his first legal sentence, and I remain convinced that the protection embodied in the Double Jeopardy Clause does not prohibit a sentencing court from modifying an illegal sentence in order to bring it into compliance with a statutory sentencing scheme which was in effect when the illegal sentence was announced.