Court Opinion

ID: 9649822
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:10:16.152338+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:15.194198
License: Public Domain

POMEROY, Justice
(dissenting).
The Court today reverses the judgment of sentence imposed upon appellant’s conviction for statutory rape on *337the basis of an issue that has not been properly preserved for appeal purposes. For this reason, I must dissent.
Although the Court apparently agrees with the Commonwealth that the issue of the propriety of the sentencing of appellant on both his convictions for rape and statutory rape was not raised in the trial court, it nonetheless goes on to consider the merits of appellant’s double jeopardy challenge. Assuming that the Court is correct that appellant’s claim is solely an attack upon the lawfulness of the two sentences and not merely a disguised attack on his convictions,1 consideration of this issue is foreclosed by this Court’s holding in Commonwealth v. Piper, 458 Pa. 307, 328 A.2d 845 (1974).
In Piper, over my dissent, a majority of the Court held that the failure to object to the constitutionaiity of the sentence imposed at the time of sentencing constituted a waiver of that issue. While, as my dissenting opinion demonstrated, I did not believe that finding a waiver in that case was in the best interests of justice, 458 Pa. at 312-315, 1 do believe that the Court should consistently apply its waiver rules. See also my dissenting opinion in Commonwealth v. Bartolomucci, 468 Pa. 338, 362 A.2d 234. Application of the Piper decision in this case *338should preclude our consideration of the merits of appellant’s claim.2 Hence this dissent.
NIX, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.

. The fact that a constitutional issue is involved and the fact that we granted allocatur specifically to consider that issue does not compel a different result. 458 Pa. at 310 nn, 6, 7, 328 A.2d 845 (1974).

. I find the conclusion of the Superior Court compelling that appellant’s challenge is not to the lawfulness of the sentences per se but an attack on his convictions. Commonwealth v. Walker, 234 Pa.Super. 433, 340 A.2d 858 (1975). In effect appellant’s challenge is nothing more than an attack on the sufficiency of the evidence to support both convictions. That this is so, is borne out by the fact that the Court finds it necessary to conclude that (1) under the Crimes Code convictions for rape and statutory rape based on a single act of intercourse are mutually exclusive; (2) that the record in this case demonstrates that both convictions rested upon a single act of non-consensual intercourse; and (3) that the fact that the intercourse was non-consensual precluded conviction of statutory rape. See Commonwealth v. Tisdale, 233 Pa.Super. 77, 334 A.2d 722 (1975) (allocatur denied, June 20, 1975); Commonwealth v. Rispo, 222 Pa.Super. 309, 294 A.2d 792 (1972) (allocatur denied, December 1, 1972).