Court Opinion

ID: 9834964
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-02 01:59:28.692526+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:55.986913
License: Public Domain

Justice TODD,
concurring.
I join the Majority Opinion in full. I write to address the expressions of Justice Dougherty in his Concurring Opinion in which he offers, should the General Assembly revisit the issue, that our decision in Commonwealth v. Mouzon, 617 Pa. 527, 53 A.3d 738 (2012), “effectively recognized” that this Court “may have erroneously” placed upon the Commonwealth the burden to disprove a self-defense claim. See Concurring Opinion (Dougherty, J.) at 343-44, 142 A.3d at 825 (citing Mouzon). I would caution the General Assembly to view this entreaty with care: given that the cited expressions in Mouzon, as detailed in my Concurring Opinion in that case, were far afield from the matter at hand in that case, they were nonbinding dicta. See Mouzon, 53 A.3d at 754-55 (Todd, J., concurring; joined by Baer, J.).