Court Opinion

ID: 9532923
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:26:18.376177+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:52.398692
License: Public Domain

MUSMANNO, J.:
¶ 1 While I joined the Opinion of our Court in the companion case of Commonwealth v. Drummond, 775 A.2d 849 (Pa.Super. 2001) (en banc), I am constrained to dissent to this Court’s interpretation of 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 6317 in the instant case.
¶ 2 For the sentencing provisions of section 6317 to apply, the Commonwealth must establish that “the delivery or possession with intent to deliver of the controlled substance occurred within 1,000 feet of the real property on which is located a public, private or parochial school or a college or university or within 250 feet of the real property on which is located a recreation center or a playground or on a school bus[.]” 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 6317(a). I believe that the Legislature, by its enactment of section 6317, intended to prescribe more severe penalties for drug dealers who prey upon children. Thus, the statute increases the penalty for dealers who make sales, or intend to make sales, in the area around a school, recreation center, playground, or on a school bus. Therefore, I believe that for section 6317 to apply, the Commonwealth must establish *868that the defendant sold drugs, or intended to sell drugs, within the proscribed area.
¶ 3 In our recent decision in Drum-mond, the evidence clearly established that Drummond delivered or intended to deliver cocaine within 1,000 feet of a school. As the result of a search warrant executed on Drummond’s apartment, police seized $75 and two packets of cocaine from Drummond’s person, and three bags of cocaine, $205 in cash, and thirty smaller ziploc bags from the immediate vicinity of Drummond. Moreover, the evidence established that Drummond sold drugs from his apartment, which was located within the proscribed area. Drummond, 775 A.2d at 854.
¶ 4 In the present case, the Commonwealth presented no evidence that Hinds conducted drug transactions from his home, that he intended to conduct drug transactions from his home, or that he sold or intended to sell the drugs near the schools located within 1,000 feet of his home. I do not believe that the Legislature intended for section 6317 to apply where, as here, drugs merely were seized from within a residence, and there was no evidence that the defendant sold or intended to sell the drugs within the proscribed area.8 In my opinion, this section requires the Commonwealth to establish that the defendant intended to deliver the controlled substance within the proscribed area.
¶ 5 For the reasons set forth above, I conclude that the trial court did not err in refusing to apply the mandatory sentencing provisions of section 6317, and I dissent on that basis.
¶ 6 DEL SOLE, J. and JOHNSON, J. joins this Dissenting Opinion.

. I also note that, although the trial court did not apply the mandatory sentencing provisions of section 6317, the court imposed a longer sentence than the two to four years required by that section. The trial court sentenced Hinds as follows: a prison term of three to six years for the conviction of possession with intent to deliver cocaine; a consecutive prison term of two to four years for criminal conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent to deliver; a concurrent prison term of one to two years on the charge of possession of marijuana with intent to deliver; and a concurrent prison term of six to twenty-four months on the conviction of prohibited offensive weapons.