Court Opinion

ID: 9710003
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:59:23.397729+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:53.311487
License: Public Domain

*666DISSENTING OPINION BY
Judge PELLEGRINI.
The issue in this case is what standard has our Supreme Court adopted for determining the length of a license suspension when the licensee has been convicted of a number of criminal charges arising out of the same incident. Has it adopted the “single criminal episode” standard or has it adopted a merger analysis that looks at whether the elements of the multiple offenses are the same?
In Freundt v. Dept. of Transp., Bureau of Driver Licensing, 584 Pa. 283, 291, 883 A.2d 503, 507 (2005), our Supreme Court adopted the “single episode standard” holding that “the statutory framework requires ‘when there is a conviction, the appropriate suspension shall be determined by whether or not the conviction stemmed from a single criminal episode, or multiple criminal episodes’ ” (Emphasis added.)
The Freundt dissenters also thought our Supreme Court was adopting a single episode standard. Justice Eakin, joined by Justice Newman, disagreed with the “single criminal episode standard” stating: “I would hold that under § 1532(c), a separate suspension is properly imposed for each count of which the licensee is convicted, regardless of whether the counts occurred in a single criminal episode.” Id. at 295, 883 A.2d at 509-510. (Emphasis added.)
In Drabic v. Dept. of Transp., Bureau of Driver Licensing, 588 Pa. 670, 675, 906 A.2d 1153, 1156 (2006), relying on Freundt, our Supreme Court reiterated that the “single criminal episode” standard was to be used to determine the length of suspensions, stating that “[i]n first instance, the parties disagree as to whether the doctrine of merger even applies in the instant context, i.e., when collateral civil consequences are imposed. We need not directly address this question, since we believe the plain language of the statute directs that only a single suspension can be imposed based upon a single criminal episode.”
Again, the dissenters thought the Supreme Court was adopting a “single episode standard.” Justice Newman, joined by Justice Eakin, stated: “the majority holds an ‘offense’for purposes of § 1582(c) means a single criminal episode; I believe this interpretation is inconsistent with both the language and the aim of § 1532(c).” Id. at 685, 906 A.2d at 1162. Justice Saylor in his dissent stated: “Freundt’s logic that ‘offense’ meant ‘single criminal episode’ and not ‘violation’ cannot be transported to Sections 1532(a) and (a.l), because the Legislature was even more explicit in those sections in targeting violations.” Id. at 689-690, 906 A.2d at 1164.
At oral argument, when the Department’s counsel was asked whether a layperson interpreting those cases believed that the Supreme Court adopted a “single criminal episode standard,” he forthrightly answered ‘Tes.”
Notwithstanding all that, apparently believing that it did not mean what it said, by glomming on stray language in Drabic, the majority finds that our Supreme Court did not adopt the single criminal episode standard in Freundt and Drabic. In doing so, the majority apparently believes the dissenters should not have written their dissents in those cases because the dissenters’ fears that the “single criminal episode standard” was adopted were unfounded. Simply, the majority’s reading of those cases to find that the Supreme Court did not adopt a single criminal episode standard is simply one that is unfathomable.1
*667Because I am not as cavalier with Supreme Court precedent as is the majority, I respectfully dissent and would apply the single criminal episode standard to deten-mine the length of the license suspension to impose.
Judge SMITH-RIBNER joins in this dissenting opinion.

. In response to my dissent, the majority suggests that our Supreme Court in Drabic decid*667ed to retain merger doctrine as the method of analysis in determining the length of license suspensions. The majority’s view makes meaningless our Supreme Court's lengthy statutory analysis in Freundt and Drabic, finding that 75 Pa.C.S. § 1532 requires that a suspension be based on a single criminal episode, an analysis that the dissenters thought to be erroneous. What the majority also ignores is Drabic’s history. In our unpublished opinion in Drabic, dated September 9, 2005, we used a merger analysis to determine what was the appropriate length of the license suspension. Shortly after we issued our decision in Drabic, our Supreme Court, on Sept. 28, 2005, decided Freundt, which adopted the single criminal episode test for determining the length of a license suspension. The stray language in the opinion in Drabic that the majority uses to say that the merger analysis comes from the way we decided the case, which was issued before Freundt, not to continue the use of the merger analysis.