Court Opinion

ID: 9703967
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:15:36.676956+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:53.599947
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING STATEMENT BY
KLEIN, J.:
¶ 1 I fully join in the result and the scholarly opinion by my distinguished colleague. I write separately only to note the practical reasons for the sentence structure established by the legislature. Often, a trial judge will wish to put a “tail” on a defendant’s sentence that extends beyond the time of his or her parole. Also, if there is a violation, the judge may wish to impose a new sentence that is longer than the amount of time remaining on the defendant’s parole. Therefore, there are often good reasons to impose both a sentence to a state institution and separate probation.
¶ 2 At the same time, it is inefficient to have two different entities and agents supervising the same defendant at the same time. Therefore, by using special probation to be supervised by the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, the agent handling the parole will also handle the probation. At the same time, the trial judge retains his or her authority to resen-tence if there is a violation. This scheme is logical and maintains judicial discretion without duplicating effort.