Court Opinion

ID: 9650242
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:27:32.861783+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:19.169027
License: Public Domain

MANDERINO, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. The appellant in this case was originally sentenced to imprisonment for a term of “time in to four years.” The appellant’s “time in” was two months and seven days. Thus, the sentence imposed was, in effect, two months and seven days to four years. Three days after imposing the above sentence the trial judge “vacated” the sentence and placed appellant on four years probation. When appellant violated his probation, he was resentenced to one and a half to three years imprisonment.
The majority concedes, in endorsing Commonwealth v. Cole, 222 Pa.Super. 229, 294 A.2d 824 (1972), that under the law in Pennsylvania had the appellant been sentenced to imprisonment and that sentence been “suspended,” and appellant placed on probation, he could only be given the original sentence of imprisonment following a violation of probation. Because, however, the trial court after ordering imprisonment did not “suspend” the sentence but rather “vacated” the sentence before placing appellant on proba*122tion, the consequences are different. I cannot subscribe to this semantic distinction. On this point, the Superior Court unanimously refused to find any difference between suspending and vacating a sentence of imprisonment for probation purposes. See Commonwealth v. Tomlin, 232 Pa.Super. 147, 150, 336 A.2d 407, 409 (1975), which is directly in point and is not discussed in the majority opinion.
Because of the majority’s conclusion that appellant’s original sentence of time in to four years was a nullity, it avoided the issue of whether increasing a defendant’s minimum sentence on resentencing constitutes a harsher sentence in violation of the double jeopardy clause. At 406 n.6. While it is true that a minimum sentence serves the sole purpose of informing parole authorities with notice of the prisoner’s eligibility for parole, see 61 P.S. § 331.21 (1964); Commonwealth v. Brown, 455 Pa. 274, 314 A.2d 506 (1974) (concurring opinion of Roberts, J.), increasing the minimum sentence increases the length of a prisoner’s minimum incarceration and therefore violates a prisoner’s double jeopardy rights.
Appellant’s minimum sentence was increased from a little over two months to eighteen months. I agree with appellant that a sentence that requires a defendant to spend at least eighteen months in jail is harsher than a sentence which required a defendant to spend slightly more than two months in jail. The opportunity for parole is an important interest, see Commonwealth v. Butler, 458 Pa. 289, 328 A.2d 851 (1974), and to postpone its availability obviously constitutes a more severe punishment than that originally meted out. This common sense reality is not altered by the fact that the maximum sentence was shortened from four years to three years. See Commonwealth v. Colding, 237 Pa.Super. 612, 352 A.2d 554, 558-60 (1975) (Spaeth & Hoffman, JJ., dissenting). I respectfully dissent.
ROBERTS, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.