Court Opinion

ID: 9701131
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 22:06:29.572973+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:19.683070
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, President Judge,
concurring:
Although I agree with the result reached by the majority, and with much of its opinion, my reasoning is somewhat different.
The common law doctrine of merger was developed before and independently of double jeopardy principles. The Fifth Amendment double jeopardy provision was first applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment in Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784, 89 S.Ct. 2056, 23 L.Ed.2d 707 (1969). The equivalent Pennsylvania provision did not apply to non-capital offenses. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Baker, 413 Pa. 105, 196 A.2d 382 (1964); Commonwealth v. Simpson, 310 Pa. 380, 165 A. 498 (1933); McCreary v. Commonwealth, 29 Pa. 323 (1857); Commonwealth v. Boerner, 281 Pa.Super. 505, 422 A.2d 583 (1980). As a result, the Pennsylvania courts developed the doctrine of merger without reference to double jeopardy but as a common law doctrine to preclude multiple punishments for the same offense. See Commonwealth v. Carter, 482 Pa. 274, 280 n. 3, 393 A.2d 660, 663 n. 3 (1978) (POMEROY, J., dissenting).
The common law doctrine of merger is often traced to Harman v. Commonwealth, 12 Serg. & Rawle 68 (1824), where the Pennsylvania Supreme Court concluded that “[i]t would have been unjust” to punish appellant for assault with intent to ravish because the offense “merged in the *147greater offence of rape.” Id. at 71-72. In subsequent cases, the test for determining merger was stated in terms of the relationship of the offenses. See, e.g., Commonwealth ex rel. Moszczynski v. Ashe, 343 Pa. 102, 21 A.2d 920 (1941) (test is whether one crime “necessarily involves” another); Commonwealth ex rel. Russo v. Ashe, 293 Pa. 322, 142 A. 317 (1928) (test is whether distinct crimes grow out of same transaction, differing only in degree). However, the courts did not confine themselves to this test, but even in the absence of a greater and lesser offense relationship, held that merger occurred where the particular facts of the case demonstrated only one offense, see, e.g., Commonwealth ex rel. Shaddock v. Ashe, 340 Pa. 286, 17 A.2d 190 (1941) (assault and battery with intent to commit rape, aggravated assault and battery, and rape merged where offenses were constituents of the major felony), and where there was no expression of legislative intent dictating separate punishments, see, e.g., Commonwealth v. Mentzer, 162 Pa. 646, 29 A. 720 (1894) (if criminal acts were “successive steps in but one taking of the same public money they would amount to but one crime in fact, and it is not to be supposed that the statute intended ... [multiple punishments]”).
In 1972, the legislature abolished common law crimes, 18 Pa.C.S. § 107(b), but retained “common law definitions except insofar as inconsistent with the statute,” see S. Toll, Pennsylvania Crimes Code Annotated § 107 (1974) quoting the Reporter’s Comment. The Crimes Code did not address merger in general, providing only that there should be merger under 18 Pa.C.S. § 3502(d) (burglary merges with intended offense unless offense is a felony of the first or second degree) and under 18 Pa.C.S. § 906 (inchoate offenses merge), and that crimes committed with a firearm should not merge with violations of the Uniform Firearms Act, 18 Pa.C.S. § 6101 et seq. 18 Pa.C.S. § 6103 (formerly 18 P.S. § 4628(b)). Although the legislature adopted portions of the Model Penal Code (P.O.D.1962) in formulating the 1972 Crimes Code, it rejected a provision, § 1.07, that would have covered merger in general.
*148“[Statutes are not presumed to make changes in the rules and principles of the common law or prior existing law beyond what is expressly declared in their provisions,____” Commonwealth v. Miller, 469 Pa. 24, 27-28, 364 A.2d 886, 887 (1976). See also Truck Terminal Realty Co. v. Commonwealth, Department of Transportation, 486 Pa. 16, 403 A.2d 986 (1979); Jahn v. O’Neill, 327 Pa.Super. 357, 475 A.2d 837 (1984). In Miller, the Court held that
the failure of the Legislature to include, within the Crimes Code, any provision mandating the merger of criminal conspiracy into the completed substantive offense indicates that no change in the existing law was intended.
469 Pa. at 28, 364 A.2d at 887.
Contrary to the view of amicus, Chester County District Attorney’s Office, Miller supports the position that the common law doctrine of merger has not been abrogated by the Code. Cf. Brief for Amicus Curiae at 22.1
When the common law doctrine of merger is applied to the present case, the following conclusions are apparent. Each of the four offenses — aggravated assault; resisting arrest; prohibited offensive weapons; and carrying a firearm on a public street in Philadelphia — has an element that the others do not have. Therefore, no merger occurs under that part of the common law doctrine of merger sometimes referred to as the “elements test.” However, two of the offenses — the two weapons offenses — do merge, under that part of the common law doctrine of merger sometimes referred to as the “facts test” but more accurately described as the “legislative intent test” in that the conclusion that on the particular facts of a case merger should occur depends on the further conclusion that the legislature did not intend separate punishments for “successive steps in [what] amounted] to but one crime in fact.” Commonwealth v. Mentzer, supra. (I do not discuss these conclu*149sions in detail, for the majority opinion discusses and supports them very fully. See Majority at 119-122, 143-146.)
In the majority’s view, it is necessary to consider whether the two offenses that do not merge under the common law doctrine of merger — aggravated assault and resisting arrest— do merge by virtue of the application of double jeopardy principles. See Majority Slip op. at 115-121. It is at this point that I part company with the majority. The United States Supreme Court has held that the double jeopardy provision of the Federal Constitution, which our Supreme Court has held equivalent to the double jeopardy provision of the Pennsylvania Constitution, see Commonwealth v. Bostic, 500 Pa. 345, 456 A.2d 1320 (1983), does no more “than prevent the sentencing court from prescribing greater punishment than the legislature intended.” Missouri v. Hunter, 459 U.S. 359, 366, 103 S.Ct. 673, 678, 74 L.Ed.2d 535 (1983). Accordingly, double jeopardy principles do not proscribe separate punishment for aggravated assault and resisting arrest. This is so because the common law doctrine of merger does not proscribe separate punishment for those offenses, and the legislature has adopted that doctrine.
BROSKY, J., joins.

. Indeed, it is arguable that the Crimes Code having implicitly endorsed the common law merger doctrine, courts are now precluded from abolishing it.