Court Opinion

ID: 9755661
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:45:58.761668+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:09.059855
License: Public Domain

Justice CASTILLE,
Concurring.
I join the Majority Opinion with the sole exception of footnote one, which rejects the Commonwealth’s claim that appellant waived his constitutional challenge to the statutory sentencing enhancement found at 35 Pa.C.S. § 780-115(a) because,, inter alia, he never raised it before the trial court.1 The Majority holds that appellant’s belated challenge implicates the legality of his sentence and concludes that, as such, it is non-waivable. Although I am satisfied to reach the merits of the claim under the unique circumstances presented here, I conclude that the issue is reviewable for much narrower reasons than those offered by the Majority.
Generally speaking, “[a]n illegal sentence is one that exceeds the statutory limits. Commonwealth v. Bradley, 575 Pa. 141, 834 A.2d 1127, 1131 (2003) (quoting Commonwealth v. Hunter, 768 A.2d 1136, 1144 n. 3 (Pa.Super.2001)) (further citation omitted); Commonwealth v. Vasquez, 560 Pa. 381, 744 A.2d 1280, 1284 (2000) (citation omitted); Commonwealth v. Miller, 541 Pa. 531, 664 A.2d 1310, 1325 (1995); Commonwealth v. Piper, 458 Pa. 307, 328 A.2d 845, 847 (1974). Alleged errors in the imposition of a sentence that falls within *266the authorized statutory range of punishment, as this one unquestionably does, do not implicate the “legality” of that sentence. Indeed, appellant does not dispute that the statute at issue authorizes the sentence he received; instead, he complains that the decision-making authority reposed in the enhancement statute is directed at the court rather than a jury. Such a claim should presumptively be deemed waivable.
But the matter is not so simple. One complicating factor is that here, as in the Bradley case, it could be said that “if appellants claim proved to have merit, it would' implicate the legality of his sentence” under the classic formulation of sentence illegality. 834 A.2d at 1131. This is so because if appellants claim that the procedure by which he was subjected to the enhanced sentence authorized by Section 780—115(a) was constitutionally deficient proved to have merit, then appellants sentence would exceed the lawful statutory maximum otherwise imposable for his offense. But, before concluding that Bradley makes appellants waived claim reviewable, it bears emphasis that Bradley involved a preserved claim. The question of sentencing “legality” in Bradley arose only in conjunction with the jurisdictional distinction in appellate review models set forth in the Sentencing Code.2 Bradley did not purport to address and answer what it might mean to say that a claim implicates the “legality” of a sentence for other purposes—such as attempts to defeat jurisprudential principles of issue preservation and waiver, or to establish jurisdiction where it does not otherwise exist, or to defeat restrictions upon collateral attack, or to defeat the restrictions upon retroactive application of new procedural rulings of constitutional dimension. Nevertheless, since Bradley employed the classic “exceeds the statutory limit” formulation in a context where the assumed success of the claim was the only basis upon which the claim could be said to implicate sentencing “legality,” it provides at least some support for the notion that *267the claim sub judice, if deemed meritorious, likewise could be said to implicate the “legality” of appellants sentence.
I have serious reservations concerning the prospect of employing a form of relaxed waiver to absolve a criminal defendant of the requirement of preserving a novel sentencing challenge in the trial court based upon the assumption that, if the claim proved to have merit and the statute under which the defendant was sentenced were suspended, the sentence would exceed the residual statutory maximum. Appellants sentence unquestionably is lawful upon its face, given the existing statutory construct; his claim, in essence, seeks to alter that construct. In short, appellant would belatedly like his to be the test case which would result in striking the statute down on constitutional grounds. In this regard, the posture of this appeal is significantly different from that at issue in Commonwealth v. Wynn, 567 Pa. 183, 786 A.2d 202 (2001) (per curiam), the case cited by the Majority to support its holding that appellants sentencing challenge is unwaivable. This Courts per curiam reversal in Wynn merely afforded that defendant the benefit of this Courts existing holding in Commonwealth v. Butler, 563 Pa. 324, 760 A.2d 384 (2000), that the “two strikes” legislation under which Wynn was sentenced was unconstitutional. The Court did not overlook Wynns waiver in order to innovate or announce a holding that a statute was unconstitutional, as appellant would have this Court do; that innovation had been secured by the defendant in Butler, and the per curiam order in Wynn declined to enforce the waiver so as to prevent service of an unconstitutional sentence.
A second complicating factor here is the existing uncertainty in the law over' the significance that a waived sentencing claim has a constitutional dimension. This is a question which the Court did not address or decide despite its square presentation in Wynn: i.e., whether a constitutional challenge to a sentencing statute could or should be deemed non-waivable given this Courts precedent holding that sentencing “legality” claims are confined to sentences which exceed the authorized statutory maximum. See Wynn, 786 A.2d at 202 (Saylor, J. *268dissenting).3 Indeed, it was the failure to decide this question which provoked Mr. Justice Saylor to dissent in Wynn, as he argued that the Court “would be best served by issuing a written opinion to address the apparent inconsistency between its disposition of this case and prevailing precedent.” Id.
In deeming waiver to be inapplicable in the case sub judice, the Majority extrapolates from the per curiam decision in Wynn a broad general proposition that constitutional challenges to a sentence cannot be waived. I disagree with such a far-reaching rule. Pennsylvania courts have held on numerous occasions that constitutional challenges to a sentence are waived if not properly raised below. See generally Commonwealth v. Hartz, 367 Pa.Super. 267, 532 A.2d 1139, 1143-45 (1987) (en banc) (Cirillo, P.J., concurring) (collecting cases). Moréover, many fairly routine sentencing claims have a direct or tangential constitutional dimension. To hold that a mere allegation of unconstitutionality renders the claim impervious to waiver would be absurd. There is no reason to afford garden variety, or novel, sentencing claims of constitutional dimension a status which is denied to equivalent constitutional claims affecting the trial itself.
I nevertheless recognize that the contours of Pennsylvania’s “illegal sentence” doctrine is uncertain; that Wynn exacerbated the situation, particularly with respect to claims involving constitutional challenges to sentences falling within the authorized statutory range; and that it is an issue which this Court should address in an appropriate case. Moreover, recent experience teaches that the issue should be treated in a less monolithic fashion than our brief discussions over the years may have suggested. As I have noted above, a claim that a sentence is “illegal” may be offered for a variety of reasons: to negate an abject waiver on direct appeal, as here; to secure substantive appellate review of a preserved claim in light of statutory restrictions, as in Bradley; as a basis for creating a *269form of extraordinary jurisdiction nunc pro tunc, see Fajohn v. Commonwealth, 547 Pa. 649, 692 A.2d 1067 (1997); and, I would expect, both to defeat limitations upon the retroactive application of new procedural rules and to secure belated collateral review of a sentence in the face of the statutory restrictions imposed by the Post Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”), 42 Pa.C.S. 9541 et seq. Should this Courts construction of the term “illegal sentence” be so broad as to permit a party such as appellant to seek to innovate a new constitutional rule of procedure, where normative principles of issue preservation and retroactivity ordinarily would prevent such an innovation? Should that construction apply only to those seeking the benefit of an existing law or interpretation which calls into question the lawfulness of their sentences (as in the case of the appellant in Wynn who sought application of the Butler decision), as opposed to one seeking to make that very law? Should the definition of what is an “illegal” sentence for purposes of avoiding a judicial issue preservation doctrine factor in the reality that the Court would essentially be permitting the defendant to mount a preemptive collateral attack, and thereby to avoid satisfying statutory limitations upon collateral attack as well as salutary limitations upon the retroactive effect of new constitutional rulings? Merely labeling a sentence as “illegal” hardly justifies defeating all other laws which exist to ensure a rational and fair system of review.
In this regard, it is important to recognize that the type of innovative constitutional ruling appellant seeks to secure here—i.e., a ruling that Section 780-115(a) is unconstitutional because it permits a judge instead of a jury to determine the factors which authorize the increase in sentence in supposed violation of Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000) and Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002)—has been deemed by the U.S. Supreme Court to be one which involves a mere procedural question which is not properly subject to retroactive application. See Schriro v. Summerlin, — U.S. -, 124 S.Ct. 2519, 2523, 159 L.Ed.2d 442 (2004)(2004) (“Rules that allocate decisionmaking authority in this fashion are prototypi*270cal procedural rules,” and not substantive rules subject to retroactive application). For practical purposes, this means that such a constitutional claim is subject to waiver; and indeed, this Court has already treated Apprendi-based claims as waivable. See Commonwealth v. Bavusa, 574 Pa. 620, 832 A.2d 1042, 1051 (2003) (“If appellant had a constitutional objection to the statute premised upon the concerns that led to the view embraced by the 5-4 majority in Apprendi, he was obliged to specifically forward it below.”). Accordingly, even if the constitutional challenge to the statute forwarded in this case were someday deemed meritorious, the only defendants who should properly be entitled to the benefit of that ruling would be those who raised and preserved the question at all appropriate stages of the litigation. E.g. Commonwealth v. Freeman, 573 Pa. 532, 827 A.2d 385, 395 (2003). By his own admission, appellant is not one of those people. This fact should weigh heavily against holding that an innovative but waived claim such as the one appellant forwards implicates the current “legality” of his sentence for purposes of defeating requirements of issue preservation and limitations upon the retroactive effect of new procedural rulings.
Logically, the question of when a sentencing claim should be deemed to be of such fundamental importance as to defeat existing procedural defaults should depend upon a balance of the specific nature, of the claim forwarded and the specific statute, rule or judicial default doctrine which would be negated by judicial consideration of the claim. I would flatly reject the blanket notion that if a sentencing claim is deemed to implicate “legality,” it necessarily suspends all countervailing considerations. I would reserve that sort of status to those few sentencing claims which fall within the traditional realm of what may be called the “illegal”: i.e., those which challenge sentences exceeding the very jurisdiction or power of the sentencing court, such as a twenty-year sentence for an offense which is punishable by a maximum of ten years, or separate sentences on offenses which merge. Appellants claim that his sentence, which falls within the durational parameters of the statute under which he was sentenced, is *271infirm because the statute suffers- from some constitutional deficiency (such as the allocation of decision-making authority) is not nearly of the same magnitude as a claim that the courts sentence exceeded the very authority granted it by the General Assembly.
I am strongly inclined to view the instant claim as waived and therefore available to appellant, if at all, only under the auspices of the PCRA. Nevertheless, I am satisfied to reach the question for the following reasons. First, as noted above, the procedural question of exactly what sorts of issues should be deemed to implicate the “non-waivable” “legality” of a sentence is unclear under Pennsylvania precedent and was made even more unclear by Wynn; indeed, the procedural question may be more difficult than the substantive issue accepted for review here. Second, although the parties have briefed the question of waiver, this Court did not focus upon that question in the allocatur grant and the generalities argued by the parties understandably do not address the complexities outlined above. A definitive holding on the question should perhaps await a case where the broader issue has been joined. Third, in the absence of comprehensive and definitive guidance, Bradley and Wynn provide some arguable, albeit weak and indirect, support for reviewing the merits of the claim. Finally, although entertaining the defaulted claim may have the corollary effect of subverting the role of the PCRA, the direct appeal “waiver” existing at this point derives from this Court’s jurisprudential doctrines, over which we have more legitimate discretionary control than a statutorily-created waiver. On balance, although I do not believe that appellant is entitled to review as a matter of right, I believe it is a proper exercise of judicial discretion to hear the claim on the merits.
On those merits, as noted at the outset, I join the Majority Opinion.4

. Appellant concedes that his claim is waived since he first raised it in the Superior Court, despite the fact that it ripened in the trial court upon imposition of sentence.

. .Under the Sentencing Code construct at issue in Bradley, ”[t]he defendant or the Commonwealth may appeal as of right the legality of the sentence,” 42 Pa.C.S. § 9781(a), but cannot secure review of a discretionary aspect of sentencing without first petitioning for allowance of appeal of the issue. Id. § 9781(b).

. Wynn's two strikes sentence of ten to twenty years' imprisonment for felony aggravated assault did not exceed the statutory maximum for that offense. Felonies of the first degree are punishable by up to twenty years of imprisonment.

. In joining the Majority’s substantive analysis, I emphasize, as the Majority does, that this statute permits an increase in the maximum penalty available. Accordingly, the analysis in Commonwealth v. Bavu*272sa, supra, which involved a statute which allowed for the sentencer to downgrade the offense upon proof at sentencing, is not at issue.