Court Opinion

ID: 9754323
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:55:21.02152+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:52.104991
License: Public Domain

FRIEDMAN, Judge,
concurring and dissenting.
I agree that the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole (Board) erred in (1) ordering that McCaskill serve the sentences based upon the 1991 convictions consecutively when the trial court ordered those sentences be served concurrently and (2) ordering that McCaskill serve his new sentence before serving his nine months of backtime. As the majority recognizes those errors and orders the Board to correct them, I agree with that portion of the opinion which deals with those questions and join therein. I cannot agree, however, that McCaskill has waived his right to challenge the Board’s extension of his parole violation maximum date. Hence this opinion.
I must first make the observation that the record in this matter is at best confusing. Furthermore, the Board, in both the documents contained in the record and in its brief to this court offers no explanation for that part of its order which does extend the parole violation maximum date, arguing only that this question has been waived and not addressing the merits.
While on parole, McCaskill was arrested and charged with escape and resisting arrest; he was convicted of those charges and in October of 1986, the Board found McCaskill to be a convicted parole violator. The Board ordered, inter alia, that McCaskill’s parole violation maximum date be extended. In 1987, McCaskill was convicted of drug offenses and the Board again found McCaskill to be a convicted parole violator, again extending the parole maximum violation date by order of January 1988. While on parole, McCaskill was arrested and charged with a number of offenses which led to the Board’s action in this case. The Board issued an order dated March 11, 1992, which made no mention of the parole violation maximum date. McCaskill filed a request for administrative *458relief from the March 1992 order, arguing that the Board erred for precisely the reasons that this court grants relief today. The Board then withdrew its order to “clarify” matters. The new order, however, made no substantive changes except that it increased McCaskiirs maximum expiration date to January 14, 2003. In his request for administrative relief, McCaskill stated:
5. Petitioner argues that, the new ... order issued (7/23/92), does nothing to address the errors as enumerated above. Instead, it has exasperated (sic) the situation even further.
a). The [order] has extended petitioner’s Parole Violation maximum to the date of 11-4-03. Petitioner argues that maximum date should be (5/14/99) or thereabouts.
(McCaskill’s request for administrative relief, 8/20/92, p. 7.)1
It is true that McCaskill does not specifically mention the vacation and subsequent nolle prosse of the 1986 criminal charges in his request for administrative relief. He does, however, question the extension of his parole violation maximum date after the 1986 convictions had been nullified. It is also undisputed that McCaskill specifically alleged error by the Board in extending his parole violation maximum date at the first opportunity he had to do so. The Board fails to offer any explanation whatsoever concerning its basis for extending that date.
The majority’s discussion concerning the failure to appeal the 1986 and 1988 Board orders is particularly troubling. In each of those orders, the Board determined that McCaskill was a convicted parole violator. McCaskill would need a crystal ball to be able to argue in 1986 that he would be granted a new trial in December 1987. Furthermore, the Board’s order in January 1988 dealt with entirely unrelated charges. Finally, the Commonwealth did not nolle prosse the 1986 criminal charges until May 24, 1988. (Sentence Status Change Report, 5/25/88.) Before that date, McCaskill could *459not have known that the 1986 criminal charges had been finally resolved in his favor.
McCaskill asserted at his violation hearing in this case that the Board had failed to consider that some of the relevant events occurred while he was on parole but not at liberty. In his brief, he states, “What is disputed, however, is the authority of the Board to extend the parole violation maximum date repeatedly for events occurring during the same period of parole and for periods when Mr. McCaskill was not at liberty, but in fact imprisoned.” (McCaskill’s brief to the Commonwealth Court, p. 9.) The Board never addressed this question, choosing instead to rely upon the cloak of “waiver”. I believe the Board is required to explain its actions so that we can effectively review the legal propriety of those actions. Accordingly, I would vacate that portion of the Board’s order pertaining to the parole maximum violation date and require the Board to make factual findings and conclusions of law based thereon.

. The order actually stated that the date in question was "011403”. McCaskill obviously misread the order when he gave that date as 11-04-2003 in his petition.