Court Opinion

ID: 9761877
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:57:40.066324+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:48:16.733173
License: Public Domain

*390LARSEN, Justice, dissenting.
I dissent. I would hold that the appellant, Gershom Sessoms, was lawfully sentenced in accordance with the sentencing guidelines adopted by the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing (Commission), and which became effective pursuant to the duly enacted provisions of the enabling legislation, 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 2151, et. seq. The enabling legislation establishing the powers and duties of the Commission provides:
The Commission shall adopt guidelines for sentencing within the limits established by law which shall be considered by the sentencing court in determining the appropriate sentence for felonies and misdemeanors committed by a defendant____
Act of 1980, Oct. 5, P.L. 693, No. 142, § 218(a), 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 2154. The legislation further provides, inter alia, for: (1) publication of all proposed guidelines, (2) public hearings to receive testimony concerning the proposed guidelines from interested parties, (3) publication of all adopted guidelines, and (4) an opportunity for the General Assembly to reject the guidelines adopted by the Commission. The relevant portion of the enabling act stipulates as follows:
§ 2155. Publication of guidelines for sentencing
(a) General rule. — The commission shall:
(1) Prior to adoption, publish in the Pennsylvania Bulletin all proposed initial and subsequent sentencing guidelines and hold public hearings not earlier than 30 days and not later than 60 days thereafter ...
* * *
(2) Publish in the Pennsylvania Bulletin all initial and subsequent sentencing guidelines as adopted by the Commission.
(b) Rejection by General Assembly. — The General Assembly may by concurrent resolution reject in their entirety any initial or subsequent guidelines adopted by *391the commission within 90 days of their publication in the Pennsylvania Bulletin pursuant to subsection (a)(2).
At the time the Commission’s first adopted guidelines were published, pursuant to 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 2155(a)(2), they existed only as potential guidelines subject to the provisions of the enabling legislation. They may have or may not have become effective, depending upon whether the General Assembly exercised its statutory right of rejection. The General Assembly rejected the guidelines.
The majority holds that the concurrent resolution of the General Assembly rejecting the Commission’s guidelines must have been presented to the Governor to be valid. In reaching this conclusion, the majority cites Article III, Section 9 of the Pennsylvania Constitution which provides:
Every order, resolution or vote, to which the concurrence of both Houses may be necessary, except on the question of adjournment, shall be presented to the Governor and before it shall take effect be approved by him, or being disapproved, shall be repassed by two-thirds of both Houses according to the rules and limitations prescribed in case of a bill.
The constitutional requirement that orders, resolutions or votes which require the concurrence of both Houses of the Legislature,1 and every bill which shall have passed both Houses,2 shall be presented to the Governor applies only to those acts that constitute an “exercise of legislative power” by the General Assembly. I believe that the concurrent resolution rejecting the Commission’s guidelines as originally published is not such an exercise. “An ‘exercise of legislative power’ is an act that is legislative in purpose and effect.” Commonwealth v. Kuphal, 347 Pa.Super 572, 500 A.2d 1205, (1985) (Opinion by Wickersham, J., upholding the validity of the guidelines under which the appellant was sentenced). The act of the General Assembly in adopting a resolution rejecting the guidelines lacks the requisite legis*392lative purpose or effect. The resolution neither enacts or repeals a law.
After the Commission’s adopted guidelines are published, no action on the part of either House of the Legislature is required for the guidelines to become effective. Until the specified statutory period of time goes by without rejection, the published guidelines are nothing more than potential guidelines. A resolution of the General Assembly rejecting the guidelines eliminates their potential to become effective and maintains the continued viability of the then existing sentencing criteria.
The General Assembly exercised legislative power when the enabling legislation was adopted. That legislation was sent on to the Governor, thus satisfying the presentment requirement of the Constitution.3 Thus, I would hold that the second guidelines adopted pursuant to the enabling legislation, and under which the appellant was sentenced, were duly adopted and are constitutionally valid.

. Article III, Section 9, Pennsylvania Constitution.

. Article IV, Section 15, Pennsylvania Constitution.

. Article IV, Section 15, Pennsylvania Constitution.