Court Opinion

ID: 9757126
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:19:23.319819+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:35.150222
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
I agree with Judge HOFFMAN that since appellant has waived his speedy sentencing claim by failing to raise it *357before the lower court, this court should not attempt to resolve that claim, which involves a complex question of constitutional law.
Furthermore, I disagree with the majority’s resolution of appellant’s sufficiency of the evidence claim. In my opinion, when a car going 40 miles per hour smashes into a concrete loading dock, the post-crash position of any light item within it cannot be considered indicative of anything at all. In Commonwealth v. Wisor, 466 Pa. 527, 353 A.2d 817 (1976), it was held that a prerequisite for proving possession of contraband in a car is proof that the purported possessor knew that the contraband was there. Without detailed evidence about the path that the car took—whether it may have swerved before the crash, the angles at which it hit the pier and perhaps ricocheted off it—and evidence about trajectories under such circumstances, I for one cannot say that the positions of a gun near the unconscious driver’s foot and of the pieces of the gun’s handle in his lap are sufficient proof that he had knowledge of, or intent to control the weapon.
HOFFMAN, J., joins in this opinion.