Court Opinion

ID: 9532922
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:26:18.372469+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:52.395708
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, J.:
¶ 1 I join the dissent of the Honorable John Musmanno. The Majority would apply the enhancement under section 6317(a) to all defendants, including Orlando Hinds, who possess illegal drugs in a school zone so long as they intend to distribute the drugs anywhere. This interpretation does *864not effectuate the legislature’s intent, and consequently, causes the law as applied to exceed the permissible scope of legislative authority. Enhancement of sentences for possession with intent to deliver cannot serve the objective of the statute to prevent drug dealing inside a school zone where the intended point of delivery is outside the zone. I would find, accordingly, that the sentencing enhancement does not bear a real and substantial relationship to the statutory objective of section 6317 unless the Commonwealth proves at sentencing that the defendant intended distribution inside the zone. I would limit section 6317 accordingly and would affirm the decision of the trial court not to apply the sentence enhancement on the facts of this case. I write separately to discuss the proper limits of section 6317 and to explain my conviction that the Majority’s broad interpretation of that section places it beyond the permissible scope of the Commonwealth’s police power.
¶ 2 The police power is the substantive authority of the state to regulate private rights in the public interest. See Dranzo v. Winterhalter, 395 Pa.Super. 578, 577 A.2d 1349, 1355 (1990). Such power enables the state to enact legislation to protect the health, welfare, and safety of its citizens and to provide for the punishment, treatment and rehabilitation of those who commit acts inimical to the interest of the citizenry at large. See Commonwealth v. Bonadio, 490 Pa. 91, 415 A.2d 47, 49 (1980). While thus broad in scope, the police power is finite, circumscribed by the mandate of substantive due process and subject to judicial review and restraint. See Dranzo, 577 A.2d at 1355. Although “regulation under a proper exercise of the police power is due process,” regulation the effect of which extends beyond the legislative objective sought violates due process. See Balent v. City of Wilkes-Barre, 542 Pa. 555, 669 A.2d 309, 314-15 (1995). See also Commonwealth v. Sterlace, 24 Pa.Cmwlth. 62, 354 A.2d 27, 29 (1976) (admonishing that “even legitimate legislative goals cannot be pursued by means which stifle fundamental personal liberty when the goals can be otherwise more reasonably achieved”).
¶ 3 Accordingly, “[a] law that purports to be an exercise of the police power must not be arbitrary, unreasonable or patently beyond the necessities of the case, and the means which it employs must have a real and substantial relationship to the object sought to be attained.” Dranzo, 577 A.2d at 1355. See also Gambone v. Commonwealth, 375 Pa. 547, 101 A.2d 634, 637 (1954) (stating that law must not be “unreasonable, unduly oppressive or patently beyond the necessities of the case”). Thus, where provisions of a statute, when applied, impose restraints on individual liberty that do not bear a “real and substantial relationship” to the policy objective the legislature sought to achieve by way of the statute, those provisions are infirm. See Bonadio, 415 A.2d at 49. Even a legitimate legislative end does not justify any means, but only such limited means as produce the potential benefit envisioned by the statute. See Frantz v. Com. Dept. of Transp., 168 Pa.Cmwlth. 35, 649 A.2d 148, 151 (1994) (concluding that sentencing statute providing for restriction of driver’s license upon conviction of underage drinking was valid exercise of police power based on realization of intended benefit to decrease alcohol-related accidents among sixteen to twenty-year olds).
¶ 4 Where application of a statute places at issue the relationship of means employed to end to be achieved, our courts bear an affirmative duty to assure that the intended benefit is served by the means at issue. See Balent, 669 A.2d at 315.
*865The question whether any particular statutory provision is so related to the public good and so reasonable in the means it prescribes as to justify the exercise of the police power, is one for the judgment, in the first instance, of the law-making branch of the government, but its final determination is for the courts.
Gambone, 375 Pa. 547, 101 A.2d 634, 637 (1954) (emphasis added). “If there is doubt as to whether the statute is enacted for a legitimate police objective, or if, conceding the statute’s purpose, its exercise goes too far, then the judiciary has a duty to declare the given exercise of the police power invalid.” Balent, 669 A.2d at 315 (emphasis added). In view of so clear a mandate, I cannot accept the Majority’s validation of the untoward consequences engendered by application of section 6317 merely on the basis of the “plain language” of the statute. See also 1 Pa.C.S. § 1922(1) (mandating presumption that General Assembly does not intend a result that is absurd, impossible of execution or unreasonable); Petition for Alteration of Lines of Indiana and Shaler Twps., 171 Pa.Super. 642, 92 A.2d 241, 243 (1952) (quoting Null v. Staiger, 333 Pa. 370, 4 A.2d 883, 885 (1939)) (“It is obvious that the administration of justice requires something more than the mere application of the letter of the law, designed for some particular class of ordinary cases, to all others, however modified by accident or withdrawn by extraordinary circumstances from the spirit of its enactment. It follows that general terms should be so limited in their application as not to lead to injustice, oppression, or an absurd consequence. It will always, therefore, be presumed that the Legislature intended exceptions to its language which would avoid results of this character.”).
¶ 5 The statute at issue, entitled “Drug Free School Zones,” 18 Pa.C.S. § 6317, is a sentencing measure that establishes minimum terms of incarceration for certain drug-related offenses when committed within a defined distance of schools and other places frequented by children. See Commonwealth v. Campbell, 758 A.2d 1231, 1233-34 (Pa.Super.2000). Where the offense of which a defendant is convicted carries a sentence less than the minimum term mandated by section 6317(a)(2), the statute operates as a sentence enhancement. Subsection (a), pursuant to which the Majority would remand Orlando Hinds’s case for imposition of a longer sentence, provides as follows:
§ 6317. Drug-free school zones
(a) General rule. — A person 18 years of age or older who is convicted in any court of this Commonwealth of a violation of section 13(a)(14) [ (prescription by practitioner “off-license”) ] or (30) [ (possession by non-practitioner with intent to deliver) ] of the act of April 14, 1972 (P.L. 233, No. 64), known as The Controlled Substance, Drug, Device and Cosmetic Act, shall, if the delivery or possession with intent to deliver of the controlled substance occurred within 1,000 feet of the real property on which is located a public, private or parochial school or a college or university or within 250 feet of the real property on which is located a recreation center or playground or on a school bus, be sentenced to a minimum sentence of at least two years of total confinement, notwithstanding any other provision of this title, The Controlled Substance, Drug, Device and Cosmetic Act or other statute to the contrary. The maximum term of imprisonment shall be four years for any offense:
(1) subject to this section; and
(2) for which The Controlled Substance, Drug, Device and Cosmetic Act pro*866vides for a maximum term of imprisonment of less than four years.
If the sentencing court finds that the delivery or possession with intent to deliver was to an individual under 18 years of age, then this section shall not be applicable and the offense shall be subject to section 6314 (relating to sentencing and penalties for trafficking drugs to minors).
18 Pa.C.S.A. § 6317(a) (footnote omitted).
¶ 6 This Court has reviewed this provision and concluded that the legislature’s objective in its passage was “not only ... to protect our children from the evils of illegal drug dealing on school grounds and on school buses, but additionally intended to protect our children from those same evils on or near our playgrounds and recreation centers.” Majority Opinion at 5 (quoting Campbell, 758 A.2d at 1233). In Campbell, we elaborated that:
the General Assembly’s goal and purpose was to protect the children of our communities from the ravages and evils of the illegal drug trade that pervades our country. Through the enactment of section 6317, it attempted to fortify the barrier that segregates the places where our children frequent from the illegal drug scene.
Campbell, 758 A.2d at 1237.
¶ 7 Such an objective is laudable and well within the permissible scope of the Commonwealth’s police power if applied within the framework stated by the law’s sponsor. See id. (quoting Legislative Journal — House, June 3, 1997, at 1162). See also Commonwealth v. Bonadio, 490 Pa. 91, 415 A.2d 47, 49 (1980) (recognizing penal and sentencing legislation designed to protect the public from identified crimes within the permissible scope of the police power). As we recognized in Campbell, Representative Charles Dent ((R) Lehigh) focused the enhancement on conduct that occurred within school zones:
My amendment, A2268, simply puts teeth into Pennsylvania’s existing Drug-Free-School-Zone-Act. Essentially, any sale that occurs within the drug-free zone, whether the sale is to a minor or a person over the age of 18, would be prosecuted with the two-year mandatory sentencing provision.
Id., 758 A.2d at 1237 (emphasis added; emphasis in Campbell omitted) (quoting Legislative Journal — House, June 3, 1997, at 1162).
¶ 8 Were the Majority to focus the enhancement similarly, allowing its application only where a defendant convicted under 35 P.S. § 780-113(a)(30) (possession with intent to deliver) was found to have intended delivery inside the school zone, the provision would, ostensibly, remain within the ambit of the Commonwealth’s police power. Because the Majority has not applied such a limit, I am compelled to assert that “conceding the statute’s purpose, its exercise goes too far.” Balent, 669 A.2d at 315 (emphasis added). I recognize that the legislature intended the enhancement under section 6317(a) to effectuate a “barrier,” see Campbell, 758 A.2d at 1237, protecting school-age children from illegal drug dealing in the areas “where [those] children frequent,” id. at 1233. However, the enhancement does not bear a “real and substantial” relationship to the protection of those children if the intended point of distribution for the controlled substances the defendant possessed is not “where [] children frequent” as defined by the statute. The “barrier” that section 6317 erects and seeks to enforce by means of the enhancement, is located within 1000 feet around schools and 250 feet around playgrounds and recreation centers. Application of the enhancement without a demonstration from the Com*867monwealth that the defendant intended distribution of drugs inside that area, deprives the enhancement of a “real and substantial relationship” to the statutory objective. Stated concretely, if the legislature were to erect a wall 1000 feet from every school in the Commonwealth to protect school children from the drug trade, a defendant living within the wall who intended to sell drugs would threaten children inside the wall only if he intended to make his sales inside the wall. Clearly then, the Commonwealth must prove a defendant’s intent to sell drugs inside the drug-free school zone for the offense of Possession with Intent to Deliver to remain within the purview of the sentence enhancement. In sum, the means of the statute as the Majority would apply them are not matched to the objective the statute seeks. Unless application of those means, i.e. the enhancement, is constrained to distribution of controlled substances intended within the drug-free zone, those means bear no relationship to the objective of the statute. Because the benefit to children is the sole object of section 6317, and because the means of the statute do not bear a “real and substantial” relationship to that object unless limited to delivery of controlled substances intended within the school zone, the statute as interpreted by the Majority is infirm.
¶ 9 The case before us is a showpiece of that infirmity. As Judge Musmanno has observed, the Commonwealth introduced no evidence, either at trial or at the sentencing hearing, to establish that Orlando Hinds intended distribution of the substances he possessed inside the drug-free school zone. Thus, Hinds’s sentence will be assessed in response to circumstantial evidence that, while present in the drug-free school zone, he formed an intent to deliver controlled substances somewhere. I fail to see how such an intent, without proof that the Hinds intended further to act within the zone, establishes a basis for sentence enhancement under section 6317. Ultimately, Hinds’s sentence fails to advance the objective of the statute and incarcerates the defendant for a period longer than provided for his substantive offense with no consideration of the limits and demands of due process on the police power of the Commonwealth. Accordingly, I dissent. I would affirm the decision of the trial court not to apply the sentence enhancement on the facts of this case.
¶ 10 McEWEN, P.J., and DEL SOLE, J., join this Dissenting Opinion.