Court Opinion

ID: 9641901
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:42:58.71249+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:40.589146
License: Public Domain

McDERMOTT, Justice,
concurring.
The majority opinion today takes an important step in the proper direction with regard to the interpretation of the compulsory joinder rule announced in Campana I and Campana II. However, it fails to take the final step and pronounce the rule as I believe it should be stated, i.e., that all summary offenses, not merely traffic violations, may be tried separately from felonies or misdemeanors arising from the same criminal episode without violating the compulsory joinder rule.
As the majority observes, under 18 C.P.S.A. § 110(l)(ii), all offenses arising from the same criminal episode which are known to the prosecutor at the time of the first trial and which are within the jurisdiction of a single court, must be tried simultaneously.
Summary offenses are by definition separate and distinct from felonies or misdemeanors. See 18 C.P.S.A. § 1101 and § 1105. Moreover, and more importantly, summary offenses are subject to the jurisdiction of district justices, 42 Pa.C. S.A. § 1515(a)(1), while misdemeanors and felonies are tried in common pleas court. Thus, under § 110 of the Crimes Code, all summary offenses, not merely traffic violations, as the majority observes, are not covered by the compulsory *293joinder rule. A clarification, consequently, is needed in order to broaden the scope of the majority opinion.
In the absence of such clarification, this Court will, in the future, be faced with cases similar to the one at bar, but which involve summary offenses other than traffic violations. The possibilities are as numerous as are the number of summary offenses listed in the Crimes Code of this Commonwealth.
Accordingly, in order to obviate this confusion, I believe the logic of the majority opinion should be extended to include within the exception to the compulsory joinder rule all summary offenses.
For the foregoing reasons, I join in the opinion of the majority but write separately to delineate my position.