Court Opinion

ID: 9760722
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:10:23.360678+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:15.243538
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION BY
ORIE MELVIN, J.:
¶ 1 Because I am unable to conclude that the trial court abused its discretion in this matter, I respectfully dissent.
¶ 2 As the Majority observes, we review a trial court’s decision on a motion to sever for an abuse of discretion. Commonwealth v. Thomas, 879 A.2d 246, 260 (Pa.Super.2005).
Judicial discretion requires action in conformity with law, upon facts and circumstances judicially before the court, after hearing and due consideration. An abuse of discretion is not merely an error of judgment, but if in reaching a conclusion the law is overridden or misapplied or the judgment exercised is manifestly unreasonable, or the result of partiality, prejudice, bias, or ill will, as shown by the evidence or the record, discretion is abused.
Commonwealth v. Levanduski, 907 A.2d 3, 14 (Pa.Super.2006) (citation omitted).
¶ 3 Appellant was charged with, among other things, having violated Section 3925(a) of the Crimes Code in that he allegedly “did intentionally receive, retain or dispose of movable property,” namely the camera and police badge, “with no intention to restore it to the owner, knowing that such property was stolen.” Certified Record (C.R.) at 4. He was also charged with, inter alia, criminal attempt to commit burglary in violation of Section 901 of the Crimes Code. Id. And, since these charges were set forth in the same criminal information, joinder is governed by Rule 563 of our Rules of Criminal Procedure: 4
Rule 563. Joinder of Offenses in Information
(A) Two or more offenses, of any grade, may be charged in the same information if:
(1) the evidence of each of the offenses would be admissible in a separate trial for the other and is capable of separation by the jury so that there is no danger of confusion; or
(2) the offenses charged are based on the same act or transaction.
(B) There shall be a separate count for each offenses charged.
Pa.R.Crim.P. 563, 42 Pa.C.S.A.
¶ 4 The trial court denied Appellant’s motion to sever, concluding that the offenses of receiving stolen property and attempted burglary could be joined pursuant to Rule 563(A)(2). For the reasons which follow, I agree. I am also unpersuaded by the Majority’s reliance on Commonwealth v. Lane, 442 Pa.Super. 169, 658 A.2d 1353 (1995), and Commonwealth v. Stewart, 325 Pa.Super. 465, 473 A.2d 161 (1984), both of which addressed the statutory prohibition against multiple prosecutions which stem from the same criminal episode.5 In the case sub judice, we are *347presented with the question of whether the trial court abused its discretion in denying Appellant’s motion to sever based on permissive joinder, not compulsory joinder under Section 110.
If 5 In the context of assessing the trial court’s discretion in ruling on a motion to sever, our Supreme Court has explained that “[t]he general policy of the law is to encourage joinder of offenses and consolidation of indictments when judicial economy can thereby be effected, especially when the result will be to avoid the expensive and time-consuming duplication of evidence.” Commonwealth v. Patterson, 519 Pa. 190, 197, 546 A.2d 596, 600 (1988).
[T]he interest in judicial economy must be balanced against the need to minimize the prejudice that may be caused to a defendant by consolidation. Commonwealth v. Morris, [493 Pa. 164, 425 A.2d 715 (1981) ]; Commonwealth v. Lasch, 464 Pa. 573, 347 A.2d 690 (1975). In determining whether the trial judge abused his discretion, the critical factor is whether the accused has been prejudiced by the trial court’s decision.
Id. at 197, 546 A.2d at 600. “The defendant bears the burden of proving that he was prejudiced by the decision not to sever, and he must show real potential for prejudice rather than mere speculation.” Commonwealth v. Rivera, 565 Pa. 289, 298, 773 A.2d 131, 137 (2001), cert. denied, 535 U.S. 955, 122 S.Ct. 1360, 152 L.Ed.2d 355 (2002); see also Commonwealth v. Katsafanas, 318 Pa.Super. 143, 464 A.2d 1270, 1278 (1983)(explaining that the appellant has the burden of proving that denial of severance constituted manifest abuse of discretion or clear injustice; “[t]he assertion of a better chance of acquittal” if severance were granted does not meet this burden.).
¶ 6 Based on my review of the record and the briefs filed before this Court en banc, I am unable to conclude Appellant met his burden of demonstrating prejudice or injustice from the trial court’s ruling. Indeed, Appellant’s brief does no more than baldly assert that he was “deprived ... of his right to a fair trial,” and that “[i]t is the position of the Defendant/Appellant that he was unduly prejudiced by the consolidation of these offenses and the DefendanVAppellant therefore, is entitled to a new trial.” Appellant’s brief at 5, 6. In my view, this argument falls far short of meeting Appellant’s burden.
¶ 7 Moreover, I find support for the trial court’s determination that the offenses charged arise out of the same act or transaction and, thus, fall squarely within Rule 563(A)(2). In Commonwealth v. Farrar, 271 Pa.Super. 434, 413 A.2d 1094 (1979), we explained that the language of the statute defining the crime of receiving stolen property makes the offense an ongoing or continuing one. Accordingly, we found that the appellant’s commission of that crime “did not terminate until the stolen property was taken from her” some two years after she acquired it. Id. at 1098. Similarly, in Commonwealth v. Kuykendall, 318 Pa.Super. 429, 465 A.2d 29 (1983), we vacated the trial court’s order arresting judgment on a conviction for receiving stolen property when the appellee committed the theft in another state and brought the property into Pennsylvania. Relying on Farrar, we reiterated that the offense of receiving stolen property is a continuing one. Id. at 31. See also Annotation, Possession of Stolen Property as a Continuing Offense, 24 A.L.R. 5th 132, §§ 3(a), *3484(a) (1994) (observing that, “the very use of the word ‘retain’ [in a statute defining the crime of receiving stolen property] has been deemed to connote a clearly legislative design to make that aspect of theft a continuing one,” and the crime thus begins at the time of receipt of the stolen property and ends only when the defendant is divested of the stolen property.).
¶ 8 As noted above, the trial court concluded that the charged offenses were based on the same act or transaction. Given that the property which formed the basis of the receiving stolen property offense was found at the time of Appellant’s arrest for attempted burglary, and recognizing that the crime of receiving stolen property is a continuing one under Pennsylvania law, I find nothing improper in the trial court’s conclusion which, on these facts, is logically supported by the record and eminently reasonable. Consequently, I am unable to conclude the trial court overrode or misapplied the law, or exercised manifestly unreasonable judgment, or that its decision was a result of partiality, prejudice, bias, or ill will. Accordingly, I find no abuse of discretion and respectfully dissent from the Majority’s conclusion that the judgment of sentence must be vacated and the case remanded for separate trials.
¶ 9 STEVENS, LALLY-GREEN and BOWES, JJ., join.

. As such, Pa.R.Crim.P. 582 has no application to this matter.

. 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 110, which “statutorily extends Federal and Pennsylvania constitutional *347protections against double jeopardy and embodies the same basic purposes as those underlying the double jeopardy clauses[J” Commonwealth v. Bracalielly, 540 Pa. 460, 469, 658 A.2d 755, 759 (1994).