Court Opinion

ID: 9701500
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 22:21:22.605739+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:24.081444
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
I agree with and join the majority’s opinion except on the point discussed below.
I believe appellant is entitled to an evidentiary hearing on his claim that trial counsel was ineffective in failing to object to the sentence imposed by the trial court. Appellant alleged in his PCHA petition that the trial court’s sentence constituted a manifest abuse of discretion because it was “made without consideration of the rehabilitation and correctional needs of [appellant] and solely on the basis of the criminal charge.” The record supports this allegation.
At appellant’s sentencing hearing, the trial court justified its sentence as follows:
THE COURT: On the conviction of burglary at No. 1311 Criminal Division 1973 the Court notes your prior convictions in Minnesota for the same offense. The Court further takes note of the increasing incidents of residential home burglaries throughout Dauphin County. It is a criminal pattern that must be stopped. People have worked and saved for years to own their own homes and to place within their homes possessions of various types, some of which irreplaceable and these residential homes in this county, we see it every day in the newspapers, are being burglarized, ransacked, possessions destroyed, money stolen. In this case you have been convicted as we note by a jury of your peers of having burglarized two Susquehanna Township residences and in activity following two prior convictions of the same offense in another State.
Accordingly in the view of this Court the only appropriate sentence is the maximum punishment allowed by law which will serve not only to remove you from this community but also hopefully serve as a deterrent to others who might be similarly disposed.
*561These reasons would be insufficient to support appellant’s sentence had appellant been sentenced under our present Sentencing Code, Act of Dec. 30, 1974, P.L. 1052, No. 345, 18 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 1301 et seq. See Commonwealth v. Knight, 479 Pa. 209, 387 A.2d 1297 (1978); Commonwealth v. Kosta, 475 Pa. 85, 379 A.2d 884 (1977); Commonwealth v. Wicks, 265 Pa.Super. 305, 401 A.2d 1223 (1979).* Even before enactment of this Sentencing Code, however, there were some procedural safeguards against sentencing abuse. See Commonwealth v. Riggins, 232 Pa.Super. 32, 40, 332 A.2d 521, 525 (1974) (SPAETH, J., dissenting) (collecting authorities), vacated, 474 Pa. 115, 377 A.2d 140 (1977). Specifically, appellant’s trial counsel could have asked the trial court to order a pre-sentence investigation; he also could have petitioned the court to reconsider the sentence. Why he failed to do either does not appear of record. Whether a pre-sentence report or petition to reconsider would have disclosed mitigating circumstances that might have persuaded the trial court to impose a different sentence, or an appellate court to reduce the sentence if the court refused, is likewise unknown.
The majority is of course correct in saying that the trial court was not legally obliged to order a pre-sentence report, but that does not resolve whether appellant’s trial counsel was ineffective in not even asking the court to order a report or to reconsider its sentence. The issue is not whether appellant would have secured relief had his counsel availed himself of either of these procedural safeguards against sentencing abuse; it is whether appellant’s claim that counsel was ineffective for not doing so is so “patently frivolous and [ ] without a trace of support [ ] in the record” that the lower court properly denied him a hearing on the claim. 19 P.S. § 1180-9 (Supp. 1978-79). Since only an evidentiary hearing can establish whether trial counsel had *562any reason reasonably calculated to serve his client’s interest, Commonwealth v. Twiggs, 460 Pa. 105, 331 A.2d 440 (1975), not to ask the court to order a pre-sentence report or to reconsider its sentence, I dissent from the majority opinion on this issue.

 Also, under our present Rules of Criminal Procedure, the trial court’s failure to state its reasons for dispensing with a pre-sentence investigation report would itself be grounds for vacating appellant’s sentence. See Pa.R.Crim.P. 1403(A)(2)(a); Commonwealth v. Warren, 259 Pa.Super. 268, 393 A.2d 821 (1978).