Court Opinion

ID: 9516338
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 23:40:49.939679+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:34:24.325343
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, President Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the result reached by the majority and with much of what the majority says. I write separately only to state the equal protection analysis that I believe should be applied.
Appellant argues that 18 Pa.C.S. § 108(f), as applied to him, violates the equal protection clause in that the statute *371creates two classes to whom disparate treatment is afforded, residents and non-residents. Brief for Appellant at 12. Thus, he argues, the statute violates the fundamental mandate of the equal protection clause that the government may not treat similarly-situated citizens differently.
When an equal protection claim is made, the initial inquiry must be to determine the applicable standard of constitutional review. Appellant asserts that Pa.C.S. § 108(f)(1) infringes upon his right to travel. Brief for Appellant at 13. The Supreme Court of the United States and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania have both held that the right to travel freely throughout the United States is “fundamental”, and that statutes that impose durational residency requirements on the receipt of state benefits violate the right. See Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330, 92 S.Ct. 995, 31 L.Ed.2d 274 (1972); Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 89 S.Ct. 1322, 22 L.Ed.2d 600 (1969); Stottlemyer v. Stottlemyer, 458 Pa. 503, 329 A.2d 892 (1974). In determining the constitutionality of governmental action that infringes a fundamental right, a court must inquire whether the action is necessary to promote a “compelling” governmental interest. See Shapiro v. Thompson, supra 394 U.S. at 634, 89 S.Ct. at 1331. In practice, governmental activity will rarely withstand this strict scrutiny.
Here, however, we need not subject Pa.C.S. § 108(f) to strict scrutiny, for it does not violate the fundamental right to travel. In Scherling v. Superior Court of Santa Clara County, 22 Cal.3d 493, 585 P.2d 219, 149 Cal.Rptr. 597, the Supreme Court of California faced a similar equal protection challenge to a tolling statute. It held that the appellant’s right to travel was not infringed because he was not deprived of a benefit or subjected to greater penalty for leaving the state; rather, “he [was] faced with a tolled statutory period of limitations.” Id., 22 Cal.3d at 502, 585 P.2d at 224, 149 Cal.Rptr. at 602.
There is a further reason for finding that an elevated standard of constitutional review is not required here. The *372cases in which the Supreme Court has strictly scrutinized infringements of the fundamental right to travel all occurred in a civil context. See e.g. Dunn v. Blumstein, supra (durational residency requirements deprive new residents of medical benefits); Shapiro v. Thompson, supra (durational residency requirements deprive new residents of welfare benefits). As the Court noted in Jones v. Helms, 452 U.S. 412, 101 S.Ct. 2434, 69 L.Ed.2d 118 (1981), there was a distinction between these cases and the case before it, which was a challenge to a Georgia criminal statute that graded offenses according to whether or not a defendant remained in the state. In the civil cases, the Court noted, the challenged statutes “imposed ... burden[s] on the exercise of the right to travel by citizens whose right to travel had not been qualified in any way.” By way of contrast, the Court found, “appellee’s criminal conduct within the State of Georgia necessarily qualified his right thereafter freely to travel interstate.” 452 U.S. at 421, 101 S.Ct. at 2441. Similarly, here, appellant’s right to travel was qualified, if at all, not by an arbitrary distinction drawn by the government, but by his own criminal conduct, for which he must be amenable to prosecution by the Commonwealth for a fixed period of time.
Since appellant’s fundamental right to travel was not infringed by governmental action, we should review the constitutionality of Pa.C.S. § 108(f) by applying the “rational relationship” test. This test requires a court to inquire whether it can conceive of a way in which the legislature might have deemed the challenged action to have been rationally related to the accomplishment of a legitimate government end. See McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 81 S.Ct. 1101, 6 L.Ed.2d 393 (1961). Applying this test, I find thht the purpose served by 18 Pa.C.S. § 108(f) is clearly legitimate: it is to aid the Commonwealth’s exercise of its traditional police powers of crime prevention, detection and prosecution by extending the period during which a suspected criminal is subject to a state’s power to prosecute. Similarly, I have no trouble in concluding that the legisla*373ture could rationally have conceived that the statutory classification made by the tolling provision (residents and non-residents) would further this purpose. As the Supreme Court of California noted when analyzing a similar statute, “the Legislature could have determined that the detection of the crime and identification of the criminal are more likely if the criminal remains in the state than if he departs.” Scherling v. Superior Court of Santa Clara County, supra 22 Cal.3d at 503, 585 P.2d at 225, 149 Cal.Rptr. at 603. For these reasons, I agree with the majority’s conclusion that appellant’s equal protection challenge must be rejected.
BECK, J., joins as to the equal protection analysis.