Court Opinion

ID: 9736447
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:57:03.126958+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:27:06.775034
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Me. Justice Hoeace Stern :
The majority opinion makes the challenging statement that “even if the Boyer case must be accepted as a ruling that a court loses its power to sentence one found guilty of crime upon the expiration of the term of court at which he was convicted, it is the only instance, so far as the decided cases show, where it has been so held. True, there are dicta to such effect in some of our cases, but it will be found in every one of *221them that the trial court had assumed to exercise its sentencing power, which then became functus, and that, after the term, the court undertook to resentence or to sentence afresh on other convictions which had been before the court when it originally exercised its power to sentence with respect to the particular defendant.”
I find this statement to be incorrect in three fundamental particulars:
(1) So far from the Boyer case being the only instance in which it was held that a court loses its power to sentence after the expiration of the term, there are at least four decisions in our appellate courts in which it was definitely so ruled.
(2) So far from such rulings being merely dicta, they were expressly stated to be the basis upon which, and upon which alone, those cases were decided.
(3) So far from their involving a resentencing after a sentence had previously been imposed and the sentencing power become exhausted, no such circumstance existed in any of those cases.
In Commonwealth, ex rel. Nagle v. Smith, Warden, 154 Pa. Superior Ct. 392, 36 A. 2d 175, the relator pleaded guilty to several bills of indictment but was sentenced on only one of them. No action was taken on the others, nor was sentence thereon deferred or suspended. The court attempted at a later term to impose sentence on one of these other bills. The Superior Court unanimously held, in a per curiam opinion, that such sentence was void, saying (p. 395, A. p. 176) : “Belator was sentenced on one bill of indictment, and on the others to which he at the same time pleaded guilty the court took no action whatsoever. He was not remanded and held for sentence on the other bills, nor was sentence thereon suspended or temporarily deferred. The court might have imposed at the time sep*222arate sentences on each bill of indictment or separate sentences on each count Of a bill of indictment. Sentence, however, was limited to one bill of indictment, and the court’s power to sentence on such remaining indictments therefore expired with that term of court, no power to sentence thereon having been preserved by any action of the court.” (citing cases). The majority opinion asserts that the only reason for this decision was that the court, having sentenced on one bill of indictment, had so exhausted its power that it could not sentence after the term even on an entirely different bill. But can it really be seriously argued that if a defendant pleads guilty to two bills of indictment, one charging, let us say, rape, and the other robbery, and the court imposes sentence on one of those bills, it thereby exhausts its sentencing power so as to prevent it, for that reason, from thereafter imposing sentence on the other? The Superior Court did not decide the Nagle case on the basis of any such obvious absurdity. Its decision rested solely upon the fact, as it expressly and clearly stated, that “the court’s power to sentence on [the] remaining indictments . . . expired with that term of court, no power to sentence thereon having been preserved by any action of the court.” If the ratio decidendi had been (as the majority opinion would have it) that the sentence on the one bill had exhausted the power, no action of the court could have preserved the power by suspending or deferring the sentence, and the Superior Court certainly would not have suggested that that could have been done.
The next authority is Commonwealth, ex rel. Bernstein v. Burke, Warden, 21 Misc. Docket No. 9, Eastern District. The relator there was indicted on five bills and was sentenced on only one of them. The court later attempted to sentence on one of the other bills. Our own court, in a per curiam opinion, unanimously held that such attempted sentence must be vacated, *223there having been no order suspending sentence on this other bill during the original term.
The next authority is Commonwealth ex rel. Michelotti v. Ashe, Warden, 359 Pa. 542, 59 A. 2d 891, where, in a per curiam opinion, we reversed the Superior Court, (162 Pa. Superior Ct. 18). There the trial court had sentenced the relator on six bills of indictment, but, during the same term, it revoked and vacated the sentences. It did not suspend or defer sentence or remand relator to be held for sentence, but nevertheless it attempted at a later term to impose sentences on those bills. We held that such sentences were illegal, saying (p. 543, A. p. 892) : “We are unanimously of opinion that the learned Superior Court was in error in their conclusion that the sentences here involved were legal. The court below sentenced relator on each of the six bills of indictment and, in the same session, revoked and vacated each sentence. Nothing appears of record to show that the court did anything to preserve its power to resentence. It could have availed itself of this right by suspending or deferring sentence or remanding relator to be held for sentence. Falling so to do, its power of resentence expired with the session of court.” (citing cases).
The majority opinion seeks to distinguish this case by arguing that the reason for our decision was because the trial court had attempted to resentence,— in other words, to impose a sentence after a sentence had been previously imposed. This contention, however, entirely disregards the fact that the sentences had been revoked and vacated during the same term in which they had been imposed and therefore there were no sentences in existence at all at the expiration of the term; hence the case was not one of an attempt to “resentence” in the sense of amending or adding to an-.existing previous sentence but only in the sense of *224imposing a sentence where a previous one had been validly cancelled and voided during the original term. If our decision were, as the majority opinion argues, explainable on the theory that the later sentences were resentences of sentences originally imposed we would not have said, as we did, that the trial court could have preserved its power by suspending or deferring sentence or remanding relator to be held for sentence, because, as I have pointed out above in regard to the Nagle case, the law is clear that if the later sentences were resentences, they could not have been imposed even if the court had tried to preserve its right to impose them by suspending or deferring senteuce. The Michelotti case is, in my opinion, as clear, as explicit, and as conclusive an authority, therefore, as any decision could possibly be, that, where no sentence on a bill of indictment is in existence at the time of the expiration of the term, and sentence has not been suspended or deferred, a sentence thereafter cannot lawfully be imposed.
The next authority is Commonwealth, ex rel. Boyer v. Ashe, Warden, 1576, Misc. Docket, Western District, where, in a unanimous per curiam opinion, we said: "Where a court does not sentence a defendant and does nothing to preserve its power to later sentence, it does not have the power to sentence the defendant at a subsequent term of court.” In that case there was no sentence imposed during the original term and there was no order deferring or suspending sentence; we held, therefore, that a sentence imposed at a subsequent term was illegal and had to be vacated. Here there was no possible question of any "resentence” or alteration of a sentence after the term, since no sentence had ever been imposed. The majority opinion seeks to. distinguish this" case by stating that the reason why the court had imposed no sentence during the original term was because of special circumstances at*225tending the defendant’s plea of guilty to the indictments, the “special circumstances” being that the relator had been accepted for military service. I fail to perceive how the wholly irrelevant circumstance of the court’s motive — whatever it may have been — for not imposing sentence during the original term can furnish an explanation of our reason for denying it the power to impose sentence at a subsequent term. The only reason for our decision was — and we stated it in the clear and unambiguous language already quoted — that “Where a court does not sentence a defendant and does nothing to preserve its power to later sentence, it does not have the power to sentence the defendant at a subsequent term of court ”
To summarize, therefore, we have here four clear and direct authorities to the effect that a court loses its power to sentence upon the expiration of the term, and the majority opinion cannot overcome them by ascribing to them speculative reasons other than those upon which they were expressly based. The Superior Court properly decided the present case in conformity with those decisions, and it may be pointed out that even Judge IIirt, in his dissenting opinion, said (166 Pa. Superior Ct. 599, 605, 74 A. 2d 182, 185), in speaking of the Boyer case, that it “merely reaffirmed the now settled principle that Svhere a court does not sentence the defendant and does nothing to preserve its power to later sentence, it does not have the power to sentence the defendant at a subsequent term of court.’ ” It was Judge Hirt’s thought that the present case might be distinguished from that admittedly “settled principle” on the ground that the relator had asked for a new trial. But the trial court did not impose sentence even in the term in which the relator’s rule for a new trial was finally discharged.
Our Constitution provides in Article I, sec. 9, that “In all criminal prosecutions the accused hath a right *226to ... a speedy public trial . . . .” The sentence is part of the trial. If the expiration of the term is not to be accepted as the limit within which sentence must be imposed, what alternative limit can be established in order to protect the rights of a defendant who might otherwise languish indefinitely in jail, even though perhaps improperly convicted, but unable to appeal to an appellate court until sentence was imposed? The majority opinion suggests that “For any unnecessary delay in thé sentencing, of an incarcerated defendant, a petition for habeas corpus is the efficient means for correcting the abuse.” But what would be the standard by which a court could determine whether there was any “unnecessary delay” in imposing sentence? Such a- phrase would furnish no definite guide whatever for application to any given case for determining the maximum time within which sentence must be imposed, whereas the fixed terms of court provide exact time-compartments in which even civil, a fortiori criminal, business of the courts must, subject to well recognized exceptions, be transacted.
I would affirm the decision of the Superior Court.
Mr. Chief Justice Drew and Mr. Justice Allen M. Stearne join in this dissenting opinion.