Court Opinion

ID: 9712988
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:04:34.594211+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:15.652897
License: Public Domain

PRICE, Judge,
concurring:
Several interesting and not altogether wholesome developments have been reflected in our decisions since our supreme court ordered us to operate in panels. One such concern is the increasingly fine web we are spinning around trial courts as regards sentencing procedures. In Commonwealth v. Wicks, 265 Pa.Super. 305, 401 A.2d 1223 (1979), for example, this court remanded the case for resentencing on the basis that the sentencing judge failed to adhere to the mandates of Commonwealth v. Riggins, 474 Pa. 115, 377 A.2d 140 (1977). Although Judge Spaeth in Wicks noted that this court has never required the sentencing judge to specifically cite or utilize the exact language of the Sentencing Code, the result strongly intimated that such a practice would be all but required unless, on appeal, this court could glean from the words of the trial court that the Code was indeed considered. Instantly, the majority reiterates and enlarges on the technicalities of sentencing, resolutely marching, to a cadence set by Wicks, down a path which must eventually lead to a requirement that a sentencing judge quote chapter and verse of the Sentencing Code in order to satisfy our standard. As I was not on the Wicks panel, I had no voice in its outcome, although I harbored grave doubts as to its rationale. Here, however, I am permitted a word on the tortured course the majority travels, and that word is “ridiculous.” I do not read Commonwealth v. Kostka, 475 Pa. 85, 379 A.2d 884 (1977), Commonwealth v. Riggins, supra, and other authority from our supreme court to require such a super-technical approach.
Clearly, I agree, that on the facts of this appeal, the judgment of sentence should be affirmed. In my view, the *392trial judge went well beyond that which was required of him.
VAN der VOORT, J., joins in this concurring opinion.