Court Opinion

ID: 9641902
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:42:58.7164+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:40.589642
License: Public Domain

LARSEN, Justice,
concurring.
I would affirm the order of the Superior Court and in support thereof, quote from my dissenting opinion in Commonwealth v. Holmes, 480 Pa. 536, 543-44, 391 A.2d 1015, 1018 (1978):
The majority opinion fails to recognize an exception to the general rule barring a subsequent prosecution for offenses arising out of the criminal transaction which resulted in the first prosecution. This exception is found in 18 Pa.C. S.A. § 110(l)(iii)(A), which states that the former prosecution will bar the second prosecution for the same conduct unless “the offense of which the defendant was formerly convicted or acquitted and the offense for which he is subsequently prosecuted each requires proof of a fact not required by the other and the law defining each of such offenses is intended to prevent a substantially different harm or evil. . .. ”
The two offenses involved in the instant case are not directed at the same evils and do not involve even remotely similar elements. I would go further than the Majority and hold that any prosecution for a summary offense does not bar a subsequent prosecution for a crime graded as a misde*294meanor or a felony. Thus, appellant’s prosecution for the summary offense would not bar his later prosecution for the crime of aggravated assault.