Court Opinion

ID: 9753776
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:28:00.772617+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:41.964870
License: Public Domain

BROSKY, Judge,
concurring:
I join in the well-reasoned opinion of the majority except as to the issue of whether the crimes of theft and unauthorized use of an automobile merged for sentencing purposes in this case. Although I agree with the majority that they did merge, my analysis differs somewhat from that of the majority.
I disagree with the majority’s analysis to the extent that it suggests that crimes which occur in the same criminal episode constitute the same criminal act and thus must be subject to an analysis of how many injuries the Commonwealth has suffered. Although, the majority cites Commonwealth v. Campana, 455 Pa. 233, 304 A.2d 432, vacated and remanded, 414 U.S. 808, 94 S.Ct. 73, 38 L.Ed.2d 44 (1973), on remand, 455 Pa. 622, 314 A.2d 854, cert denied, 417 U.S. 969, 94 S.Ct. 3172, 41 L.Ed.2d 1139 (1974), Campana merely stands for the proposition that all charges arising from a single criminal episode must be prosecuted in a single proceeding.
While I certainly agree that the theft and the unauthorized use occurred in the same criminal episode in this case, the next question to be answered, as noted by Judge Wieand in his Concurring Opinion, is whether the act of *70operating the vehicle is also the act of unlawfully taking the vehicle. If it is not, then the two criminal acts are merely successive steps in the same transaction which do not merge unless they necessarily involve one another. See Commonwealth v. Williams, 344 Pa.Super. 108, 122, 496 A.2d 31, 45 (1985) (en banc). If, however, the act of operating the vehicle is also the act of unlawfully taking the vehicle, then the crimes charged grow out of a single act and the question of merger depends upon an analysis of how many injuries the Commonwealth sustained as a result of that single act.
I believe the record indicates that, here, the act of theft was also the act of operating the vehicle. I agree with the majority that this single act resulted in two harms to the Commonwealth. Therefore, I also agree with the majority that these crimes do not merge for sentencing purposes.