Court Opinion

ID: 9695219
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:12:33.796594+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:10.123737
License: Public Domain

BROSKY, Judge,
concurring:
I agree with the lead opinion’s conclusion that the trial court committed no error in refusing appellant’s request to withdraw his plea of guilty. I also join in its disposition of appellant’s ineffectiveness claim, in which appellant alleges that prior counsel failed to subpoena a witness to appear at sentencing to speak on appellant’s behalf, as meritless.
Bound by precedent, I concur, albeit with much constraint, in the majority’s recognition of appellant’s contention that the sentences he received were excessive and constituted an abuse of discretion in that they were imposed consecutively without consideration of the fact that the subject crimes were part of an ongoing transaction. The foregoing issue relates to a discretionary aspect of sentencing which concerns an erroneous application of the Sentencing Guidelines. See 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9781(c). The lead opinion holds that this raises a substantial question which compromises the entire scheme of the Sentencing Code. See Commonwealth v. Tuladziecki, 513 Pa. 508, 522 A.2d 17 (1987); 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9781(b), Pa.R.A.P. 2119(f).
In Commonwealth v. Sanchez, 372 Pa.Super. 369, 539 A.2d 840 (1988) (en banc), a majority of this Court reached *227the conclusion that the Supreme Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Sessoms, 516 Pa. 365, 532 A.2d 775 (1987), while voiding the Sentencing Guidelines because of their unconstitutional promulgation, nevertheless conditioned its holding upon proper preservation of this precise issue through all stages of the post-sentencing proceedings. In other words, Sanchez held that post-Sessoms consideration of a Guidelines question is still ripe and cognizable as raising a substantial question pursuant to Commonwealth v. Tuladziecki, supra, unless the appellant preserves the specific Sessoms issue at all stages of adjudication. Sanchez applies this issue preservation directive appearing in footnote 2 of Sessoms (Id., 516 Pa. at 380, 532 A.2d at 782) to the following language in Sessoms:
Because the present guidelines were not adopted according to this scheme, however, but were the product of a rejection resolution that was not presented to the Governor in violation of Article III, § 9, they must be declared to be of no force at all.
Id. However, the footnote reference is actually appended to the sentence immediately following the above:
The appellant’s sentence is vacated and his case remanded for resentencing pursuant to the remaining valid provisions of the Sentencing Code.2
Thus, the placement of the above footnote could rationally lead to the conclusion that the Sentencing Guidelines, due to their unconstitutional enactment, are now void ab initio as to all Guidelines-implicated cases, and, accordingly, proper preservation of the Sessoms issue triggers only the directive of sentence vacation and remand for resentencing under the still viable provisions of the Sentencing Code. A finding of invalidity of the Sentencing Guidelines as to a particular case implicating a Guidelines question does not rest upon preservation of the Sessoms issue in that specific *228case. Sessoms voided these Guidelines ab initio. See Commonwealth v. Sanchez, supra (Brosky, J. dissenting).
Stated another way, an appellant need not raise a Sessoms challenge to preserve that issue, i.e., the constitutionally flawed enactment of the Guidelines. Sessoms holds that the Guidelines, because of this constitutional impairment, are void ab initio. It is only when the Sessoms question has been preserved throughout all adjudicative stages that the remedy of vacation of the judgment of sentence and remand for resentencing under the remaining constitutionally intact provisions of the Sentencing Code obtains. See Commonwealth v. Sanchez, supra (Brosky, J., dissenting).
Compelled and checked by precedent, however, I concur in the lead opinion’s resolution of this issue.

. This ruling is applicable to cases where the issue has been "properly preserved at all stages of adjudication up to and including any direct appeal.” Commonwealth v. Cabeza, 503 Pa. 228, 233, 469 A.2d 146, 148 (1983).