Court Opinion

ID: 9693988
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 17:16:24.098978+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:53.773022
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, President Judge,
dissenting:
I am unable to agree with the majority’s conclusion that “[t]he charge taken as a whole made clear that the test results raised a nonconclusive presumption which the jury was free to accept or reject as it saw fit.” Majority op. at 450. Regarding the test results, the trial court charged the jury that:
This evidence should be considered by you under the following guidelines: the test result requires you to find that the defendant was under the influence of alcohol. What this means is that the test result, if accepted by you as accurate and reliable, is conclusive evidence that the defendant was under the influence of alcohol and requires you to so find. You should consider the test result together with all of the other evidence in the case.
Now, if you conclude that you will accept the test result, then, in view of the fact that the test result was .10 or higher, that means that you must then assume and presume that the defendant was incapable of safe driving, because if you find that he was under the influence, then ipso facto, he was incapable of safe driving.
R.R. at 65.
These instructions were improper in a case, like this one, brought under 75 Pa.C.S. § 3731(a)(1). See Commonwealth v. Gearhart, 253 Pa.Super.Ct. 238, 384 A.2d 1321, 1323 (1978). Under § 3731(a)(1), the Commonwealth must prove that appellant was under the influence of alcohol and *445incapable of safe driving; it is not relieved of this burden by the intoxilyzer test results.1
I should reverse and remand for a new trial.
SPAETH, President Judge, wrote this opinion before the expiration of his term on the Court.

. The trial court’s error may have occurred because the court apparently thought that appellant was charged under 75 Pa.C.S. § 3731(a)(4), which provides that "[a] person shall not drive, operate or be in actual control of the movement of any vehicle while ... the amount of alcohol by weight in the blood of the person is 0.10% or greater.” See slip op. of trial ct. at 7.