Court Opinion

ID: 9746527
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:20:50.729021+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:14.381305
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
The Honorable Gary P. Caruso determined that conflicts between subsections (a) and (c) of 18 Pa.C.S. § 2506 makes the statute impossible to apply. With this finding, I agree. When read as a whole, the statute is fatally confusing, in part *200because subsection (c) clearly prohibits subsection (a) from providing the additional elements needed to create a new offense. Judge Caruso went on to conclude that the statute creates a mandatory minimum sentence for a person convicted of third degree murder when the death is caused by the administration of a controlled substance. I believe Judge Caruso was also correct in this conclusion. I therefore join so much of my colleagues’ decision as finds that § 2506(a) cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny to the extent that it attempts to set forth a new, substantive crime. However, I am unable to agree that the entire section must be declared unconstitutional.
Our general severability statute reads as follows:
§ 1925. Constitutional construction of statutes
The provisions of every statute shall be severable. If any provisions of any statute or the application thereof to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the remainder of the statute, and the application of such provision to other persons or circumstances, shall not be affected thereby, unless the court finds that the valid provisions of the statute are so essentially and inseparably connected with, and so depend upon, the void provision or application, that it cannot be presumed the General Assembly would have enacted the remaining valid provisions without the void one; or unless the court finds that the remaining valid provisions, standing alone, are incomplete and are incapable of being executed in accordance with the legislative intent.
1 Pa.C.S. § 1925.
There is a clearly expressed legislative preference to retain the viability of the legal portions of a statute, if reasonably possible. See Commonwealth, Dep’t of Educ. v. First School, 471 Pa. 471, 478, 370 A.2d 702, 705 (1977). Thus, if a statute is partially valid and partially invalid, and “if the provisions are distinct and not so interwoven as to be inseparable ..., courts should sustain the valid portions.” Saulsbury v. Bethlehem Steel Co., 413 Pa. 316, 320, 196 A.2d 664, 666 (1964).
*201I now turn to applying the severability principle to 18 Pa.C.S. § 2506. Considering, first, whether the provisions are distinct, I find that subsection (a), on its face, is physically distinct from the balance of the section. More importantly, the content of subsection (a), dealing with the definition of the crime, drug delivery resulting in death, stands apart in its function from the remaining subsections that deal with sentencing, subsections (b), (c) and (d), appellate review, subsection (e), and forfeiture, subsection (f).
The question next to be answered is whether the invalid subsection, (a), is so interwoven with the valid provisions as to be inseparable. Subsection (a) does nothing more than set forth a definition for a “new crime”, third degree murder where the defendant has delivered a controlled substance in violation of the Controlled Substance, Drug, Device and Cosmetic Act and another person dies as a result of using the substance. I would conclude that our legislature would have enacted the sections setting forth the penalties for this activity, even if it had known that its attempted definition of the crime itself was incomplete. When read as a mandatory minimum sentencing statute, all the subsections following subsection (a) remain viable and capable of full application without regard to the continuing vitality of subsection (a). Accordingly, I would conclude that subsections (b) through (f), since they are distinct from, and not interwoven with, subsection (a), remain intact.
While not stating so explicitly, my colleagues’ analysis makes it clear that they would find error in Judge Caruso’s failure to declare the entire statute unconstitutional. I disagree. Judge Caruso applied the correct principles of statutory construction in declining to find the entire statute unconstitutional, while finding that the statute can be read as a sentence enhancement provision. Since I believe this is the mandate of statutory construction as laid down by our General Assembly in 1 Pa.C.S. § 1925, supra, I must respectfully dissent.
I would affirm the order of Judge Caruso that directed the Commonwealth to amend their complaint upon pain of dis*202missal of the information. The order we here review does not require that we find Act No. 109 of 1989, in its entirety, unconstitutional. Hence this dissent.