Court Opinion

ID: 9394511
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-15 17:07:24.039281+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:00.509731
License: Public Domain

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NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

 COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA              :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
                                           :        PENNSYLVANIA
                                           :
              v.                           :
                                           :
                                           :
 H.C.G.                                    :
                                           :
                    Appellant              :   No. 1472 MDA 2021

     Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered October 18, 2021
  In the Court of Common Pleas of Mifflin County Criminal Division at No:
                        CP-44-CR-0000110-2021

BEFORE: STABILE, J., DUBOW, J., and McCAFFERY, J.

DISSENTING MEMORANDUM BY STABILE, J.: FILED: MAY 15, 2023

      Because I believe the record reflects an appropriate exercise of

discretion on the part of the district attorney at the time the decision was

made, and because subsequent developments in the law do not entitle

Appellant to the relief the Majority orders, I respectfully dissent.

      The Mifflin County District Attorney declined to move for Appellant’s

admission into Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition (“ARD”), because under

Commonwealth v. Chichkin, 232 A.3d 959 (Pa. Super. 2020), overruled,

Commonwealth v. Richards, 284 A.3d 214 (Pa. Super. 2022) (en banc)

Commonwealth v. Moroz, 284 A.3d 227 (Pa. 2021) (en banc), the prevailing

jurisprudence at the time, a prior ARD could not be considered a first offense

in the event the defendant committed another DUI offense. The Mifflin County

District Attorney decided public safety would be best served by not offering
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ARD for DUI offenses, because the DUI statute provides harsher punishments

for repeat offenders.1

       Refusal of ARD in order to protect the public is well within the district

attorney’s discretion. In Commonwealth v. Lutz, 495 A.2d 928 (Pa. 1985),

our Supreme Court explained that “[a]dmission to an ARD program is not a

matter of right, but a privilege.” Id. at 933. Thus, no criminal defendant may

move to submit his or her own case to ARD; the discretion to do so rests with

the prosecuting attorney.

             [S]ociety, for its own protection, has an interest in carrying
       out the penalties prescribed by the legislature for drunk driving,
       except in the cases where even society’s representative in the
       case, the district attorney, acting in conjunction with the court,
       […] determines that ARD is preferable to conviction because of the
       strong likelihood that a given criminal defendant will in fact be
       rehabilitated by an ARD program.

Id.

       The prosecutor’s discretion in this matter is subject to few limitations.

“Since the judgment about who can benefit from ARD is subjective, and since

society may be seriously damaged by a wrong judgment, the district attorney

is not to be faulted if he errs on the side of caution.” Id. at 935. So long as

the decision is related to the protection of society, courts will not disturb the

district attorney’s decision.

             In any event, the decision to submit the case for ARD rests
       in the sound discretion of the district attorney, and absent an
       abuse of that discretion involving some criteria for

____________________________________________

1   See 75 Pa.C.S.A. § 3803.

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      admission to ARD wholly, patently and without doubt
      unrelated to the protection of society and/or the likelihood of
      a person’s success in rehabilitation, such as race, religion or other
      such obviously prohibited considerations, the attorney for the
      Commonwealth must be free to submit a case or not submit it for
      ARD consideration based on his view of what is most beneficial for
      society and the offender.

Id. at 935. (Emphasis added).

      The District Attorney articulated his reasons well.        In the District

Attorney’s view, public protection was served better by denying ARD while

Chichkin was in force, because anyone who completed an ARD and then

reoffended would not be subject to the more severe penalties typically

applicable to recidivist DUI offenders. N.T. Hearing, 6/8/21, at 8-10. Further,

the District Attorney explained that, under his policy, the DUI recidivist

penalties would apply automatically, without the need to argue to the trial

court for a more severe sentence based on a prior ARD that, under Chichkin,

technically is not a prior offense. Id. at 22-23. The district attorney noted

that its policy was in line with the protection of the public, the statutory DUI

penalty scheme, and our Supreme Court’s opinion in Lutz. Id. at 23.

      The Majority, though it acknowledges the broad discretion afforded the

District Attorney, concludes that this Court’s overruling of Chichkin requires

us to vacate the judgment of sentence and remand for further consideration

because Chichkin, the impetus for the Mifflin County District Attorney’s

blanket policy on ARD, has been overruled. I disagree. The District Attorney’s

view, put simply, is that the protection of the public is better served by

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ensuring that recidivist DUI offenders are sentenced in accord with § 3803.

That decision, at the time it was made, was well within the District Attorney’s

discretion under Lutz. The Majority does not contend otherwise and offers no

legal basis for winding the clock back to revisit the decision based on a

subsequent change in the law.

      Appellant already has been tried and convicted, and I discern no reason

why the overruling of Chichkin is grounds for disturbing the result of the trial.

As noted above, ARD is a privilege, not a right. Lutz, 495 A.2d at 933. Thus,

for present purposes, the overruling of Chichkin implicates nothing more than

a privilege offered to some DUI defendants at the discretion of the prosecuting

attorney. Despite Appellant’s lack of a right to ARD (indeed, the lack of a right

even to move his own admission into ARD), and despite the broad discretion

afforded to prosecutors in determining which cases are appropriate for ARD,

the Majority forces the Mifflin County District Attorney into a choice between

moving Appellant into ARD or expending the public resources necessary to

retry him. Because the overruling of Chichkin does not warrant this result, I

would affirm the judgment of sentence.

      I respectfully dissent.

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