Court Opinion

ID: 9730458
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:12:56.542126+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:06.635564
License: Public Domain

POMEROY, Justice,
concurring.
Petitioner, Robert Fields, contends that the trial court, in imposing sentence, impermissibly considered certain of *483Fields’ prior arrests which did not result in convictions. Whether in fact such improper considerations did enter into the determination of the sentence cannot be known because the transcript of the sentencing hearing is incomplete. I am satisfied, however, that petitioner has raised a colorable claim of prejudice resulting from the incomplete record, and thus is entitled to relief. This case is to be distinguished from Commonwealth v. Shields, 477 Pa. 105, —, 383 A.2d 844, 848 (1978) (dissenting opinion of POMEROY, J., joined by LARSEN, J.), wherein the defendant on appeal simply made a general, unsubstantiated claim that prosecutorial misconduct had occurred in the district attorney’s summation, the transcript of which was missing. Thus I concur in the remand for a new sentencing hearing.*

 The appropriate remedy in a case of this sort would normally be to remand to the trial court so that an equivalent picture of what actually transpired during the sentencing hearing might be reconstructed. See, e. g., Commonwealth v. Anderson, 441 Pa. 483, 272 A.2d 877 (1971). In this case, however, the Commonwealth does not argue, and it is not apparent from the record, that such a reconstruction is possible. A complete new sentencing hearing is therefore required.