Court Opinion

ID: 9651444
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:19:37.400156+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:33.805818
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
Cercone, J.:
I agree with the majority that appellant’s conviction for attempted prison breach should not be permitted to stand. However, I disagree with the basis for the majority’s conclusion, that the acts done by appellant prior to his decision to abandon his escape were insufficient to constitute an attempt. I would have found little difficulty, for instance, in affirming appellant’s conviction had he been apprehended by the guards immediately after he had snipped the barbed wire and crossed the inner fence. To hold otherwise is to require that prisoners must literally be plucked from the prison wall before their conduct may be characterized as attempted prison breach.
I respectfully suggest that the majority has fallen into a trap peculiarly common to the law of attempts. As Professor Perkins has stated in discussing when conduct ceases to be merely preparatory and becomes perpetration:
“The preparatory-perpetrating dichotomy is useful in discussing situations of a rather general nature, but the actual dividing line between the two is shadowy *584in the extreme. There is reason to believe that in close cases the decision is based wpon other considerations and that the label attached is that appropriate to the conclusion reached — after it is reached.” R. Perkins, Criminal Law 561 (2d ed. 1969). [Emphasis added.]
The “other consideration” which has influenced the majority herein is appellant’s voluntary abandonment of his escape plan. In my opinion, appellant’s abandonment of his plan is a sufficient defense to the crime of attempted prison breach and should be recognized as such.
As a practical matter, it has long been recognized that plans voluntarily abandoned are less likely to be found to be attempts than are plans carried to the same point, but interrupted by the apprehension of the perpetrators. Unfortunately, in jurisdictions where voluntary abandonment or renunciation of a criminal purpose has not been recognized as an affirmative defense, the courts have sought to give effect to the defendant’s abandonment, sub silentio, by characterizing his conduct as “preparatory.” See Model Penal Code §501, comment 19 at p. 70 (Tent. Draft No. 10, 1958). That is precisely the error which the majority has made in the instant case. The difficulty with this position is that, with regard to the preparation-perpetration dichotomy, it breeds results superficially inconsistent. If voluntary abandonment is to be given effect in attempt cases, it should not be done covertly.
For some time the trend in the law has been to recognize voluntary abandonment as an affirmative and complete defense to a charge of attempt, despite the exhortations to the contrary by some commentators.1 Id. And, in *585following this trend our legislature substantially adopted section 5.01 of the Model Penal Code in drafting the attempt provisions in our recently enacted Crimes Code.2 Our Code now recognizes that abandonment under circumstances indicating voluntariness, is a complete defense to a charge of attempt. Appellant, however, was charged under our old Penal Code which did not speak to whether voluntary abandonment was a defense to a charge of attempt.3
In one of the first cases ever decided by this court, we stated:
“In the case under consideration, Johanna Tadriek left her mother’s house, intending to steal the prosecutor’s money, entered the house of the prosecutor and seated herself on the bed where she knew the money was concealed. Nothing remained to be done save to insert her hand and secure the money. Each of the three acts mentioned was intended to be, and actually was, a step towards the consummation of her felonious purpose. Taken together and in connection with the uninterrupted intent existing in her mind, we are compelled to hold that they constituted an attempt at larceny which would have been punishable had she gone no further. If the offense of larceny were not completed, we must assume, from the evidence, that *586the failure was not owing to a change of purpose, which of course would leave her guiltless, but to extraneous circumstances, over which she had no control. An overt act is one which manifests an intention to commit the crime: Bouvier’s L.D. 267. It need not be the last proximate act prior to the consummation of the attempted crime, if the latter be a felony: Uhl v. Commonwealth, 6 Grattan, 706; 1 Bish. Crim. Law, sec. 764.” Commonwealth v. Tadrick, 1 Pa. Superior Ct. 555, 566 (1896) [Emphasis added.]
It is clear that this court long ago perceived voluntary abandonment to be an affirmative defense to the crime of attempt; and, I have not been referred to any Pennsylvania authority which persuades me that this court’s implicit conclusion was then erroneous, nor any authority to indicate that this court’s observation in Tadrick has not withstood the test of time. On the contrary, as aforementioned, voluntary abandonment is now recognized in Pennsylvania as a statutory defense to an attempt charge.
Sound policy reasons also underlie the recognition of voluntary abandonment as an affirmative defense. As the drafters of the Model Penal Code have pointed out, the defense of complete and permanent abandonment should be allowed because voluntary abandonment negates the conclusion that the accused continues to be dangerous; and, the knowledge that voluntary abandonment exonerates one from criminal liability provides a motive to desist prior to completion of the crime. Model Penal Code §5.01, comment 19 at pp. 71-72 (Tent. Draft No. 10, 1958). See also Wechsler, Jones & Korn, The Treatment of Inchoate Crimes in the Model Penal Code of the American Law Institute: Attempt, Solicitation and Conspiracy, 61 Co-lum. L. Rev. 571, 617 (1961).4
*587Thus, I have concluded that the law in Pennsylvania recognized voluntary abandonment as an affirmative defense even prior to the adoption of the Crimes Code. In any event, the trend in the United States is so profoundly in favor of such a defense that we should have recognized its existence in the instant case even had the Crimes Code not been enacted. Furthermore, I think it would be erroneous to construe the attempts provision of the Crimes Code as somehow implying that the law was otherwise prior to the Code’s adoption. On the contrary, I think the adoption of that provision only fortifies the conclusion I have reached herein.
Therefore, I would not rest the decision of this case on the basis that appellant’s acts prior to renunciation of his criminal purpose were merely preparatory; for, as has my brother, Judge PRICE, I have concluded that appellant had clearly gone further than preparation. Rather, I would rest the instant decision on appellant’s unequivocal and undisputedly voluntary abandonment of his criminal purpose. Thus, I only concur in the result reached by the majority herein.
Spaeth, J., joins in this opinion.

. Professor Perkins has said:
“A criminal attempt is a ‘complete offense’ in the sense that one who has carried a criminal effort to such a point that it is punishable can no more wipe out his criminal guilt by abandonment of his plan than a thief can obliterate the larceny by restora*585tion of the stolen chattel.” Perkins, Criminal Attempt and Related Problems, 2 U.S.L.A. L. Rev. 319, 354 (1955). Professors LaFave and Scott, however, have found that “the arguments in favor of recognizing voluntary abandonment as a defense to a charge of attempt are more persuasive than the arguments against the defense.” W. LaFave & A. Scott, Criminal Law 450 (1972).

. Act of December 6, 1972, P.L. 1482, No. 334, §1 et seq., 18 Pa.C.S. §901 (1973). See note 2 of the majority opinion.

. The Act of June 24, 1939, P.L. 872, § 1107, 18 P.S. § 5707, provided that the jury could not acquit if it found that the defendant, “did not complete the offense charged, but was guilty only of an attempt to commit that crime. . . .” The statute did not define an attempt nor list any affirmative defenses thereto.

. The drafters of the Code also considered simply recognizing voluntary abandonment as an act in mitigation of the crime of attempt. However, they concluded that complete exoneration *587would offer the only meaningful inducement to desist, especially in light of the already substantially diminished penalties for attempt vis a vis those provided for the successful completion of the criminal act.