Court Opinion

ID: 9710990
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:22:11.655827+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:01.600595
License: Public Domain

ROWLEY, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The majority, in arresting judgment and discharging appellant on the ground of insufficient evidence, has done so by excluding from consideration the improperly admitted evidence of the Vascar reading — in other words, by diminishing the record. As I understand the applicable case law, “we may not grant a motion in arrest of judgment on a diminished record....” Commonwealth v. Maybee, 429 Pa. 222, 226, 239 A.2d 332, 335 (1968). Accord Commonwealth v. Baker, 466 Pa. 479, 483, 353 A.2d 454, 456 (1976). Instead, in reviewing a motion in arrest of judgment, “the sufficiency of the evidence must be evaluated upon the entire trial record____ [A]ll evidence actually received must be considered, whether the trial rulings thereon were right or wrong.” Commonwealth v. Tabb, 417 Pa. 13, 16, 207 A.2d 884, 886 (1965), *161quoted in Commonwealth v. Hazlett, 429 Pa. 476, 478, 240 A.2d 555, 556 (1968), and Commonwealth v. Maldonado, 343 Pa.Super. 154, 158, 494 A.2d 402, 404 (1985) (citations omitted; emphasis in original). Since “[t]he trial court, over defense counsel’s objection, admitted the evidence obtained through operation of the Vascar unit” (Majority Opinion at 1230), we are required by the cases just cited to consider the Vascar reading in evaluating appellant’s sufficiency claim. With the Vascar reading in the record, the evidence is clearly sufficient to sustain appellant’s conviction. However, where a conviction is based on inadmissible evidence, a new trial is warranted, see Commonwealth v. Maybee, supra, and appellant has preserved his right to that remedy by filing post-verdict motions for a new trial as well as in arrest of judgment. I agree that the evidence of the Vascar reading was improperly admitted in the present case, and therefore I would grant appellant the remedy of a new trial.