Court Opinion

ID: 9696780
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:58:24.776859+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:16:17.104681
License: Public Domain

TAMILIA, Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. The holding of the majority and concurring opinions continues the anomaly created by Commonwealth v. Becker, 366 Pa.Super. 54, 530 A.2d 888 (1987), which holds that acceptance of A.R.D. is a conviction for limited purposes. If acceptance is a conviction for any purpose, it must be appealable; otherwise the right of appeal does not exist in a matter which may have serious penal consequences to a defendant.
The reasoning of the majority would permit only an immediate right of termination of A.R.D. by an accused, for refusal to agree with one of its conditions, which would leave him technically with a conviction for having accepted A.R.D. This would permit the Commonwealth to proceed against him de novo on the original charge and even if he was acquitted at the de novo hearing, his acceptance of A.R.D. would technically be a conviction for sentencing purposes on a subsequent offense. With each new turn, in treating acceptance as conviction, we compound the irrationalities and inconsistencies propounded by Becker.
I believe the Becker dissent, by Cirillo, P.J., joined by Del Sole and Tamilia, JJ., properly propounds the rule that acceptance of A.R.D. is not a conviction and only completion of the program may be deemed as a conviction.
Under the dissent in Becker, there is no doubt that A.R.D. acceptance would be interlocutory and not appeal-able. Under the majority holding however, I believe A.R.D. acceptance must be appealable as it is a final determination of a defendant’s status as a convicted person and will have penal consequences in the event of further violations.
I would not quash the appeal but determine the issue on its merits.