Court Opinion

ID: 9644237
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:50:43.425529+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:10.172772
License: Public Domain

CERCONE, Judge,
concurring:
I would affirm the judgment of sentence in the instant case solely because appellant failed to move that the offenses be joined for trial, despite the fact that he knew they were pending contemporaneously. As ABA Standards Relating to Joinder and Severance § 1.3(b) provides:
“When a defendant has been charged with two or more related offenses, his timely motion to join them for trial should be granted unless the court determines that because the prosecuting attorney does not have sufficient evidence to warrant trying some of the offenses at that time, or for some other reason, the ends of justice would be defeated if the motion were granted. A defendant’s failure to so move constitutes a waiver of any right of joinder as to related offenses with which the defendant knew he was charged.”
Cf. Commonwealth v. Green, 232 Pa.Super. 134, 142-44, 335 A.2d 493 (1975). So long as two prosecutions are pending concurrently, and neither has gone beyond the stage at which joinder would be inappropriate or impermissible, the accused has an adequate remedy for his problem in seeking joinder of the offenses. If the accused does not request that the offenses be joined, it is fair to conclude that he has waived a claim that Section 110 of the Crimes Code has been violated. On the other hand, it is unfair to dismiss charges for serious offenses on the basis of presumed protections which the accused has not lifted a finger to exercise, especially since the accused is often in a better position to know *482of a potential conflict with Section 110 of the Crimes Code than is the Commonwealth. The relatively drastic remedy of Section 110 should only be applied when an accused has not foregone the opportunity of moving to join all offenses in one prosecution. To hold otherwise is simply to foster chicanery by defense counsel. However, to play word games with Section 110, as the majority does in the instant case, only obscures the equity and practicality of requiring the accused to move to protect his privileges when he is readily able to do so.
PRICE, J., joins in this opinion.