Court Opinion

ID: 9766686
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:56:38.839877+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:24.657096
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING STATEMENT BY
KLEIN, J.:
¶ 1 As I noted in my concurring statement in Commonwealth v. Jacobs, 2006 PA Super 95, 890 A.2d 1063 (filed May 1, Pa.Super. 2006), I am reluctant to address a constitutional question in dicta. In Jacobs, the defendant did enjoy her right of allocution, and there was no need to discuss the issue as to whether the denial of the right of allocution renders a sentence illegal. In the instant case, as the majority points out, the sentence was automatic; no statement from defendant or anyone else could have altered it.
*912¶ 2 It is true that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has held that a defendant who is denied the right of allocution need not demonstrate prejudice thereby. Commonwealth v. Thomas, 520 Pa. 206, 553 A.2d 918, 919 (1989). In so holding, it is plain that the Supreme Court did not want to require a defendant to prove that his statement to the sentencing court would have produced a more favorable sentence. However, in circumstances where it is impossible for the defendant to receive a more lenient sentence, his failure to make any statement to the court is, practically speaking, irrelevant.
¶ 3 That would include the circumstances of the instant case — i.e., where a life sentence is mandatory for first-degree murder — as well as other circumstances, such as where: (1) the defendant receives the mandatory minimum sentence for the crime; and (2) following a negotiated guilty plea, the defendant receives the negotiated sentence, assuming that the Commonwealth could elect to go to trial if the judge believes the sentence is too severe.
¶ 4 Therefore, while I agree that the failure to provide Williams his right of allocution was irrelevant because his sentence would be the same no matter what he said, I do not believe that this is the case where we should decide whether the denial of the fundamental right of allocution yields an illegal sentence or is a waivable issue. As noted previously, the Jacobs majority’s view on the subject — -that denying the right of allocution does not produce an illegal sentence and hence is a waivable issue — ivas not essential to the dispute, as Jacobs was granted her right of allocution.
¶ 5 Because I believe that the statement in Jacobs is dicta where it says that the denial of allocution does not make a sentence illegal, I do not believe that Jacobs provides any support for the holding in this case. I am always troubled when language that is dicta in one case is relied upon in a subsequent case, and, voila, what was dicta automatically becomes binding precedent.
Based on the foregoing, and for the reasons set forth in my concurring statement in Jacobs, I believe that Commonwealth v. Newton, 875 A.2d 1088 (Pa.Super.2005), remains good law.