Court Opinion

ID: 9728643
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:13:09.210847+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:50.618944
License: Public Domain

CAVANAUGH, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the conclusion reached by the majority that the lower court imposed an illegal sentence. Rather, I would find that the lower court’s sentence was a proper application of the mandatory minimum sentence provision.
At the time it rendered a verdict, as the finder of fact, the court specifically stated that it was making no determination as to the amount of drugs involved. The court said that it considered the issue of amount to be, “appropriate for determination at sentence.” Notes of Testimony, Jan. 12, 1989, at 100. The court made no special findings in connection with the verdict and did not indicate then which of the Commonwealth’s and which of the defense’s evidence it accepted as true.
It was at the initial sentencing hearing that the court delved into the question of the amount of cocaine possessed by appellee. After hearing argument on this issue, the court imposed a sentence of three to six years, which indicated that it determined that the amount of cocaine involved was at least ten grams and less than 100 grams. Within the thirty-day period during which it retained jurisdiction after sentencing, the court vacated the sentence upon a petition to modify.
It is within the authority of the trial court to grant a petition to modify sentence where it vacates the original sentence within thirty days after it was imposed. See, Pa.R.Crim.P. 1410, Comment; Pa.R.A.P. 1701; Commonwealth v. Feagley, 371 Pa.Super. 593, 538 A.2d 895 (1988). *489The purpose of this procedure is to allow the lower court to reconsider the sentence, the process of which necessarily implicates a reexamination of the facts upon which it based its original sentencing decision. This is a proper function of the court when modification of sentence is under consideration. See, Commonwealth v. Cottman, 327 Pa.Super. 453, 476 A.2d 40 (1984).
Although the time lapse between the vacation of the original sentence and the imposition of the second sentence involved in this case is, indeed, considerable, the lower court acted within its authority in resentencing on July 3, 1990. Its determination at that time that it had erred at the original sentencing hearing on April 12, 1989, in calculating the amount of cocaine involved, was a permissible exercise of its sentencing duties.
The court did not, at the time it announced the verdict, indicate which testimony it credited. The majority assumes that the court believed all of the Commonwealth’s evidence in reaching the guilty verdict. This conclusion is erroneous because, as noted above, the court at the time of the verdict specifically indicated that the issue of amount would be decided at sentencing. The re-assessing of facts that occurred was not of facts found in conjunction with the rendition of the verdict, but of facts implicitly decided at the first sentencing. This latter factual assessment by the court is precisely what is properly the subject of the process of reconsideration of sentence.
Because I find that the lower court’s sentence was within the law and took account of the mandatory minimum, I would affirm the judgment of sentence.