Court Opinion

ID: 9649383
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:51:26.066416+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:10.417175
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Justice
(concurring).
I join in the Opinion of the Court, but desire to explain my reasons for agreeing with the Court’s construction of section 39(a) of the Controlled Substance, Drug, *229Device, and Cosmetic Act of 1972.* That section provides in pertinent part:
“In any case not yet final if the offense is similar to one set out in this act, the penalties under this act apply if they are less than those under prior law.”
The Superior Court construed this provision to mean that one convicted under the old act is to be sentenced under the provision of the new act whose elements are similar to the elements of the crime of which he was convicted. We construe the requirement of similarity to refer to the conduct which constituted the offense, rather than the elements of the crime.
The reasons for adopting this construction rather than that chosen by the Superior Court are ably stated by the Commonwealth in its brief:
“[Section 39(a)] took account of the fact that the legislature had reassessed the gravity of the various drug offenses in drafting the Act of 1972, upgrading the penalties for certain offenses, downgrading the penalties for others. Obviously, the legislature wished its new wisdom to have as broad an application as possible, i. e., to apply to as many cases as possible — not only to those cases which would arise after the effective date of the new Act but also to those pending on that date. This understandable wish of the legislature could not be fully realized because of constitutional prohibitions against increasing the penalty for a crime after its commission. In order to attain as much of its objective as could be achieved without running afoul of the proscription of ex post facto punishments, the legislature mandated by way of Section 39(a) that wherever the defendant’s crime was one whose penalty had been reduced under the new Act, the defendant should receive the benefit of the new lenient policy. Whether *230a given defendant in a pending case is to be the benefit ciary of the award of leniency must therefore depend upon whether the acts committed by the defendant were of a class which the legislature had determined should be punished with less severity than under the old Act. For if the defendant was convicted of acts as to which the legislature had chosen to increase the sanction in the new Act, to bestow upon that defendant a lesser punishment than that fixed by the prior law would directly contravene the new intent of the legislature.
“In accordance with the foregoing analysis, the appropriate means for determining if a pending prosecution is controlled by the new Act is to first decide which section of the new Act best describes the acts committed by the defendant for which he was convicted. The approach differs from that undertaken by the Superior Court in that it focuses upon the conduct of the defendant as opposed to merely comparing the labels assigned offenses in the old and new Acts. The virtue of the recommended approach is that it enhances the likelihood that the punishment imposed will be more closely correlated to the legislature’s current judgment as to the gravity of the defendant’s crime.”
MANDERINO, J., joins in this concurring opinion.

 Act of April 14, 1972, P.L. 233, § 39(a), 35 P.S. § 780-139(a) (Supp.1974).