16 A.2d 665 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1940
Submitted September 30, 1940.
In a general verdict, each of these defendants was found guilty of a number of separate and distinct violations of the Securities Act of April 13, 1927, P.L. 273,
It is no objection that the general verdict did not *455
state specifically upon which counts it was found and the court in the first instance might have imposed separate sentences for each violation under the general verdict. Com. ex rel. Miller v.Ashe,
The power of a court to sentence a defendant after the term of his conviction may be preserved by remanding the prisoner for sentence at a future time (Williams v. Com.,
Each of the original orders, considered as a sentence on one count, was voidable because excessive; viewed as a sentence on two or more counts it was voidable for the same reason. Regardless of the evident intention *456 of a lumping sentence, the penalties of a number of counts cannot have a cumulative effect. The only method recognized in law for the accomplishment of that result, requires separate orders on separate counts with the express direction, in apt language, that the sentences shall take effect consecutively. Regardless of form, without that definite direction, the sentences operate concurrently. There was no suspending of sentence on any of the counts in these cases. And since, at most, a lumped sentence can be considered the equivalent of separate concurrent sentences and the penalties imposed cannot be increased to give them consecutive effect after the close of the term, in practice a voidable lumped sentence is amended to comply with the law by reducing the penalty to the maximum of one count alone. Measured by the character and extent of punishment by imprisonment, there is no real difference between the maximum penalty of one count and the penalties of two or more counts served concurrently.
In Halderman's Petition,
Accordingly, the judgments in Nos. 278 and 279 are reversed and the sentence in each case is amended, by reducing the penalties to a fine of $5,000 and imprisonment for two years, the maximum under any one count.