COMMONWEALTH оf Pennsylvania, Appellant, v. Roosevelt E. McPHAIL.
Superior Court of Pennsylvania.
August 20, 1993.
Reargument Denied Oct. 26, 1993.
631 A.2d 1305
Argued Feb. 24, 1993.
Order affirmed.
Shelley Stark, Public Defender, Pittsburgh, for appellee.
Before DEL SOLE, FORD ELLIOTT and CERCONE, JJ.
FORD ELLIOTT, Judge:
This is an appeal from the order of January 30, 1992, entered in the Court of Common Pleas, Allegheny County, dismissing three drug charges arising from an alleged cocaine sale to an undercover narcotics officer in Allegheny County. We reverse the trial court order dismissing the instant charges pursuant to
A review of the record and history of the case is necessary. In May of 1990, Trooper Donald Alston, an undercover narcotics agent for the Pennsylvania State Police, was introduced to appellee by a confidential informant. (Notes of testimony, 1/3/92 at 31.) Near the end of May, Officer Alston bought
On June 27th Officer Alston, appellee, the confidential informant, and another individual, Anthony Illessee, traveled in a car to Clairton in Allegheny County. During this third drug deal, the possession, sale, and subsequent delivery to Officer Alston occurred only in Allegheny County. The exchange of cocaine occurred outside of an apartment building in Clairton. Officer Alston purchased 4.33 grams of cocaine from appellee for $500. (Notes of testimony, 1/3/92 at 11, 16-18, 30, 47, 51.) See also Affidavit for Criminal Complaint, 10/4/90.
Subsequеntly, appellee was charged and arrested for delivery of a controlled substance and criminal conspiracy for the two violations that occurred in Washington County.1 When he
On September 6, 1991, appellee filed an omnibus pre-trial motion seeking to quash the instant charges on the basis that these charges were barred by the double jeopardy clauses of both the state and federal constitutions and
Initially, we note that in reviewing the trial court‘s ruling that the instant prosecution was barred by
When prosecution barred by former prosecution for different offense:
Although a prosecutiоn is for a violation of a different provision of the statutes than a former prosecution or is
based on different facts, it is barred by such former prosecution under the following circumstances: (1) The former prosecution resulted in an acquittal or in a conviction as defined in section 109 of this title (relating to when prosecution barred by former prosecution for the same offense) and the subsequent prosecution is for:
(i) any offense of which the defendant could have been convicted on the first prosecution;
(ii) any offense based on the same conduct or arising from the same criminal episode, if such offense was known to the appropriate prosecuting officer at the time of the commencement of the first trial and was within the jurisdiction of a single court unless the court ordered a separate trial of the charge of such offense; . . . .
This rule of compulsory joinder is intended to protect the accused from governmental harassment and also, as a matter of judiсial administration and economy, to ensure finality without unduly burdening the judicial process by repetitious litigation. Commonwealth v. Starr, 416 Pa.Super. 250, 610 A.2d 1066 (1992), appeal granted, 533 Pa. 633, 621 A.2d 580 (1993), quoting Commonwealth v. Walton, 405 Pa.Super. 281, 285, 592 A.2d 335, 337 (1991).
For the purposes of this case, it is critical to recognize that
This appeal turns on the last phase of the analysis. Although we concede that the other requirements of
A review of the trial court opinion and the briefs of the parties suggests that there was a good deal of confusion regarding this issue. Hence, we believe that a precise reading of the statute and the relevant case law is necessary to resolve the
We also acknowledge that the second and third prongs of the test were established as well. The prosecutor knew about the Allegheny County charges before accepting the guilty plea as to the Washington County charges. Appellee was charged with the former while he was in jail on the latter, and the parties have not denied this knowledge. Also, we recognize that the third drug transaction, which occurred in Allegheny County, arose from the same criminal episode as the earlier transactions in Washington County. In arriving at
The decision in Commonwealth v. Hude, 500 Pa. 482, 458 A.2d 177 (1983), further explains our conclusion. In Hude, supra, the defendant was arrested and charged with twenty counts of possession and delivery of marijuana and one count of corruption of a minor. The charges arose out of a series of sales to thе same individual which were alleged to have occurred on twenty separate days within a two and one-half month time period. Nine of the possession and delivery charges were dismissed prior to trial. The Commonwealth brought the defendant to trial on three of the remaining possession and delivery charges and on the corruption charge. He was acquitted of these charges. Subsequent to the acquittal of the above charges, the Commonwealth brought appellant to trial on the remaining eight possession and delivery charges.
The supreme court held that the drug charges brought against the defendant after his initial acquittal arose from the same criminal episode since they were so logically interrelated that they essentially involved the same issues of law and fact. As a result, the court concluded that
A subsequent and more recent decision of this court, Starr, supra, is distinguished. The defendant in Starr sold 25 grams of marijuana to one undercover agent for $175 on January 24,
The Hude and Kaminski decisions, rather than Starr, supra, control the instant case. The third sale in Clairton arose from the same criminal episode as the two earlier sales in Washington County. The sales were logically and temporally related. They were made to the same undercover officer; involved the same type of drug — cocaine; occurred in the presence and with the assistance of the same confidential informant; and transpired over a one-month time period. The second sale in Washington County occurred approximately a day before the third sale in Allegheny County. There is no doubt that Hude and Kaminski control the simрle question as to whether the Allegheny County drug sale and the Washington County drug sales arose from the same criminal episode. We acknowledge that they most certainly did arise from a common criminal episode.
However, appellee erred because he ended his analysis at this point. In a multi-county scenario, the statute absolutely requires a final step. We must also evaluate whether the first prosecution and the subsequent prosecution were within the jurisdiction of a singlе court. The strong relationship of the subsequent prosecution and the former prosecution does not somehow negate the final part of the analysis. Section
Hence, the critical question is whether the three Allegheny County charges: possession of a controlled substance,
It is a fundamental precept of law that “‘the court has no jurisdiction of the offense unless it occurred within the county of trial . . .‘” Caden, supra, 326 Pa.Super. at 198, 473 A.2d at 1049, quoting Commonwealth v. Mull, 316 Pa. 424, 426, 175 A. 418, 419 (1934). The locus of a crime is always in issue, because the court has no jurisdiction over an offense unless it occurred within the county of trial or unless, by some statute, it need not. Commonwealth ex rel. Chatary v. Nailon, 416 Pa. 280, 283, 206 A.2d 43, 45 (1965). For a county to take jurisdiction over a criminal case, some overt act involved in that crime must have occurred within that county. Commonwealth v. Boyle, 516 Pa. 105, 532 A.2d 306 (1987). Moreover, in order to base jurisdiction on an overt act, the act must have been essential to the crime, an act which is merely incidental to the crime is not sufficient. Id. at 112-113, 532 A.2d at 309-310. We must also look to the nature of the offense and the еlements thereof to determine whether the crime was sufficiently related to the locus where the defendant
This court has held on numerous occasions that
The defendant moved to dismiss the charges on the basis that the Chester County prosecutions wеre barred by the Philadelphia County prosecution, pursuant to
A complete review of the record in this case indicates that the locus of the three charges arising from the June 27th sale in Clairton was situated only in Allegheny County. Appellee possessed the drugs in Allegheny County. Furthermore, the “delivery” of the drugs from appellee to Officer Alston occurred within the boundaries of Allegheny County. There is absolutely nothing in the record to demonstrate that the elements of these offenses occurred anywhere other than Allegheny County. More importantly, there is no testimony whatsoever to support the proposition that the possession, the possession coupled with the intent to deliver, or the delivery occurred in Washington County. The mere fact that the parties planned their third buy in Washington County and traveled in the car from Washington County to Allеgheny County and back again, does not vest Washington County with jurisdiction in this case. Neither the arrangements nor the traveling are elements of any of the offenses charged. Although we have conceded that this relationship is relevant in determining whether the offenses in Allegheny County arose from a common criminal episode as the Washington County offenses, that relationship has no bearing on the jurisdictional issue.
In closing we note that appellee has relied upon two cases, Commonwealth v. Moyers, 391 Pa.Super. 262, 570 A.2d 1323 (1990), and Commonwealth v. Craft, 304 Pa.Super. 494, 450 A.2d 1021 (1982), in arguing that the act of getting in the car in Washington County was a “sufficiently overt act” tо confer jurisdiction on Washington County. We disagree and further believe that reliance upon these two cases is misplaced. Both Moyers and Craft involved conspiracy allegations. We do not have a conspiracy allegation in the instant case with regard to the Allegheny County offenses and the cases are distinguished based upon this difference. Furthermore, neither case dealt with a
In the Moyers case, the court interpreted
However, the holdings of these cases are limited to an analysis under
Furthermore, the simple fact that the parties made plans in Washington County for the June 27th sale in Allegheny County is not directly relevant to determining the locus of the crimes in Clairton. The actual possession coupled with the intent to deliver and the delivery all occurred in Allegheny County. These were the overt and essential acts, hence Allegheny County is the only county with jurisdiction over the instant action.
In closing, we also note that the trial court‘s reliance upоn Commonwealth v. Katsafanas, 318 Pa.Super. 143, 464 A.2d 1270 (1983), is misplaced. Once again, the Katsafanas case did not involve a
We agree with appellant that Katsafanas is distinguishable from the instant case because there was no overt act in Washington County in furtherance of the substantive offenses. Furthermore, the instant case does not involve а complicated jurisdictional analysis like Katsafanas where the court had to consider the venue question in the context of a vast statewide computer network. Rather, the analysis here is quite simple.
Accordingly, order reversed. Motion to quash denied. Jurisdiction relinquished.
DEL SOLE, J., files a dissenting Statement.
DEL SOLE, Judge, dissenting:
I disagree with my esteemеd colleagues’ analysis concerning the jurisdictional issue, and would affirm the trial court order dismissing the charges which were brought against Appellant in Allegheny County.
According to
Because the offenses in the instant case arose from a common criminal episode, and because both the Washington County and Allegheny County Courts of Common Pleas could have had jurisdiction over the matter, I would find that all four requirements of