COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA v. MARC PERFETTO
No. 7 EAP 2018
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Eastern District
April 26, 2019
207 A.3d 807
SAYLOR, C.J., BAER, TODD, DONOHUE, DOUGHERTY, WECHT, MUNDY, JJ.
ARGUED: December 6, 2018
OPINION
In a published opinion, a splintered, en banc panel of the Superior Court concluded that Subsection 110(1)(ii) of Pennsylvania’s compulsory joinder statute,
A. History of 18 Pa.C.S. § 110(1)(ii)
Before examining the facts of this case, recounting a brief history of Subsection 110(1)(ii) of the compulsory joinder statute will be helpful in understanding the issues presently before the Court. This Court first announced the compulsory joinder rule in Commonwealth v. Campana, 304 A.2d 432 (Pa. 1973), vacated, 414 U.S. 808 (1973), on remand, 314 A.2d 854 (Pa. 1974). In short, the Campana Court held that “the Double Jeopardy Clause requires a prosecutor to bring, in a single proceeding, all known charges against a defendant arising from a ‘single criminal episode.‘” Campana, 304 A.2d at 441 (footnote omitted).
The Legislature subsequently codified this rule in the Crimes Code at
In 2002, the Legislature amended Subsection 110(1)(ii) by changing the fourth prong of the statute. Specifically, the Legislature removed the phrase “was within the jurisdiction of a single court” and replaced it with the phrase “occurred within the same judicial district as the former prosecution.” Thus, the current version of Subsection 110(1)(ii) provides as follows:
Although a prosecution 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 seсtion 109 of this title (relating to when prosecution barred by former prosecution for the same offense) and the subsequent prosecution is for:
* * *
(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 occurred within the same judicial district as the former prosecution unless the court ordered a separate trial of the charge of such offense[.]
In Commonwealth v. Fithian, 961 A.2d 66 (Pa. 2008), this Court interpreted the phrase “occurred within the same judicial district as the former prosecution.” In so doing, the Court first concluded that the Legislature intended “judicial district” to mean “the geographical area еstablished by the General Assembly in which a court of common pleas is located.” Fithian, 961 A.2d at 75 (footnote omitted). As to the entirety of this phrase, we ultimately held that, in amending Subsection 110(1)(ii) of the compulsory joinder statute, the Legislature “intended to preclude from the reach of the compulsory joinder statute those current offenses that occurred wholly outside of the geographic boundaries of the judicial district in which the former prosecution was brought, even though part of a single criminal episode.” Id. at 77. Consequently, under the present version of Subsection 110(1)(ii), a current prosecution is prohibited if: (1) the former prosecution resulted in an acquittal or conviction; (2) the current prosecution was based on the same criminal conduct or arose from the same criminal episode as the former prosecution; (3) the prosecutor was aware of all of the charges when the former prosecution commenced; and (4) all of the charges occurred within the same judicial district. Thus, Subsection 110(1)(ii) no longer speaks to whether all of the charges are “within the jurisdiction of a single court.”
B. Facts and Trial Court Proceedings
The factual background underlying this appeal is undisputed. On July 3, 2014, Appellant was operating a motor vehicle in the City and County of Philadelphia when a Philadelphia Police Officer stopped him. The officer issued Appellant a citation for the summary offense of driving without lights when required,
On September 4, 2014, a hеaring officer in the Philadelphia Municipal Court - Traffic Division (“Traffic Division“) tried Appellant in absentia solely on the summary traffic offense, finding him guilty. As to Appellant’s pending DUI charges, after a preliminary hearing that resulted in the charges being held over for trial, Appellant filed in the trial court a motion to dismiss and a supporting memorandum, invoking Subsection 110(1)(ii) of the compulsory joinder statute. Specifically, Appellant argued that, because he already had been convicted of the summary traffic offense, the compulsory joinder statute prohibited the Commonwealth from subsequently prosecuting him for the DUI charges, as all four prongs of the current version of Subsection 110(1)(ii) were met: (1) Appellant’s former prosecution on his summary offense resulted in a cоnviction; (2) the DUI prosecution arose from the same criminal episode as the summary offense prosecution - a single traffic stop; (3) the prosecutor was aware of all of the charges when the summary offense prosecution commenced; and (4) all of Appellant’s charges occurred within the same judicial district - the First Judicial District, i.e., Philadelphia.
On July 13, 2015, the trial court entertained oral argument on Appellant’s motion to dismiss. Appellant’s argument largely tracked the contentions that he presented in his memorandum supporting his motion to dismiss, as discussed above. The theme of the Commonwealth’s argument was that the compulsory joinder statute was inapplicable in this case because the Commonwealth allegedly was required to try Appellant for his summary offense in the Traffic Division of the Philadelphia Municipal Court, which lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate Appellant’s DUI charges. The trial court ultimately agreed with Appellant, granting his motion and dismissing the DUI charges.
The Commonwealth filed a notice of appeal, and the trial court subsequently authored an opinion in support of its decision. The court concluded that all of the elements of Subsection 110(1)(ii) of the compulsory joinder statute were met with
II. Appeal to the Superior Court
A fractured, en banc panel of the Superior Court reversed the trial court’s order in a published opinion. Perfetto, supra. The court’s decision consisted of a five-judge majority, a two-judge concurrence, and a three-judge dissent.2 The issue before the Superior Court was “whether the trial court erred when it dismissed DUI charges pursuant to
Important to the issues presently before this Court, the majority initially recognized that the current version of Subsection 110(1)(ii) of the compulsory joinder statute does not require a court to consider whether all of the charges were within the jurisdiction of a single court; rather, courts now should determine whether the multiple offenses at issue occurred within the same judicial district. Id. at 1119-20. This observation notwithstanding, the majority subsequently asserted that “the jurisdiction of a court remains a consideration implicit to any compulsory joinder analysis, and it is particularly important in those judicial districts that, for various reasons, have distinct minor courts or magisterial district judges vested with exclusive jurisdiction over specific matters.” Id. at 1121 (footnote omitted).
Having concluded that compulsory joinder analysis still requires jurisdictional considerations, the majority then engaged in a complex jurisdictional analysis of the Philadelphia Municipal Court, which, as noted supra at p.6 n.1, now consists of the General and Traffic Divisions. Id. at 1121-25. The majority reasoned that, when a Philadelphia defendant engages in conduct that results in a summary
Although thе above-stated rationale adequately summarizes why the Superior Court majority granted the Commonwealth appellate relief, we highlight that the majority, in the course of its ruling, rejected the Commonwealth’s argument regarding Subsection 112(1) of the Crimes Code,
Subsection 112(1) provides as follows:
A prosecution is not a bar within the meaning of section 109 of this title (relating to when prosecution barred by former prosecution for same the offense) through section 111 of this title (relating to when prosecution barred by former prosecution in another jurisdiction) under any of the following circumstances:
(1) The former prosecution was before a court which lacked jurisdiction over the defendant or the offense.
The Commonwealth argued to the Superior Court that, pursuant to Subsection 112(1), сompulsory joinder of criminal charges is not required where an initial prosecution proceeded before a court that lacked jurisdiction over offenses to be tried in a subsequent prosecution, even if all of the charges stemmed from the same criminal episode. Perfetto, 169 A.3d at 1120. In other words, the Commonwealth took the position that, because the hearing officer in the Traffic Division of the Philadelphia Municipal Court who convicted Appellant of his summary traffic offense lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate Appellant’s DUI charges, Subsection 112(1) permits the Commonwealth subsequently to prosecute Appellant’s DUI charges.
Without directly addressing the Commonwealth’s argument, the Superior Court majority summarily set forth its extremely narrow view of Subsection 112(1), suggesting that the subsection applies only when a single offense is at issue. More specifically, relying on the Superior Court’s previous decision in Commonwealth v. Schmotzer, 831 A.2d 689 (Pa. Super. 2003), the majority
The two-judge Superior Court conсurrence also would have reversed the trial court’s order; however, it would have done so by adopting the Commonwealth’s argument regarding Subsection 112(1). Specifically, the concurrence would have held that, pursuant to the plain language of Subsection 112(1), the Commonwealth should be free to try Appellant’s DUI charges in the General Division of the Municipal Court because the Traffic Division lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate the DUI offenses. See Perfetto, 169 A.3d at 1126 (Moulton, J., concurring) (holding that, “under the plain language of section 112(1), a subsequent prosecution is not barred where the court presiding over the ‘former prosecution,’ while it had jurisdiction over that matter, lacked jurisdiction over the ‘offense’ to be prosecuted in the subsequent prosecution“). Stated differently, because the hearing officer in the Traffic Division had jurisdiction to adjudicate Appellant’s summary traffic offense but lacked jurisdiction over Appellant’s DUI offenses, the concurrence would have concluded that, pursuant to Subsection 112(a), the prosecution of the summary traffic offense in the Traffic Division did not bar the Commonwealth from subsequently prosecuting Appellant for the DUI offenses in the General Division of the Municipal Court.
Lastly, like the majority, the three-judge Superior Court dissent employed a jurisdictional analysis to determine whether Subsection 110(1)(ii) of the compulsory joinder statute bars the Commonwealth from prosecuting Appellant’s DUI charges. Id. at 1127-31 (Dubow, J, dissenting). The dissent ultimately concluded that no jurisdictional bar preсluded the Commonwealth from prosecuting all of Appellant’s charges in one proceeding. In support of this position, the dissent relied upon Subsection 1121(b)(3) of the Judicial Code, which provides that the General Division of the Philadelphia Municipal Court “shall exercise full jurisdiction of the municipal court under section 1123(a)(relating to jurisdiction and venue).” Id. at 1129 (quoting
Thus, the dissent took the position that the Legislature “created a statutory scheme in which the General Division would hear those cases in which the Commonwealth charged a defendant with both summary and misdemeanor traffic offenses and the Traffic Division would hear those cases in which the Commonwealth only charged a defendant with a summary offense.” Id. at 1129-30. Consequently, the dissent reasoned, because no jurisdictional issues prevented the Commonwealth from prosecuting all of Appellant’s charges in one court and because all of the prongs of Subsection 110(1)(ii) of the compulsory joinder statute were met, the Commonwealth should be barred from further prosecuting Appellant for his DUI charges.
It is noteworthy that the dissent also concluded that Subsection 112(1) is inapplicable
III. Appeal to this Court
A. Petition for Allowance of Appeal
Appellant filed a petition for allowance of appeal, which we granted to consider the following questions, as phrased by Appellant:
(1) Whether [the] Superior Court errеd in determining that [the] Philadelphia Municipal Court - Traffic Division has sole jurisdiction over summary traffic offenses even when those charges are part of a single incident which also includes a misdemeanor and/or felony charges? Is this decision in conflict with
18 Pa.C.S. § 110 , the 2002 amendment thereto removing jurisdiction as an element of the offense, its constitutional underpinnings, and decisions of this Court?(2) Where the lower [c]ourt dismissed the prosecution under
18 Pa.C.S. § 110 because all the prongs of the test for dismissal under that statute were met, did the trial [c]ourt properly dismiss the charges?
Commonwealth v. Perfetto, 182 A.3d 435 (Pa. 2018).
B. Parties’ Arguments
i. Appellant’s Principal Brief
Appellant’s principal brief to this Court is primarily aimed at deconstructing and discrediting the Superior Court’s majority opinion. Pertinently, Appellant takes the position that the Superior Court majority ignored this Court’s decision in Fithian, supra, and the plain language of the Subseсtion 110(1)(ii) of the compulsory joinder statute by erroneously inserting a jurisdictional element into the compulsory joinder analysis. In fact, Appellant argues, despite acknowledging that Subsection 110(1)(ii) clearly does not require a court to consider jurisdiction for purposes of a compulsory joinder analysis, the majority nonetheless concluded without explanation or support that “jurisdiction of a court remains a consideration implicit to any compulsory joinder analysis.” Appellant’s Brief at 12 (quoting Perfetto, 169 A.3d at 1121).
Appellant further asserts that, contrary to the Superior Court majority’s conclusion, no statute confers exclusive jurisdiction over summary traffic offenses to the Traffic Division of the Philadelphia Municipal Court. In support of this position, Appellant relies upon
Finally, Appellant argues that, contrary to the Superior Court’s flawed analysis, the trial court employed the proper compulsory joinder test and correctly concluded
ii. Commonwealth’s Brief
The Commonwealth’s argument to this Court is two-fold. In its primary argument, the Commonwealth advocates that we should adopt the approach to this issue advanced by the Superior Court’s concurring opinion. According to the Commonwealth,
The Commonwealth suggests that the presiding “court” in Appellant’s first prosecution was not the Municipal Court as a whole but, rather, the hearing officer of the Traffic Division who adjudicated the summary traffic offense, the only offense over which he had jurisdiction.5 Commonwealth’s Brief at 8. According to the Commonwealth, because the Traffic Division hearing officer did not have jurisdiction to adjudicate Appellant’s DUI charges, the Commonwealth was permitted to prosecute Appellant’s DUI charges in a subsequent proceeding pursuant to Subsection 112(1).6
In the alternative, the Commonwealth argues that, even if this Court disagrees with its interpretation of Subsection 112(1), the compulsory joinder statutе nonetheless does not preclude the Commonwealth from prosecuting Appellant for DUI. In this regard, the
Commonwealth posits that this Court has repeatedly held that Subsection 110(1)(ii) of the compulsory joinder statute does not prohibit successive prosecutions if the first prosecution was for a summary offense and the later prosecution is for a more serious crime, despite the fact that both of the offenses stemmed from the same criminal episode. See Commonwealth’s Brief at 12-18 (relying on Commonwealth v. Beatty, 455 A.2d 1194 (Pa. 1983), and its progeny, discussed in detail infra).
iii. Appellant’s Reply Brief
In reply to the Commonwealth, Appellant contends that Subsection 112(1) is inapplicable
Appellant also asserts that the Commonwealth is well aware that it has tried (and continues to try) many cases in one proceeding in the Philadelphia Municipal Court that included summary traffic offenses and higher graded offenses, even when the Commonwealth was required to prosecute summary traffic offenses in the abolished Philadelphia Traffic Court. Appellant’s Reply Brief at 4-5. Lastly, regarding the Commonwealth’s alternative argument that Subsection 110(1)(ii) of the compulsory joinder statute does not prohibit successive prosecutions if the first prosecution was for a summary offense and the later prosecution is for a more serious crime, Appellant suggests that this argument is meritless because the case law that established this proposition has no applicability to the current, amended version of Subsection 110(1)(ii) of the compulsory joinder statute.
C. Discussion
Given the complexities of the various opinions of the Superior Court coupled with the divergent arguments of the parties, we find it helpful to begin our analysis by examining the issue that the Commonwealth presented to the Superior Court. As that court stated, “The issue presented is whether the trial court erred whеn it dismissed DUI charges pursuant to
We further observe that, to the extent that the resolution of this appeal requires us to interpret Subsection 110(i)(ii) or any other statute, such a task is guided by the Statutory Construction Act,
As this Court has рreviously concluded, Subsection 110(1)(ii) of the compulsory joinder statute clearly and unambiguously contains four primary elements, which, if met, preclude a prosecution due to a former prosecution for a different offense:
(1) the former prosecution must have resulted in an acquittal or conviction;
(2) the current prosecution is based upon the same criminal conduct or arose from the same criminal episode as the former prosecution;
(3) the prosecutor was aware of the instant charges before the commencement of the trial on the former charges; and
(4) the current offense occurred within the same judicial district as the former prosecution.
Turning to the facts of this case, at this point in the prоceedings it is undisputed
First, we are unpersuaded that Subsection 112(1) of the Crimes Code applies to the circumstances presented in this case. Pursuant to Subsection 112(1), a prosecution is not barred within the meaning of the compulsory joinder statute when the “former prosecution was before a court which lacked jurisdiction over the defendant or the offense.”
We also find unpersuasive the Commonwealth’s alternative argument regarding Beatty, supra, and its progeny. By way of background, Beatty was involved in an incident that led the Commonwealth to charge him with aggravated assault and a summary traffic offense. Beatty, 455 A.2d at 1196. While his aggravated assault charge was pending, Beatty pleaded guilty to the summary offense. He then filed in the trial court a motion to dismiss his aggravated assault charge based upon the pre-2002 compulsory joinder statute. Id. The trial court granted Bеatty’s motion. However, the Superior Court reversed the trial court’s order, and this Court affirmed the Superior Court’s judgment.
Relevant to the instant matter, this Court specifically invoked the now-defunct fourth prong of the compulsory joinder statute that utilized the phrase “was in the jurisdiction of a single court.” See id. at 1198 (“We may not ignore the clause of that subsection which provides ‘and was in the jurisdiction of a single court . . ..‘“). We then observed that Beatty’s summary traffic offense was a matter within the original jurisdiction of the district justice, id.; while the district justice lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate the aggravated assault charge. In other words, this Court concluded that Beatty’s compulsory joinder claim failed on the currently obsolete fourth prong of the compulsory joinder test becаuse the aggravated assault charge and the summary offense were not within the jurisdiction of a single court.8
Although this conclusion was sufficient to dispose of Beatty’s appeal, the Court nonetheless invoked policy considerations and opined, “Our interpretation of Section 110(1)(ii) as excluding traffic violations under the Motor Vehicle Code is further bolstered by a consideration of the purposes sought to be achieved by the legislative enactment as well as our promulgation of the compulsory joinder rule.” Id. at 1198. In this regard, we stated that the disposition of summary traffic offenses prior to a trial for misdemeanor or felony charges does not present the type of governmental harassment of a defendant that would offend the dоuble jeopardy concerns encapsulated in the compulsory joinder
In 1996, however, this Court explained the rational employed in Beatty, placing it in proper context. Specifically, in Geyer, supra, this Court granted allowance of appeal to examine whether, pursuant to the compulsory joinder statute, a conviction for a summary offense bars a subsequent prosecution for a different summary offense arising from the same criminal episode. Geyer, 687 A.2d at 815. In answering this question in the affirmative, we observed that the Superior Court had misapplied Beatty and its progeny by concluding that Section 110, as a rule, does not apply to summary offenses. Id. at 817.
Our discussion of that conclusion began with a lengthy quote from Beatty, where this Court utilized the above-stated policy considerations to bolster its determination that Beatty’s compulsory joinder claim failed on the now-defunct fourth prong of the compulsory joinder test because Beatty’s initial prosecution “only” involved a summary offense. Immediately thereafter, the Geyer Court explained, “Although a cursory reading of Beatty may appear categorically to exclude traffic violations from Section 110 and the compulsory joinder rule, the premise underlying our analysis in Beatty was that the two offenses were not within the jurisdiction of a single court.” Id.
Thus, this Court’s decision in Geyer clearly cabined Beatty and its progeny by dispelling the notion that summary traffic offenses are not, as a rule, subjeсt to the compulsory joinder statute and by tethering the Beatty Court’s policy considerations to the then-applicable but now-obsolete fourth prong of the compulsory joinder test, which required a jurisdictional analysis. As discussed in detail supra, in 2002, the Legislature amended Subsection 110(1)(ii) of the compulsory joinder statute, eliminating the jurisdictional analysis from the statute and, thus, from contemporary compulsory joinder analysis. Fithian, supra. Accordingly, the policy considerations discussed in Beatty and invoked by the Commonwealth and the dissent in the matter sub judice simply do not apply to the current version of the compulsory joinder statute. For all of these reasons, we hold that
IV. Conclusion
We certainly recognize that our holding today may present the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office with an administrative challenge; however, this Court’s decision, as always, is guided by the law. Further, while it is tempting to resolve this matter by considering myriad of tangential statutes, rules, and policies, we conclude that a straightforward application of the statutes that directly apply to this case, particularly
For all of these reasons, we respectfully reverse the Superior Court’s judgment and reinstate the trial court’s order.
Justices Todd, Donohue, Wecht and Mundy join the opinion.
Chief Justice Saylor files a dissenting opinion in which Justice Dougherty joins.
Notes
Respectfully, to the extent that Subsection 1302(a.1) was at all relevant to this matter, we observe that this subsection has expired. See
Unlike the dissent, we discern no guidance from the Crimes Code’s definition of “Court” for purposes of applying Subsection 112(1)’s exception to compulsory joinder when the “former prosecution was before a court which lacked jurisdiction over the defendant or the offense.”