Com. v. Wallace

• Decision Date: 29 March 2005
• Citation: 582 Pa. 234,870 A.2d 838
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellant v. Kareem WALLACE, Appellee.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

870 A.2d 838

582 Pa. 234

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellant v. Kareem WALLACE, Appellee.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued October 20, 2004.

Decided March 29, 2005.

Hugh J. Burns, Jr., William L. Young, Philadelphia, for the Com. of PA

Samuel C. Stretton, West Chester, for Kareem Wallace, appellee.

Before: CAPPY, C.J., CASTILLE, NIGRO, NEWMAN, SAYLOR, EAKIN and BAER, JJ.

OPINION

Justice NIGRO.

This appeal raises the issue of whether the Superior Court erred in holding that a trial court that is resentencing a defendant after revoking his probation is restricted to the maximum term of imprisonment prescribed by the original negotiated guilty plea. For the following reasons, we conclude that the Superior Court erred and therefore reverse.

On January 26, 1996, Appellee Kareem Wallace entered a negotiated guilty plea to three counts of possession of a controlled substance with the intent to deliver. See 35 P.S. § 780-113(30). In accordance with the plea agreement, the trial court sentenced Appellee to three concurrent terms of imprisonment of twenty-one to forty-two months followed by two years of probation and a $5,000 fine.¹

On September 10, 2000, while still serving his probationary sentence, Appellee was arrested for another drug-related offense. Under the terms of his probation, Appellee was required to report the arrest to his probation officer within seventy-two hours but he failed to do so. At a revocation of probation hearing on November 21, 2000, Appellee did not dispute the technical violations of his probation and the trial court resentenced him to three consecutive terms of imprisonment of five to ten years, which was the maximum available for the original crimes under the Sentencing Code.

Appellee appealed to the Superior Court, arguing, inter alia, that his sentence was illegal under Commonwealth v. Anderson, 434 Pa.Super. 309, 643 A.2d 109 (1994), which held that where a negotiated plea agreement contemplated concurrent rather than consecutive terms of imprisonment, a trial court is "without authority ... to alter the sentencing scheme from concurrent to consecutive sentences when resentencing upon probation revocation." Anderson, 643 A.2d at 114. A panel of the Superior Court agreed that based on Anderson, the trial court had erred in imposing consecutive terms of imprisonment where Appellee's negotiated plea had contemplated only concurrent sentences. Specifically, the Superior Court held as follows:

In the present case, [Appellee] entered into a negotiated plea and sentence. The terms of the agreement provided that [Appellee] would plead guilty to three counts of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver in exchange for three concurrent terms of twenty-one to forty-two months' imprisonment plus two years' probation. Upon the revocation of probation, the trial court was bound by the terms of the negotiated plea agreement to impose concurrent sentences. Therefore, the trial court's imposition was invalid, as it altered the sentencing scheme from concurrent to consecutive sentences.

Super Ct. Op., 12/18/01, at 6.

The Superior Court then went on to discuss the maximum term of imprisonment to which Appellee could be subjected, even though that issue was not on appeal at that time. In this regard, the panel, apparently again relying on Anderson, stated:

[A]lthough we recognize the sentence imposed was within the statutory limits, it exceeded the maximum limit of the original sentence. On resentencing, the trial court imposed an aggregate term of fifteen to thirty years which exceeded the maximum limit of the original sentence which had an outside limit of five and one-half years.

Id. at 6-7. The Superior Court then vacated Appellee's judgment of sentence and remanded to the trial court for resentencing consistent with its decision.

Upon remand, the trial court resentenced Appellee to three concurrent terms of imprisonment of five to ten years. In its opinion supporting this sentence, the trial court acknowledged that in addition to holding that the imposition of consecutive sentences upon resentencing was illegal, the Superior Court had also stated that upon resentencing Appellee should be sentenced to a term no longer than that which was contemplated in the original guilty plea agreement. However, the trial court pointed out that in stating as such, the Superior Court had failed to consider the impact of Commonwealth v. Smith, 447 Pa.Super. 502, 669 A.2d 1008 (1996), which held that resentencing a defendant to a term within the statutory maximum was not illegal simply because it was a longer term than the defendant's original plea agreement circumscribed. Rather, the trial court noted that according to Smith,"it is well-settled that upon revocation of probation, a court possesses the same sentencing alternatives that it had at the time of the initial sentencing." Trial Ct. Op. at 4 (citing Smith, 669 A.2d at 1011). Thus, the trial court concluded that contrary to the Superior Court's suggestion, it was not restricted to the term contemplated in Appellee's plea agreement, but rather could impose any sentence within the statutory limits.

Appellee again appealed to the Superior Court, this time claiming that at resentencing, the trial court should have restricted its sentence to the upper bounds of the negotiated plea agreement, namely forty-two months, and not the statutory maximum of ten years. The second Superior Court panel again reversed Appellee's judgment of sentence and remanded, holding that the "law of the case" doctrine bound it to the earlier panel's decision, including the language purportedly prohibiting the trial court from resentencing Appellee to a term of imprisonment greater than that contemplated in the negotiated guilty plea.² Despite the trial court's assessment that the particular language at issue was both dicta and contrary to the established law in Smith, the Superior Court refused to find that the previous panel made a "clearly erroneous" holding by limiting the trial court's resentencing options as it did.³See Commonwealth v. Yarris, 557 Pa. 12, 731 A.2d 581 (1999) (holding that court should follow law of the case except under exceptional circumstances, as when holding is clearly erroneous). The panel therefore instructed the trial court to resentence Appellee again, this time "limited to the terms of the plea agreement it accepted at the time of original sentencing, that is: concurrent terms with an outside limit of five and one-half years." Super. Ct. Op., 7/30/03, at 5.

On appeal to this Court, the Commonwealth argues that the Superior Court erred in finding that the trial court could not impose a longer sentence upon resentencing after a revocation of probation than it could under the plea agreement at the time of the original sentencing. We agree.⁴

As explained above, the Superior Court below relied on its prior decision in Anderson in concluding that a sentence imposed after probation revocation could not exceed the maximum sentence originally imposed subsequent to a guilty plea agreement. Super. Ct. Op., 7/30/03, at 3 (citing Anderson, 643 A.2d at 113). However, Anderson's statement of the law in that regard was simply incorrect.

It is clearly stated in the Sentencing Code not only that the court may revoke a defendant's probation if appropriate, but also that "[u]pon revocation the sentencing alternatives available to the court shall be the same as were available at the time of initial sentencing." 42 Pa.C.S. § 9771 (emphasis added). Likewise, this Court has explicitly stated that "upon revocation of probation, the court possesses the same sentencing alternatives that it had at the time of the initial sentencing." Commonwealth v. Pierce, 497 Pa. 437, 441 A.2d 1218, 1219 (1982). As it is well established that the sentencing alternatives available to a court at the time of initial sentencing are all of the alternatives statutorily available under the Sentencing Code,⁵ these authorities make clear that at any revocation of probation hearing, the court is similarly free to impose any sentence permitted under the Sentencing Code and is not restricted by the bounds of a negotiated plea agreement between a defendant and prosecutor.⁶

While Anderson ignored the unambiguous language of both the Sentencing Code and Pierce, it is important to note that numerous other Superior Court decisions subsequent to Anderson, including Commonwealth v. Smith, upon which the trial court below relied, have recognized that court's error and have explicitly declined to follow its lead. See Smith, 447 Pa.Super. 502,669 A.2d 1008 (holding that Anderson incorrectly held that a trial court, upon resentencing, was limited to the maximum term contemplated in a guilty plea and explicitly stating that under this Court's holding in Pierce, a trial court has the same sentencing options available to it upon resentencing as it did at the time of initial sentencing); see also Commonwealth v. Adebaike, 846 A.2d 759, 761 (Pa.Super.2004) (stating that "[t]he Commonwealth and trial court here are not the only critics of Anderson on record" but following Anderson for its holding on concurrent/consecutive sentences); Commonwealth v. Fish, 752 A.2d 921, 923 (Pa.Super.2000) ("[U]pon sentencing following a revocation of probation, the trial court is limited only by the maximum sentence that it could have imposed originally at the time of the probationary sentence."); Commonwealth v. Coolbaugh, 770 A.2d 788, 792 (Pa.Super.2001) (quoting the language in Fish as "the law applicable to revocation proceedings"); Commonwealth v. Byrd, 444 Pa.Super. 86, 663 A.2d 229, 231 (1995) ("The question is whether Anderson changed the law and limited the trial court's power to sentence after revocation of probation. We find that in the absence of circumstances unique to Anderson, no such limitation was imposed on the sentencing judge."). Indeed, it is these decisions that have...