Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

2002 Pa. Super. 86

795 A.2d 1040

Commonwealth v. Hackenberger

Superior Court of Pennsylvania

Decided March 26, 2002

Superior Court of Pennsylvania · decided 2002-03-26

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“I read the provision in question to proscribe the use of a weapon where its intended purpose is directed toward harming an individual, not an animal. No matter how much empathy one may have for an animal killed for no justifiable reason, I remain of the view that this provision was enacted to penalize someone for possessing or utilizing a deadly weapon intended to do harm to a person. There was no evidence presented in this case that any individual was placed at risk due to Appellant’s conduct. Because I believe the objective of the enhancement provision is to punish wrongs against humanity, and not nature or animals, I would remand this matter for resentencing without application of the deadly weapon enhancement.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Commonwealth v. Hackenberger

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 2002-03-26

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently August 2024

6 state decisions

40200220102020decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

DEL SOLE, P.J.,

¶1Concurring and Dissenting:

¶2¶ 1 I join in all but that portion of the Majority’s Opinion which affirms the application of the Sentencing Guidelines’ deadly weapon enhancement to Appellant’s use of a gun to kill a dog.

¶3¶ 2 Unlike the Majority, I read the provision in question to proscribe the use of a weapon where its intended purpose is directed toward harming an individual, not an animal. No matter how much empathy one may have for an animal killed for no justifiable reason, I remain of the view that this provision was enacted to penalize someone for possessing or utilizing a deadly weapon intended to do harm to a person. There was no evidence presented in this case that any individual was placed at risk due to Appellant’s conduct. Because I believe the objective of the enhancement provision is to punish wrongs against humanity, and not nature or animals, I would remand this matter for resentencing without application of the deadly weapon enhancement.

/2002/pasuper/86 · .json · Public domain