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455 Pa. 274

Commonwealth v. Brown

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Decided January 24, 1974

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1974-01-24

Relies on Commonwealth v. Daniel · Commonwealth Ex Rel. Carmelo v. Smith

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1974-01-24

How this case has been cited

Cited by 54 later decisions — most recently October 1999 · most notably Commonwealth v. Piper (1974), 433 Pa. Super. 111 - Commonwealth v. Quinlan (1994)

54 state decisions

260197419801990decided

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.

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¶1Concurring Opinion by

Mr. Justice Roberts:

¶2I readily join in the opinion of the Court and wish to comment briefly on the impermissible sentencing procedure employed by the trial court. It is admitted *279that the maximum is the only sentence which has legal validity. Commonwealth v. Daniel, 430 Pa. 642, 243 A.2d 400 (1968); Commonwealth ex rel. Carmelo v. Smith, 347 Pa. 495, 32 A.2d 913 (1943). And it is conceded that the minimum sentence serves the sole purpose of administrative notice by the court to parole authorities.1

¶3This case does not present a complicated issue. The trial court imposed a maximum sentence of ten years with a minimum of eight and one-half years. Faced with the impermissible minimum of eight and one-half years, the court later sought to correct that error by more than doubling the minimum, thereby increasing the maximum term from ten years to twenty. In doing so, the court misconstrued its proper role in the sentencing function. In this Commonwealth, it is the maximum term which has legal effect as the sentence, and the minimum must conform to the maximum. See Commonwealth v. Daniel, supra. The maximum may not be increased to accommodate an excessive minimum.

¶4Here the trial court overlooked the controlling feature of the original sentence namely, that the maximum—ten years—is an entirely legal sentence for a conviction of second degree murder. The sentence prescribed by statute for murder in the second degree is imprisonment for not more than twenty years.2 The maximum sentence initially imposed clearly falls within the statutory limits.

¶5It is impossible to assume, as the trial court did, that an excessive minimum affixed to a statutorily-allowed maximum created an illegal sentence and was *280a “nullity”. Only the excessive minimum was ineffective. The legal maximum sentence may thus not be disturbed.

¶6There is neither reason nor authority to believe that when the minimum exceeds half the maximum the entire sentence is without legal effect. The legal maximum sentence may not be increased merely by more than doubling the impermissible minimum.3

Mr. Justice O’Brien and Mr. Justice Manderino join in this concurring opinion.

¶7 Act of June 19, 1911, P. L. 1055, § 6, as amended, 19 P.S. § 1057 (1964.) Generally, the minimum is less than one-half the maximum.

¶8 Act of June 24, 1939, P. L. 872, § 701, as amended, 18 P.S. § 4701 (1963).

¶9 See ABA Project on Minimum Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to Sentencing Alternatives and Procedures §§ 6.1(b), 6.2 (Approved Draft, 1968). “Under no circumstances should the sentencing court be authorized to increase a term of imprisonment once it has been imposed.” Id. § 6.1(b).

¶10See also Id., Commentary at 279-80. “The Advisory Committee is clear, however, that the court should not be authorized to increase a sentence once it has been imposed.”

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