Commonwealth v. Cardwell , 2014 Pa. Super. 263 ( 2014 )

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2014 PA Super 263COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
PENNSYLVANIA
Appellee
v.
JAMAR CARDWELL
Appellant No. 2392 EDA 2013
Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence June 18, 2013
In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County
Criminal Division at No(s): CP-51-CR-0009069-2012
BEFORE: LAZARUS, J., MUNDY, J., and PLATT, J.*
OPINION BY MUNDY, J.: FILED NOVEMBER 25, 2014
Appellant, Jamar Cardwell, appeals from the June 18, 2013 aggregate
judgment of sentence of three to six years’ imprisonment, after he was
convicted of one count each of possession with intent to deliver (PWID) and
intentional possession of a controlled substance.1 After careful review, we
vacate and remand for resentencing.
We summarize the relevant factual and procedural background of this
case as follows. On August 8, 2012, the Commonwealth filed an information
charging Appellant with the above-mentioned offenses. On March 23, 2013,
Appellant proceeded to a one-day bench trial, at the conclusion of which the
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*
Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.
1
35 P.S. §§ 780-113(a)(30) and 780-113(a)(16), respectively.
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trial court convicted Appellant of both charges. On June 18, 2013, the trial
court imposed a sentence of three to six years’ imprisonment on each
charge, to run concurrently to each other. Relevant to this appeal, Appellant
received a three-year mandatory minimum sentence for PWID on the basis
of the weight of the phencyclidine (PCP), pursuant to 18 Pa.C.S.A. §
7508(a)(4)(i). Appellant filed a timely post-sentence motion on June 26,
2013, which the trial court denied on August 13, 2013. On August 14, 2013,
Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal.2
On appeal, Appellant raises one issue for our review.
Did not the [trial] court err in applying certain
provisions of the mandatory minimum sentencing
statute at 18 Pa.C.S. § 7508 to [Appellant]’s case,
and thereby sentencing [Appellant] to a term of
incarceration of 3 to 6 years, in that portions of
[Section] 7508 are facially unconstitutional pursuant
to Alleyne v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 2151(2013), and are non-severable from the remaining
provisions of the statute?
Appellant’s Brief at 3.
At the outset, we note that issues pertaining to Alleyne go directly to
the legality of the sentence. Commonwealth v. Lawrence, 99 A.3d 116,
123 (Pa. Super. 2014). With this in mind, we begin by noting our well-
settled standard of review. “A challenge to the legality of a sentence … may
be entertained as long as the reviewing court has jurisdiction.”
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2
Appellant and the trial court have complied with Pa.R.A.P. 1925.
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Commonwealth v. Borovichka, 18 A.3d 1242, 1254 n.8 (Pa. Super. 2011)
(citation omitted). It is also well-established that “[i]f no statutory
authorization exists for a particular sentence, that sentence is illegal and
subject to correction.” Commonwealth v. Rivera, 95 A.3d 913, 915 (Pa.
Super. 2014) (citation omitted). “An illegal sentence must be vacated.” Id.“Issues relating to the legality of a sentence are questions of law[.] … Our
standard of review over such questions is de novo and our scope of review is
plenary.” Commonwealth v. Akbar, 91 A.3d 227, 238 (Pa. Super. 2014)
(citations omitted).
In this case, Appellant was sentenced under a mandatory minimum
statute at Section 7508, which provides in relevant part, as follows.
§ 7508. Drug trafficking sentencing and
penalties
(a) General rule.--Notwithstanding any other
provisions of this or any other act to the contrary,
the following provisions shall apply:
…
(4) A person who is convicted of violating section
13(a)(14), (30) or (37) of The Controlled Substance,
Drug, Device and Cosmetic Act where the controlled
substance is methamphetamine or phencyclidine or
is a salt, isomer or salt of an isomer of
methamphetamine or phencyclidine or is a mixture
containing methamphetamine or phencyclidine,
containing a salt of methamphetamine or
phencyclidine, containing an isomer of
methamphetamine or phencyclidine, containing a
salt of an isomer of methamphetamine or
phencyclidine shall, upon conviction, be sentenced to
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a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment and a
fine as set forth in this subsection:
(i) when the aggregate weight of the compound or
mixture containing the substance involved is at least
five grams and less than ten grams; three years in
prison and a fine of $15,000 or such larger amount
as is sufficient to exhaust the assets utilized in and
the proceeds from the illegal activity; however, if at
the time of sentencing the defendant has been
convicted of another drug trafficking offense: five
years in prison and $30,000 or such larger amount
as is sufficient to exhaust the assets utilized in and
the proceeds from the illegal activity;
…
(b) Proof of sentencing.--Provisions of this section
shall not be an element of the crime. Notice of the
applicability of this section to the defendant shall not
be required prior to conviction, but reasonable notice
of the Commonwealth's intention to proceed under
this section shall be provided after conviction and
before sentencing. The applicability of this section
shall be determined at sentencing. The court shall
consider evidence presented at trial, shall afford the
Commonwealth and the defendant an opportunity to
present necessary additional evidence and shall
determine, by a preponderance of the evidence, if
this section is applicable.
18 Pa.C.S.A. § 7508.
This Court recently explained Alleyne’s impact on the imposition of
mandatory minimum sentences as follows.
In Alleyne, the Supreme Court held that “facts that
increase mandatory minimum sentences must be
submitted to the jury” and must be found beyond a
reasonable doubt. Alleyne, supra at 2163.
Alleyne is an extension of the Supreme Court’s line
of cases beginning with Apprendi v. New Jersey,
530 U.S. 466 (2000). In Alleyne, the Court
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overruled Harris v. United States, 536 U.S. 545(2002), in which the Court had reached the opposite
conclusion, explaining that there is no constitutional
distinction between judicial fact finding which raises
the minimum sentence and that which raises the
maximum sentence.
It is impossible to dissociate the floor of
a sentencing range from the penalty affixed to
the crime. Indeed, criminal statutes have long
specified both the floor and ceiling of sentence
ranges, which is evidence that both define the
legally prescribed penalty. This historical
practice allowed those who violated the law to
know, ex ante, the contours of the penalty that
the legislature affixed to the crime—and
comports with the obvious truth that the floor
of a mandatory range is as relevant to
wrongdoers as the ceiling. A fact that
increases a sentencing floor, thus, forms an
essential ingredient of the offense.
Moreover, it is impossible to dispute that
facts increasing the legally prescribed floor
aggravate the punishment. Elevating the low-
end of a sentencing range heightens the loss of
liberty associated with the crime: the
defendant’s expected punishment has
increased as a result of the narrowed range
and the prosecution is empowered, by invoking
the mandatory minimum, to require the judge
to impose a higher punishment than he might
wish. Why else would Congress link an
increased mandatory minimum to a particular
aggravating fact other than to heighten the
consequences for that behavior? This reality
demonstrates that the core crime and the fact
triggering the mandatory minimum sentence
together constitute a new, aggravated crime,
each element of which must be submitted to
the jury.
Alleyne, supra at 2160-2161 (internal quotation marks
and citations omitted).
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Commonwealth v. Miller, --- A.3d ---, 2014 WL 4783558, *4-5 (Pa.
Super. 2014). Although Appellant was convicted at a bench trial, under the
Due Process Clause, he was still entitled to have the extra element of the
aggravated offense found by the factfinder beyond a reasonable doubt
pursuant to Alleyne and In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358 (1970). Alleyne,
supra at 2156.
This Court has recently noted that Section 7508(a)(2)(ii) cannot be
constitutionally applied in light of Alleyne, resulting in an illegal sentence.
See Commonwealth v. Thompson, 93 A.3d 478, 493 (Pa. Super. 2014)
(resolving an as-applied challenge to Section 7508(a)(2)(ii) in Thompson’s
favor in light of Alleyne and remanding for resentencing). However, in this
case, Appellant argues that Section 7508 is facially unconstitutional in its
entirety and its subsections cannot be severed from one another.
Appellant’s Brief at 16-18. The Commonwealth counters that because
Appellant stipulated to the drug weight for the purposes of trial, any error
regarding Alleyne was rendered harmless. Commonwealth’s Brief at 10-11.
Both parties cite to this Court’s recent decision in Commonwealth v.
Newman, 99 A.3d 86 (Pa. Super. 2014) (en banc).
In Newman, this Court confronted the same type of challenge to the
mandatory minimum found at Section 9712.1, regarding the distance
between drugs and guns. Id. at 91. Section 9712.1 has the same format
as Section 7508 in that one subsection contains the added element of the
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aggravated offense, and another subsection states that the elements shall
be found by the trial court by a preponderance of the evidence. See id.,
quoting 42 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 9712.1(a), 9712.1(c); 18 Pa.C.S.A.
§§ 7508(a)(4)(i), 7508(b).
The Newman Court first concluded that the defendant’s sentence was
illegal in light of Alleyne and required this Court to vacate and remand for
resentencing. Id. at 98. However, this Court noted that Alleyne issues are
subject to harmless error analysis, but nevertheless concluded that the
Alleyne issue in Newman was not harmless. Id. at 98-100.
We cannot find that the error here was
harmless, because the evidence as to the element of
“in close proximity” was not necessarily
overwhelming. As previously noted, the drug
contraband was found in a bathroom. The firearm
was found under a mattress in a bedroom across the
hallway, and the actual distance between the
contraband and the firearm was six to eight feet.
Recently, our supreme court discussed at length the
meaning of “in close proximity” as it is used in
Section 9712.1. See Commonwealth v. Hanson,
82 A.3d 1023 (Pa. 2013), generally. The Hanson
court noted that the concept of “in close proximity” is
inherently imprecise and observed the differing
conclusions as to its meaning both among the courts
of this Commonwealth and among the courts of
other jurisdictions. Hanson, 82 A.3d at 1037–1038,
and otherwise, generally. If learned jurists cannot
decide with precision what constitutes “in close
proximity,” we cannot say with finality that a panel
of lay jurors would undoubtedly conclude from the
evidence here that the firearm was “in close
proximity” to the drug contraband.
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Id. at 99-100. Finally, this Court rejected the Commonwealth’s argument
that, if the error was not harmless, the appropriate remedy would be to
remand to the trial court to empanel a second sentencing jury. Specifically,
in rejecting this argument, the Newman Court concluded that Section
9712.1 in its entirety must be struck down as unconstitutional in light of
Alleyne, concluding that its subsections were not severable.3
The Commonwealth’s suggestion that we
remand for a sentencing jury would require this
court to manufacture whole cloth a replacement
enforcement mechanism for Section 9712.1; in other
words, the Commonwealth is asking us to legislate.
We recognize that in the prosecution of capital cases
in Pennsylvania, there is a similar, bifurcated process
where the jury first determines guilt in the trial
proceeding (the guilt phase) and then weighs
aggravating and mitigating factors in the sentencing
proceeding (the penalty phase). However, this
mechanism was created by the General Assembly
and is enshrined in our statutes at 42 Pa.C.S.A.
§ 9711. We find that it is manifestly the province of
the General Assembly to determine what new
procedures must be created in order to impose
mandatory minimum sentences in Pennsylvania
following Alleyne. We cannot do so.
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3
The author in this case concurred in the result in Newman, disagreeing
with the majority that the subsections of Section 9712.1 could not be
severed, concluding that no special “mechanism” was required to allow a
jury to find the element of the aggravated offense beyond a reasonable
doubt. Id. at 105 (Mundy, J., concurring). The author continues to believe
Newman was wrongly decided on that point; however, it is binding on this
Court and must be applied in a principled manner in all future cases unless
reversed by our Supreme Court.
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Id. at 102.4
In the case sub judice, during trial, Appellant stipulated that the total
weight of the PCP was 6.148 grams. Specifically, the Commonwealth
presented laboratory reports showing that one item contained 4.496 grams
and one item contained 1.652 grams of phencyclidine. N.T., 3/23/13, at 82-
84; N.T., 3/23/13, Commonwealth’s Exhibit 1, at 16. The trial court noted
in its Rule 1925(a) opinion that it, sitting as the factfinder, found “the
evidence submitted at trial and which was determined to be entirely
credible, established beyond a reasonable doubt that [] Appellant possessed
over 6 grams of PCP with the intent to distribute such to various people he
came in contact with that day.” Trial Court Opinion, 1/16/14, at 6.
However, we are mindful of this Court’s recent decision in
Commonwealth v. Valentine, --- A.3d ---, 2014 WL 4942256 (Pa. Super.
2014). In Valentine, the Commonwealth sought to have a mandatory
minimum sentence imposed against the defendant. The trial court allowed
the Commonwealth to amend the information to include the necessary
additional elements required by Alleyne to be found by the jury beyond a
reasonable doubt. Id. at *1. The two questions were submitted to the jury,
and it found the additional elements beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. As a
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4
We note the Commonwealth has filed a petition for allowance of appeal
with our Supreme Court in Newman, docketed at 646 MAL 2014. As of the
date of this decision, it is still pending.
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result, the trial court imposed the appropriate mandatory minimum
sentences pursuant to the appropriate statutes. Id.
Although the trial court seemingly followed Alleyne’s requirements,
the Valentine Court held that the trial court was not permitted to allow the
jury to resolve the mandatory minimum questions absent legislative action
in accordance with Newman.
Here, the trial court permitted the jury, on the
verdict slip, to determine beyond a reasonable doubt
whether Appellant possessed a firearm that placed
the victim in fear of immediate serious bodily injury
in the course of committing a theft for purposes of
the mandatory minimum sentencing provisions of 42
Pa.C.S.A. § 9712(a), and whether the crime occurred
in whole or in part at or near public transportation,
for purposes of the mandatory minimum sentencing
provisions of 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9713(a). The jury
responded “yes” to both questions. In presenting
those questions to the jury, however, we conclude,
in accordance with Newman, that the trial court
performed an impermissible legislative function by
creating a new procedure in an effort to impose the
mandatory minimum sentences in compliance with
Alleyne.
The trial court erroneously presupposed that
only Subsections (c) of both 9712 and 9713 (which
permit a trial judge to enhance the sentence based
on a preponderance of the evidence standard) were
unconstitutional under Alleyne, and that
Subsections (a) of 9712 and 9713 survived
constitutional muster. By asking the jury to
determine whether the factual prerequisites set forth
in § 9712(a) and § 9713(a) had been met, the trial
court effectively determined that the unconstitutional
provisions of § 9712(c) and § 9713(c) were
severable. Our decision in Newman however holds
that the unconstitutional provisions of § 9712(c) and
§ 9713(c) are not severable but “essentially and
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inseparably connected” and that the statutes are
therefore unconstitutional as a whole. Id. at 13–14.
(“If Subsection (a) is the predicate arm … then
Subsection (c) is the enforcement arm. Without
Subsection (c), there is no mechanism in place to
determine whether the predicate of Subsection (a)
has been met.”).
Moreover, Newman makes clear that “it is
manifestly the province of the General Assembly to
determine what new procedures must be created in
order to impose mandatory minimum sentences in
Pennsylvania following Alleyne.” Newman at 14.
Therefore, the trial court lacked the authority to
allow the jury to determine the factual predicates of
§§ 9712 and 9713. See Newman at 14–15
(recognizing that several trial courts of this
Commonwealth have found Section 9712.1 as a
whole to be no longer workable without legislative
guidance).
Id. at *8. As a result, this Court vacated Valentine’s judgment of sentence
and remanded for resentencing, without the applicable mandatory minimum
sentences.5 Id. at *9.
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5
As noted above, Newman did acknowledge that Alleyne errors, like those
under Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), are subject to
harmless error analysis. See generally Newman, supra at 98-100.
However, if Newman’s overriding conclusion is, as Valentine suggests, that
mandatory minimum statutes in Pennsylvania must be stricken in their
entirety as facially unconstitutional, any discussion of harmless error is
rendered moot. This is because, once the Court concludes that the
subsections cannot be severed and must all be struck down, there is no
statutorily authorized sentence upon which a harmless error analysis may be
applied. See, e.g., Rivera, supra (stating, “[i]f no statutory authorization
exists for a particular sentence, that sentence is illegal and subject to
correction[]”) (citation omitted).
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In the instant case, as noted above, the Commonwealth and Appellant
entered into a stipulation that the total weight of the PCP in this case was
6.148 grams. N.T., 3/23/13, at 82-84; N.T., 3/23/13, Commonwealth’s
Exhibit 1, at 16. As a result, the trial court concluded that the
Commonwealth did prove this element to the trial court beyond a reasonable
doubt, as required by Alleyne and Winship. Trial Court Opinion, 1/16/14,
at 6. However, this conclusion was premised on the trial court’s belief that
Section 7508(b), which permits the trial court to find the necessary elements
by a preponderance of the evidence, was severable from the rest of the
statute. Id. Pursuant to this Court’s decision in Newman, this conclusion
was not correct.
Furthermore, we see no meaningful difference, for the purposes of
Newman and Valentine, between submitting the element to the jury and
accepting a stipulation from a defendant. They both have the purpose of
finding a method to impose a mandatory minimum sentence outside the
statutory framework, but consistent with Alleyne. However, both Newman
and Valentine unequivocally state that creating a new procedure in an
effort to impose a mandatory minimum sentence is solely within the
province of the legislature. See Newman, supra; Valentine, supra.
While submission to a jury is a more formal and involved procedure, we
decline to fracture Newman and Valentine further by concluding that when
read together, they only prohibit formal mandatory minimum procedures,
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but permit informal ones. Based on these considerations, we conclude that
the trial court erred in imposing the mandatory minimum sentence in this
case. As a result, Appellant is entitled to relief.
Based on the foregoing, we are constrained to conclude the trial court
erred in imposing the mandatory minimum sentence in light of this Court’s
recent decisions in Newman and Valentine. Accordingly, the trial court’s
June 18, 2013 judgment of sentence is vacated, and the case is remanded
for resentencing, without the mandatory minimum, consistent with this
opinion.
Judgment of sentence vacated. Case remanded for resentencing.
Jurisdiction relinquished.
Judgment Entered.
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 11/25/2014
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