Com. v. Kline, J., Sr. , 2017 Pa. Super. 189 ( 2017 )

J-S33003-17
2017 PA Super 189COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
PENNSYLVANIA
Appellee
v.
JESSIE L. KLINE, SR.,
Appellant No. 1766 MDA 2016
Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered September 1, 2016
In the Court of Common Pleas of York County
Criminal Division at No(s): CP-67-CR-0006395-2015
BEFORE: BENDER, P.J.E., OTT, J., and STRASSBURGER, J.*
OPINION BY BENDER, P.J.E.: FILED JUNE 16, 2017
Appellant, Jessie L. Kline, Sr., appeals from the judgment of sentence
of an aggregate term of 2-4 years’ incarceration, and 5 years’ consecutive
probation, following his conviction for violating provisions of the Solid Waste
Management Act (“SWMA” or “the Act”), 35 P.S. § 6018.101 et seq.
Appellant’s violation of Section 6018.401(a) (“Section 401(a)”) of the SWMA
triggered a mandatory minimum sentence of 2 years’ incarceration, pursuant
to Section 6018.606(f) (“Section 606(f)”). Appellant contends that portion
of his sentence is illegal under the principles set forth in Alleyne v. United
States, 133 S.Ct. 2151 (2013). After careful review, we affirm.
The trial court summarized the factual history of this case as follows:
This case raises issues about hazardous material stored by
Appellant on his property. Commonwealth witness, Mr. Noah
____________________________________________
*
Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.
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Niedererr, testified that he conducted inspections of Appellant's
property, Salvage Management, Inc. He stated that he saw
multiple 55-gallon drums, piles of tires, and automotive fuel
tanks in various sections of the property. Mr. Niedererr
commenced the inspections in November 2010 and continued
them until June 2015. Further, he elaborated that after multiple
inspections, samples were taken from Appellant's property and
Mr. Scott Hoy, Commonwealth's expert in flash point analysis,
later confirmed that the samples that were tested were in fact
hazardous materials.
Not only did Mr. Niedererr testify about the condition of
Appellant's property, he also stated that there was a Consent
Order and Agreement ("COA") between Appellant and the
Pennsylvania DEP[1] because there were ongoing compliance
issues with his Facility. Specifically, he also stated that per the
COA, Appellant was required to remove tires and other waste
from his property and make a notation of the same to the
Department; which he never did. Furthermore, he testified that
he conducted numerous inspections upon Appellant's property
between 2010-14, yet there were not a lot of changes or waste
removal undertaken by the Appellant. Also, while conducting an
inspection in May 2014, some electronic waste was found on
Appellant's property resulting in the inspections beginning in
September 2014 becoming monthly inspections.
Thereafter, Mr. Niedererr testified that there was another
COA between Appellant and the Department in July 2014, which
encapsulated almost all things enumerated in the 2010 COA, but
Appellant did not comply with the latter either. Due to non-
compliance with the new COA, the Appellant was held in
contempt of court by the Commonwealth Court on August 27,
2015. Commonwealth's witness, Mr. Anthony Martinelli,
Environmental Group Manager with DEP, Bureau of
Investigations, testified that the multiple drums found on
Appellant's property had hay around them and that he
discovered leaking and staining into the hay. As stated above,
Mr. Scott Hoy, Commonwealth's expert in flash point analysis,
later confirmed that the samples that were taken on February
12, 2013, were in fact hazardous materials because they failed
to pass the flash point test.
____________________________________________
1
Department of Environmental Protection.
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Next, Commonwealth's witness, Ms. June Black, an expert
in organic chemical analysis, testified that the samples they
received from Appellant's property were hazardous because their
chemical composition exceeded regulatory standards. Finally,
Commonwealth's witness, Mr. Don Hentz, Special Agent with
Attorney General's Environment Crimes Unit, testified that the
tires on Appellant's property posed a fire and bug risk, as well as
the oil generated by any fires would be at risk to run off the
property after a rain. Not only that, but Agent Hentz read a
statement provided by … Appellant wherein he admitted that the
drums on his property, the tires, and the soil thereof are all
contaminated and that he is solely responsible for this
contamination.
Next, Appellant testified that he put a bulldozer on his
property to follow the COA and remove tires from his property,
but further acknowledged that his effort wasn't enough. He
further stated that he did not have a permit from the D[EP] for
his property but claimed that no one, in the multiple
conversations he had with the DEP employees, told him that a
permit was required. Contradicting the Commonwealth's
witnesses' testimony, he also stated that pursuant to the COA,
he provided frequent notations of waste removal to the DEP.
Finally, he claimed that he did not necessarily see that the
60,000-70,000 tires on his property amounted to waste and,
contradicting the test results performed upon samples taken
from his property, testified that there was nothing hazardous
stored in any container or otherwise on his property.
Trial Court Opinion, 2/14/17, at 1-3 (citations omitted).
On July 15, 2016, Appellant was found guilty of five violations of the
SWMA: a single violation of Section 401(a) (Management of hazardous
waste), and four violations of Section 6018.610(1) (Unlawful conduct). On
September 1, 2016, the trial court sentenced Appellant to a mandatory
minimum term of 2-4 years’ incarceration, and a consecutive term of 5
years’ probation, for his violation of Section 401(a). Appellant also received
concurrent terms of 6-12 months’ incarceration, and 1 year of probation, for
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two of the counts of unlawful conduct, a fine of $1,000 for the third, and no
further penalty was imposed for the final offense.
Appellant timely filed post-sentence motions on September 12, 2016,
which were effectively denied when the trial court recognized, in an order
dated October 21, 2016, that Appellant had orally withdrawn them at a post-
sentence motion hearing conducted that same day. Appellant then filed a
notice of appeal on October 24, 2016. He timely filed a court-ordered
Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) statement on November 9, 2016. The trial court issued
its Rule 1925(a) opinion on February 14, 2017.
Appellant now presents the following question for our review:
Did the [t]rial [c]ourt err by sentencing … Appellant under the
mandatory provisions of Section 606(f) for violations of Section
401 as said mandatory provisions have been deemed
unconstitutional by the [United States] Supreme Court's holding
in [Alleyne]?
Appellant’s Brief at 4.
We apply the following standards to Appellant’s illegal sentencing
claim:
[A] challenge to the legality of the sentence can never be waived
and may be raised by this Court sua sponte. Commonwealth
v. Orellana, 86 A.3d 877, 883 n. 7 (Pa. Super. 2014) (citation
omitted). We further note that issues pertaining to the United
States Supreme Court's decision in Alleyne … directly implicate
the legality of the sentence. Commonwealth v. Lawrence, 99
A.3d 116, 122–25 (Pa. Super. 2014). With this in mind, we
proceed by noting our well-settled standard of review of
questions involving the legality of a sentence.
“A challenge to the legality of a sentence ... may be
entertained as long as the reviewing court has jurisdiction.”
Commonwealth v. Borovichka, 18 A.3d 1242, 1254 (Pa.
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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).
Commonwealth v. Wolfe, 106 A.3d 800, 801–02 (Pa. Super. 2014), aff'd,
140 A.3d 651 (Pa. 2016).
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, [133
S.Ct.] at 2163. Alleyne is an extension of the Supreme Court's
line of cases beginning with Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S.
466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000). In Alleyne, the
Court overruled Harris v. United States, 536 U.S. 545, 122
S.Ct. 2406, 153 L.Ed.2d 524 (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.
Commonwealth v. Miller, 102 A.3d 988, 994 (Pa. Super. 2014).
The rule announced in Alleyne had a substantial impact on
Pennsylvania’s mandatory minimum sentencing scheme, as most of
Pennsylvania’s mandatory minimum sentencing statutes contained an
Alleyne-offending, proof-at-sentencing provision. In Commonwealth v.
Newman, 99 A.3d 86 (Pa. Super. 2014) (en banc), this Court considered
the effect of Alleyne with respect to the following mandatory minimum
sentencing statute, as set forth in 42 Pa.C.S. § 9712.1:
(a) Mandatory sentence.--Any person who is convicted of a
violation of section 13(a)(30) of the act of April 14, 1972 (P.L.
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233, No. 64), known as The Controlled Substance, Drug, Device
and Cosmetic Act, when at the time of the offense the person or
the person's accomplice is in physical possession or control of a
firearm, whether visible, concealed about the person or the
person's accomplice or within the actor's or accomplice's reach
or in close proximity to the controlled substance, shall likewise
be sentenced to a minimum sentence of at least five years of
total confinement.
…
(c) Proof at sentencing.--Provisions of this section shall not be
an element of the crime, and notice thereof 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 any evidence presented at trial and shall
afford the Commonwealth and the defendant an opportunity to
present any necessary additional evidence and shall determine,
by a preponderance of the evidence, if this section is applicable.
42 Pa.C.S. § 9712.1 (held unconstitutional in Newman) (emphasis added,
footnote excluded).
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. [Newman, 99 A.3d] at
97–98. However, this Court further noted that Alleyne issues
are subject to harmless error analysis but that the Alleyne issue
in Newman was not harmless. Id. at 98–99. 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.
Wolfe, 106 A.3d at 803.
The non-severability of Alleyne-offending, proof-at-sentencing
provisions, a principle first established in Newman, led this Court to strike
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down numerous other mandatory minimum sentencing statutes with
identical proof-at-sentencing provisions. See, e.g., Wolfe, supra (striking
down 42 Pa.C.S. § 9718 in its entirety under Alleyne/Newman);
Commonwealth v. Valentine, 101 A.3d 801 (Pa. Super. 2014) (striking
down 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 9712 and 9713); Commonwealth v. Bizzel, 107 A.3d
102 (Pa. Super. 2014) (striking down 18 Pa.C.S. § 6317); Commonwealth
v. Blakney, 152 A.3d 1053 (Pa. Super. 2016) (striking down 42 Pa.C.S. §
9718.4).
In the instant case, Appellant contends that his sentence, imposed
pursuant to Section 606(f) of SWMA, is illegal under Alleyne. That statute
provides as follows:
(f) Any person who stores, transports, treats, or disposes of
hazardous waste within the Commonwealth in violation of
section 401,1 or in violation of any order of the department shall
be guilty of a felony of the second degree and, upon conviction,
shall be sentenced to pay a fine of not less than $2,500 but not
more than $100,000 per day for each violation or to
imprisonment for not less than two years but not more than ten
years, or both.
1
35 P.S. § 6018.401.
35 P.S. § 6018.606(f).
It is immediately apparent upon reading Section 606(f) that it is
neither identical nor similar to the Alleyne-violating, proof-at-sentencing
provisions that were deemed unconstitutional and non-severable by the
Newman line of cases. Section 606(f) does not contain any language
directing that its terms “shall not be … element[s] of the crime.” See, e.g.,
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42 Pa.C.S. § 9712.1(c). Section 606(f) does not state that the
Commonwealth is permitted to present additional evidence at sentencing.
Id. Nor does it dictate a “preponderance of the evidence” standard for the
application of its provisions. Id. Accordingly, we hold that Section 606(f)
does not fall within the purview of the Newman line of cases and, therefore,
Appellant’s sentence under that provision is not facially illegal.
Nevertheless, while Section 606(f) is not facially invalid under the
Newman line of cases, we must also consider whether Appellant’s sentence
under that provision violates Alleyne, as applied to him. First, we agree
with Appellant that Section 606(f) provides for a mandatory minimum
sentence. The statute clearly limits a sentencing court to one of two
sentencing options. Section 606(f) dictates that the sentencing court “shall”
sentence violators of Section 401(a) to a minimum fine, or a minimum
sentence of two years’ incarceration. 35 P.S. § 6018.606(f). Both options
are themselves mandatory minimum sentences and, thus, Section 606(f)
serves to deprive a trial judge of a significant degree of sentencing discretion
much in the same way that most other mandatory minimum sentencing
statutes function.
However, Alleyne did not outlaw all mandatory minimum sentences.
Rather, Alleyne renders mandatory minimum sentences illegal when their
mandatory sentencing provisions are based on factual triggers which 1) were
not submitted for consideration to the fact-finder; and/or 2) were proven by
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a standard less stringent than ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’ See Miller,
supra.
Here, Appellant argues that Section 606(f) does present an additional
layer of proof not submitted for determination by the factfinder:
Section 606(f) provides an additional layer of proof to be
determined by the Court or additional analysis, that being the
“or in violation of any order of the department.” [hereinafter,
“contested language”] This requires an additional finding of fact
or “proof at sentencing” requirement which has heretofore been
deemed unconstitutional pursuant to Alleyne.
Appellant’s Brief at 13.
We disagree. Section 606(f) provides the criminal penalties for
violations of Section 401(a), the latter of which reads, in pertinent part, as
follows:
(a) No person or municipality shall store, transport, treat, or
dispose of hazardous waste within this Commonwealth unless
such storage, transportation, treatment, or disposal is
authorized by the rules and regulations of the
department; no person or municipality shall own or operate a
hazardous waste storage, treatment or disposal facility unless
such person or municipality has first obtained a permit for
the storage, treatment and disposal of hazardous waste from the
department; and, no person or municipality shall transport
hazardous waste within the Commonwealth unless such
person or municipality has first obtained a license for the
transportation of hazardous waste from the department.
35 Pa.C.S. § 6018.401 (emphasis added).
Clearly, Section 401(a) does not absolutely prohibit the storage,
transport, treatment, or disposal of hazardous waste. To the contrary, it
prohibits such activities only when they are done without proper
authorization by the DEP. Thus, while the statute obviously prohibits these
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activities when no permit, license, or other authorization has been obtained
from the DEP, it also inherently proscribes the failure to adhere to DEP
orders that are issued to ensure compliance with its regulations on the
storage, transportation, treatment, or disposal of hazardous waste. Thus,
we hold that a company’s or individual’s failure to comply with the terms of
DEP permits, licenses, or other orders governing the storage, transportation,
treatment, or disposal of hazardous waste, is itself a violation of Section
401. Consequently, we also hold that the contested language of Section
606(f) does not present or add a new criminal element to Section 401(a).
Moreover, Appellant does not argue, nor do we ascertain from a plain
reading of the statute, that any provision of Section 606(f) directs a
sentencing court to apply anything less than a “beyond a reasonable doubt”
standard to its provisions.
In any event, Appellant has not provided any reference to the record
demonstrating that he was sentenced pursuant to the contested provision,
rather than for a “violation of section 401.” 35 P.S. § 6018.606(f).
Moreover, Appellant does not assert that sentences under Section 606(f)
that do not apply the contested language even raise Alleyne concerns.
Thus, Appellant has failed to demonstrate that Section 606(f) violates
Alleyne even if the contested language, contrary to our analysis above, in
fact raises Alleyne concerns. Furthermore, even if Appellant’s claim is
considered a facial challenge to Section 606(f), despite not falling directly
within the Newman line of cases, Appellant has provided no argument why
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the contested language is not severable from the remainder of Section
606(f).
In sum, we conclude that Appellant’s illegal sentencing claim is
meritless. Section 606(f) does not appear similar to, much less identical to,
the Alleyne-violating, proof-at-sentencing provisions deemed
unconstitutional and non-severable in the Newman line of cases.
Accordingly, we do not view that provision to be facially invalid under
Alleyne. Furthermore, considering Appellant’s claim as an as-applied
challenge, we reject his interpretation of Section 606(f) insofar as he claims
the contested language effectively provides an additional element of a crime
not defined in Section 401(a). Finally, Appellant has not even adequately
demonstrated that he was, in fact, convicted under that provision of Section
606(f).
Judgment of sentence affirmed.
Judgment Entered.
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 6/16/2017
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