‘Legal purgatory.’ How a Centre County case could change DUI penalties in Pennsylvania
A Pennsylvania appeals court changed the sentencing landscape Tuesday for those facing prosecution for a second or subsequent DUI, a ruling in a Centre County case that could affect thousands statewide.
At issue was whether prior acceptance into a diversionary program for first-time offenders qualified as a prior conviction in a state that takes a tiered approach to discipline for DUI convictions.
The decision could drastically change the penalties handed down by judges, ranging from fines to the length of a license suspension to jail time, thought its unclear what practical effect it may have.
Pennsylvania’s highest court is preparing to rule on a similar Centre County case, leaving DUI cases in a state of “legal purgatory,” defense lawyer Marc Decker said Wednesday.
The vote among a panel of nine state Superior Court judges was not unanimous. It was 5-4.
Centre County First Assistant District Attorney Sean McGraw wrote in an email Tuesday that county prosecutors were “quite pleased” with the decision. Centre County Assistant District Attorneys Matt Metzger and Amanda Chaplin argued the case.
Defense lawyer Julian Allatt — who represented Richard A. Moroz, of State College, in the case — wrote in an email he was “somewhat ambivalent” about the ruling.
Those facing prosecution for more than one DUI may face stiffer penalties, Allatt wrote, but there may have also been a harmful chilling effect on the willingness of prosecutors to offer the program if it did not qualify as a prior conviction.
The accelerated rehabilitative disposition program is voluntary. It does not come with the same procedural safeguards of a conviction during a trial, but Judge Megan McCarthy King wrote the program’s existing protections are “adequate.”
Judge Daniel D. McCaffery, who authored an 11-page decision on behalf of the four dissenting judges, wrote the majority’s decision was “untenable.”
“The Majority fails to elaborate as to what the ‘safeguards in place’ are, or how they protect a defendant’s constitutional right to due process, and the concomitant finding of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” McCaffery wrote. “... It is difficult to believe that any unspecified ‘safeguards’ are ‘adequate,’ when the Rules of Criminal Procedure do not require a defendant be informed of the constitutional rights they waive by accepting ARD, and each county administers its ARD program differently.”
A decision from the state Supreme Court, Decker estimated, could come “within months.”