Com. v. Bryant, C.

• Court: Superior Court of Pennsylvania
• Decided: February 6, 2026
• Docket: 169 EDA 2025
• Status: Unpublished
• Author: Bowes

Opinion

J-A27012-25

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF : PENNSYLVANIA : v. : : : CHRISTOPHER BRYANT : : Appellant : No. 169 EDA 2025

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered December 12, 2024 In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-51-CR-0007586-2013

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF : PENNSYLVANIA : v. : : : CHRISTOPHER BRYANT : : Appellant : No. 170 EDA 2025

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered December 12, 2024 In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-51-CR-0001272-2019

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF : PENNSYLVANIA : v. : : : CHRISTOPHER BRYANT : : Appellant : No. 171 EDA 2025

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered December 12, 2024 In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-51-CR-0000243-2024

BEFORE: BOWES, J., MURRAY, J., and BECK, J. J-A27012-25

MEMORANDUM BY BOWES, J.: FILED FEBRUARY 6, 2026

Christopher Bryant appeals from the aggregate sentence of twenty-

three to forty-six months in prison imposed after he was found to be in

violation of the conditions of his parole. We vacate and remand for

proceedings consistent with this memorandum.

Based on our disposition, we only briefly reiterate the salient

background. This matter arises from sentences initially imposed by the trial

court in three separate cases. At Docket No. 7586-2013 (“Matter 1”),

Appellant was sentenced on February 25, 2014, to eleven and one-half to

twenty-three months in prison, followed by five years of probation, after he

pled guilty to possession of drugs with intent to distribute (“PWID”). While on

probationary supervision for that offense, Appellant entered a guilty plea to

another charge of PWID on December 23, 2019, at Docket No. 1272-2019

(“Matter 2”). As a result, the court continued Appellant’s supervision at Matter

1 and sentenced him to eleven and one-half to twenty-three months in prison,

followed by five years of probation, in Matter 2.

Finally, pertinent here, at Docket No. 243-2024 (“Matter 3”), Appellant

pled guilty to one count of retail theft on May 24, 2024. At that time, he was

serving the probationary tails in both Matter 1 and Matter 2. Consequently,

the court revoked Appellant’s probation in those matters and imposed new,

identical sentences of eleven and one-half to twenty-three months in prison,

followed by one year of probation, in each of the three cases. Critically, the

court specified in its orders that the sentences in Matters 1 and 2 were each

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to run concurrently with the Matter 3 sentence. Appellant was immediately

paroled to a treatment facility.1

On December 12, 2024, Appellant was found to be in violation of the

terms of parole. Accordingly, the court revoked parole and ordered Appellant

to serve his back-time in each of the three cases. However, the court indicated

that the recommitment in Matter 2 would run consecutively to Matter 1,

effectively doubling his jail sentence. Appellant filed a motion for

reconsideration, which the trial court denied without a hearing.

Appellant timely appealed in each case.2 The court ordered him to

submit a concise statement of errors complained of on appeal pursuant to

Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b), and he complied.3 The court thereafter authored an

opinion pursuant to Rule 1925(a), defending its decision to recommit

Appellant as it did.

Appellant presents a single question for our review: “Did the lower court

illegally modify Appellant’s sentence when, after revoking parole on three

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1 The procedural history of these cases is, in fact, significantly more complicated and extensive than outlined here. Particularly, the docket reveals numerous additional probation violations that are not pertinent to this appeal. The trial court poignantly outlined that background in its opinion authored pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 1925(a). See Trial Court Opinion, 3/10/25, at 2-4.

2 We consolidated the appeals upon the application of Appellant.

3 We remind the trial court that all Rule 1925(b) orders must provide “that

any issue not properly included in the Statement timely filed and served pursuant to subdivision (b) shall be deemed waived.” Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b)(3)(iv) (emphasis added).

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concurrent county prison sentences, it ordered two of those sentences to be

served consecutively to each other?” Appellant’s brief at 2.

We begin with the legal tenets pertinent to our review. Since Appellant

asserts a challenge to the trial court’s authority relating to imposition of

imprisonment, this presents an attack on the legality of the sentence. See

Commonwealth v. Martinez, 141 A.3d 485, 487 (Pa.Super. 2016) (“A claim

that implicates the fundamental legal authority of the court to impose a

particular sentence constitutes a challenge to the legality of the sentence.”

(citation omitted)). “A claim that the trial court erroneously imposed an illegal

sentence is a question of law and, as such, our scope of review is plenary and

our standard of review is de novo.” Commonwealth v. Whalley, 326 A.2d

948, 950 (Pa.Super. 2024) (citation omitted).

With respect to a court’s ability to adjust previously-imposed judgments

of sentence, we have stated as follows: “Trial courts have the power to alter

or modify a criminal sentence within thirty days after entry, if no appeal is

taken. Generally, once the thirty-day period is over, the trial court loses the

power to alter its orders.” Commonwealth v. Melvin, 103 A.3d 1, 57

(Pa.Super. 2014) (citation omitted).

Furthermore, there is “longstanding precedent that a parole violator

cannot be sentenced to a new sentence[,] but instead can only be

recommitted to the remainder of the original sentence.” Commonwealth v.

Holmes, 933 A.2d 57, 66 (Pa.Super. 2007) (citation omitted). As such, “a

court itself cannot ‘extend’ a parolee’s sentence beyond the original sentence,

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i.e., lengthen the period of possible incarceration.” Commonwealth v.

Stafford, 29 A.3d 800, 804 (Pa.Super. 2011) (citation omitted). In this vein,

we have held that “the fact that the appellant’s initial sentences were to be

served ‘concurrently’ preclude[s] the court, upon revocation of parole, to

require that the sentences for the same offenses be served ‘consecutively.’”

Commonwealth v. Sharpe, 665 A.2d 1194, 1197 (Pa.Super. 1995)

(discussing Commonwealth v. Bischof, 616 A.2d 6 (Pa.Super. 1992)).

On appeal, Appellant argues that the trial court illegally “changed [his]

original sentence[s], and did so long after such a modification was permitted.

The new sentence[s are] therefore illegal, and must be vacated.” Appellant’s

brief at 6. As to this assertion, he primarily relies on this Court’s decision in

Bischof. Id. at 6-9. We previously summarized the Bischof case thusly:

In Bischof, following a negotiated plea of guilty to two burglaries, the appellant was sentenced to two concurrent terms of time served to [twenty-three] months imprisonment. He was subsequently paroled and later committed a parole violation. At the parole violation hearing, the court directed that the appellant serve the back time for each sentence consecutively, despite the fact that the two sentences were initially imposed concurrently as part of a negotiated plea agreement. We reversed on appeal. We noted that, generally, the courts have jurisdiction to modify sentences only in the first [thirty] days after imposition and that to change sentences that were originally made to run concurrently to consecutive sentences more than thirty days after imposition, is an illegal modification of sentence which constitutes further or double jeopardy.

Commonwealth v. Ortiz, 745 A.2d 662, 665 (Pa.Super. 2000) (citation

omitted). Appellant compares Bischof to the instant matter, noting that

despite the court imposing identical and concurrent sentences in all three

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cases on May 24, 2024, the court improperly later recommitted him to serve

his back time in Matter 2 consecutive to Matter 1. 4 See Appellant’s brief at

6-7.

The trial court found that Bischof did not apply here because “Appellant

in all three matters entered into a non-negotiated guilty plea. None of the

three matters were [sic] ordered to run concurrent or consecutive to each

other at the time of each original sentencing.” Trial Court Opinion, 3/10/25,

at 5. It additionally determined that “Appellant should have had no

expectation that the [recommitments upon violation of parole] were to run

concurrently, as the court never explicitly ordered the matters to run

concurrently.” Id. Thus, it determined that it neither modified Appellant’s

sentence nor acted without authority.

Upon review of the applicable law and the certified record, we find that

the trial court erred in ordering Appellant to serve back time in all three cases

and directing that the recommitment at Matter 2 be consecutive to the other

sentences. As Appellant contends, this plainly runs contrary to Bischof,

wherein we explicitly stated that “after making the determination that the

parole granted on two specific sentences had been violated, the trial court

only ha[s] authority to recommit Appellant to serve out the balance of the ____________________________________________

4 For its part, the Commonwealth likewise opines that Appellant is entitled to

relief, though its analysis differs somewhat. See Commonwealth’s brief at 7 (averring that the court had the legal authority to recommit Appellant as it did, but that under the unique facts of this case, it would be unable to enforce the sentence since the recommitment in Matter 2 could not be both concurrent and consecutive to the back time in Matter 3).

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terms from which he had been paroled, which terms were to run concurrently.”

Bischof, 616 A.2d at 9-10. It is undisputed that on May 24, 2024, the court

imposed identical sentences in all three cases and specifically indicated that

the sentences in Matters 1 and 2 each run concurrently with Matter 3. The

logical extension is that this made all three sentences concurrent, since it is

impossible that Matter 2 could be consecutive to Matter 1, which itself was

concurrent to Matter 3. Yet through its revocation orders, the trial court

improperly extended Appellant’s jail term “beyond the original sentence, i.e.,

[by lengthening] the period of possible incarceration.” Stafford, 29 A.3d at

804.

Furthermore, we reject the court’s attempt to differentiate Bischof

because it entailed two sentences imposed pursuant to a single plea

agreement. While that may be true, it is a distinction without a difference.

Once the court sentenced Appellant in all three matters in May 2024, and ran

the judgments concurrently, it created under the law a mandate of concurrent

recommitments in the event of a parole violation. See Sharpe, 665 A.2d at

1197. For all intents and purposes, the new sentences imposed in Matters 1

and 2 at that time became controlling, regardless of what the trial court

previously imposed in those cases. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Wilson,

934 A.2d 1191, 1196 (Pa. 2007) (noting that once a sentence is vacated and

a new one imposed, the original is a “legal nullity”). Stated another way, the

mere fact that Appellant was originally sentenced in each of the matters at

different times does not take this case outside the purview of Bischof.

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Based on the above, we agree with both Appellant and the

Commonwealth that the judgments of sentence must be vacated and the

cases remanded. On remand, we direct the trial court to enter new orders

specifying that Appellant’s recommitment of back time in each case is to run

concurrently with one another.

Judgments of sentence vacated. Cases remanded. Jurisdiction

relinquished.

Date: 2/6/2026

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