Commonwealth v. Curran

932 A.2d 103, 2007 Pa. Super. 228, 2007 Pa. Super. LEXIS 2175
CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedJuly 31, 2007
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 932 A.2d 103 (Commonwealth v. Curran) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Commonwealth v. Curran, 932 A.2d 103, 2007 Pa. Super. 228, 2007 Pa. Super. LEXIS 2175 (Pa. Ct. App. 2007).

Opinion

OPINION BY

TODD, J.:

¶ 1 Diane Curran appeals the December 15, 2006 judgment of sentence of 6 to 12 months in prison entered by the Honorable William F. Moran of the Northampton County Court of Common Pleas after she pled guilty to one count of furnishing alcohol to minors,1 a misdemeanor of the third degree. Upon review, we affirm.

¶2 The relevant facts and procedural history of this matter as revealed by the record before us are as follows. On November 14, 2006, Appellant entered a guilty plea to the above charge. At the plea hearing, she admitted that, on March 2, 2006, she had furnished seven cases of beer to Jason Dietterick, whom she knew was under 21 years of age. Appellant further admitted during the plea hearing that she knew Dietterick’s parents were not home and that he was planning to host a party in their absence on March 4, 2006. Appellant also admitted that she had purchased beer for Diettrick on two or three other occasions. As a result of consuming the alcohol furnished by Appellant at Diet-trick’s home at the March 4, 2006 party, [105]*105Kyle Kehler drove into a tree and his two passengers, Michael Cummings and Amanda Schultz, were killed. (N.T. Sentencing, 11/14/06, at 9-11.)

¶ 3 In return for Appellant’s guilty plea to furnishing alcohol to a minor, the Commonwealth withdrew a charge of recklessly endangering another person that was originally filed against Appellant. (Id. at 2.) On December 15, 2006, following completion of a pre-sentence investigation, Judge Moran sentenced Appellant to the maximum sentence allowable under Pennsylvania law for a third-degree misdemeanor—6 to 12 months in prison. Following the denial of her timely motion for reconsideration, Appellant timely appealed, challenging her sentence.

¶ 4 Where an appellant challenges the discretionary aspects of a sentence, as in the instant case, there is no automatic right to appeal and an appellant’s appeal should be considered a petition for allowance of appeal. Commonwealth v. Ritchey, 779 A.2d 1183, 1185 (Pa.Super.2001). Before a challenge to a judgment of sentence will be heard on the merits, an appellant first must set forth in his or her brief a concise statement of the reasons relied upon for allowance of appeal with respect to the discretionary aspects of his or her sentence. Id.; Pa.R.A.P. 2119(f). Appellant has complied with this requirement.

¶ 5 An appellant also must show that there is a substantial question as to whether the imposed sentence was inappropriate under the Sentencing Code. See Ritchey, 779 A.2d at 1185; 42 Pa.C.S.A § 9781(b). Whether an issue raises a substantial question is a determination that must be made on a case-by-case basis; however, in order to establish a substantial question, the appellant generally must establish that the sentencing court’s actions either were inconsistent with a specific provision of the Sentencing Code or contrary to the fundamental norms which underlie the sentencing process. Ritchey, 779 A.2d at 1185.

¶ 6 In her 2119(f) statement, Appellant argues that the judge erred by imposing a sentence outside the sentencing guidelines. She argues that, by sentencing her to the maximum sentence allowable under Pennsylvania law, the judge failed to consider such factors as her background, characteristics, and rehabilitative needs and based the sentence solely on “the perceived seriousness of the result of the offense.” (Appellant’s Brief at 11.) Pursuant to 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9781(c)(3), a claim that the sentencing court sentenced outside the sentencing guidelines presents such a substantial question. Commonwealth v. Hanson, 856 A.2d 1254, 1257 (Pa.Super.2004). Thus, we will review Appellant’s claim.

¶ 7 Appellant acknowledges that the trial judge placed his reasons for deviating from the guidelines on the record, but argues that the judge failed to consider that she is a 63-year-old woman with no prior record, who fully cooperated throughout the proceedings, acknowledged her involvement in the offense, accepted responsibility for her role in the incident, and expressed remorse to the families of the victims and the court. (Appellant’s Brief at 16.) She argues that, in sentencing her to the maximum sentence permitted, the court only considered that two people died as an indirect result of Kehler having attended Dietterick’s party. (Id. at 17.) Appellant further argues that because the record reveals that Kehler consumed additional alcohol at other locations on the night of the accident, Appellant was unfairly penalized for the actions of others who furnished Kehler with additional aleo-[106]*106hoi after he consumed beer at Dietterick’s home. (Id. at 18.)

¶8 In every case where a sentencing court imposes a sentence outside of the sentencing guidelines, the court must provide in open court a contemporaneous statement of reasons in support of its sentence. 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9721; see also Commonwealth v. Eby, 784 A.2d 204, 205-06 (Pa.Super.2001). If an appellate court determines that a sentence which is outside the guidelines is unreasonable, it shall vacate the sentence and remand the case for resentencing. 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9781(c)(3).

¶ 9 At the sentencing hearing, while Judge Moran acknowledged that Appellant had no prior criminal record and noted that he had great respect for the sentencing guidelines, he reasoned that this casé was different because of the quantity of alcohol purchased, the fact that Appellant had supplied alcohol to Dietterick in the past, and because two people died as an indirect result of Appellant’s actions.

¶ 10 In support of his imposition of the maximum sentence permitted under the law, Judge Moran explained:

You have no criminal record. Nothing in this report suggests that you are an evil person. This was not the willful taking of a life, but your actions set in motion the taking of two lives. [The Commonwealth] makes a good point. When you purchased eight2 cases of beer for a person you knew was underage, it can certainly be implied [that] you understood that was not for his personal consumption but was, rather, intended for use at some form of social activity in which alcohol would be consumed; and you would have every reason to believe, given the nature of this purchase, that the participants or a substantial number of participants in such an event would themselves be underage.
The community in which the driver lives — and I know where we’re talking about where the accident occurred. This wasn’t a situation where people were going to walk back and forth from a party. In the suburbs teenagers, like anyone else, move by motor vehicle. So it could be assumed safely that when you purchased this, if you had thought it out, that, one, he and the others would drink alcohol at a social function, two, that there would be no adult control likely at that affair, three, that the people who left that party, some of them at least, would likely leave drunk or impaired and that they would drive drunk and impaired.

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Bluebook (online)
932 A.2d 103, 2007 Pa. Super. 228, 2007 Pa. Super. LEXIS 2175, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-curran-pasuperct-2007.