Commonwealth v. Dove, M.

• Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
• Decided: August 14, 2024
• Docket: 551 MAL 2023
• Status: Published

Opinion

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA MIDDLE DISTRICT

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, : No. 551 MAL 2023 : Petitioner : : Petition for Allowance of Appeal : from the Published Opinion and v. : Order of the Superior Court at No. : 1380 MDA 2022, at 301 A.3d 427 : (Pa. Super. 2023) entered on July MARCUS GARETH KEVON DOVE, : 25, 2023, affirming, vacating and : remanding the Judgment of Petitioner : Sentence of the Berks County Court : of Common Pleas at No. CP-06-CR- : 0003445-2020 entered on : September 1, 2022

ORDER

PER CURIAM DECIDED: August 14, 2024

AND NOW, this 14th day of August, 2024, the petition for allowance of appeal is

GRANTED. The Superior Court’s order is REVERSED to the extent that it vacated

Respondent’s judgment of sentence in part and remanded the matter to the trial court

for further development of Respondent’s challenge to Subchapter H of the Sexual

Offender Registration and Notification Act (“SORNA”), 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 9799.10 –

9799.42. See Commonwealth v. Torsilieri, --- A.3d ---, 2024 WL 2789201, at *26

(Pa. filed May 31, 2024) (rejecting the constitutional challenge to the irrebuttable

presumption set forth in Subchapter H of SORNA that sex offenders pose a

high risk of reoffense); Commonwealth v. Butler, 226 A.3d 972, 993 (Pa. 2020)

(holding that the registration, notification, and counseling provisions of SORNA

applicable to sexually violent predators do not constitute criminal punishment; thus, the

constitutional claims deriving from the alleged punitive nature of those provisions fail).