Commonwealth v. Vidal

198 A.3d 1097
CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedOctober 31, 2018
Docket1150 MDA 2017
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 198 A.3d 1097 (Commonwealth v. Vidal) 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. Vidal, 198 A.3d 1097 (Pa. Ct. App. 2018).

Opinion

OPINION BY NICHOLS, J.:

Appellant Dymire Vidal appeals from the judgment of sentence entered June 30, 2017, following his guilty plea to aggravated assault. 1 Appellant asserts that he is entitled as a matter of right to sentencing credit for time he spent in a juvenile detention facility after his arrest and prior to his transfer to adult court under 42 Pa.C.S. § 9760(1). We affirm.

In April of 2017, Appellant, who was seventeen years old, was housed at South Mountain Juvenile Detention Center (South Mountain) for a probation violation due to a previous juvenile adjudication and disposition. 2 The Commonwealth summarized the following facts underlying Appellant's charges:

[I]t is alleged that on April 9, 2017, at approximately 10:15 a.m., multiple residents at [South Mountain], were involved in an attack on three staff members. Staff member Chad Laplante began to escort resident [J.F.] out of the mess hall when [J.F.] became disruptive and began to yell. [J.F.] had punched Laplante in the face. Staff members Alex Crown and Victor Mowen then attempted to detain [J.F]. At that time, other residents, including [four other juveniles and Appellant] began to hit, scratch, punch, and kick these three staff members.... [Appellant] who waits about 40 seconds until he interjects himself into the assault, at which point he actively blocks staff from reaching other staff members who are already on the ground at this point being repeatedly struck by the co-juveniles involved in this case. And at one point, near the end of the video, you see [Appellant] take a hold of a *1099 staff member by both of his arms and forcibly move him into the hallway from the cafeteria further disallowing him to aid other staff members who were being assaulted. The staff members suffered scrapes, bruises, lacerations, and soreness to their heads, faces, backs, hands, and forearms.

N.T. Guilty Plea & Sentencing Hr'g at 6-8.

The trial court summarized the remaining procedural history as follows:

On April 20, 2017, a delinquency petition was filed alleging that [Appellant] committed the delinquent acts of: (1) Aggravated Assault Subject Other to Physical Contact; 1 (2) Simple Assault; 2 and (3) Harassment. 3 On June 23, 2017, [Appellant] waived his charges to the adult criminal system pursuant to a negotiated plea agreement ... and was transferred from South Mountain to Dauphin County Prison on that date.
1 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 2702(a)(3).
2 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 2701(a)(1).
3 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 2709(a)(1).
On June 29, 2017, Defendant entered a negotiated plea agreement to one (1) count of Aggravated Assault. 4 The remaining charges were withdrawn by the Commonwealth. [Appellant] was sentenced to a term of incarceration not less than one and a half (1 1/2) to not more than three (3) years. He was awarded time credit for the time he spent in Dauphin County Prison from June 23, 2017 through June 29, 2017. He was also awarded twenty-one (21) days of time credit while he was detained in South Mountain and began cooperating with staff to identify the juveniles involved in the attack of staff members, as well as the incident in the transport van.
4 Appellant was original[ly] charged under 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 2702(a)(3). The Commonwealth amended the information to include a charge Section 2702(a)(2) (aggravated assault-attempt to cause serious bodily injury [to protected person] ). Appellant subsequently plead guilty to Section 2702(a)(2)....

Trial Court Op., 9/7/17, at 1-2. After filing a timely post-sentence motion, which the trial court denied, Appellant timely appealed and complied with the trial court's order to submit a Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) statement.

The trial court, in its Pa.R.A.P. 1925(a) opinion, suggested that Appellant's claim went to the discretionary aspects of the sentence. Trial Ct. Op. at 3-4. The court further concluded that Appellant was not entitled to credit for the time spent at South Mountain under the Juvenile Act, 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 6301 - 6375. Id. at 6.

Appellant presents the following question for review:

Is not [Appellant] entitled as a matter of right to the award of sentencing credit under 42 Pa.C.S. § 9760(1) for time spent in custody in a secure juvenile detention facility after his arrest and prior to his transfer to adult court pursuant to 42 Pa.C.S. § 6355 ?

Appellant's Brief at 5 (full capitalization omitted).

We summarize Appellant's arguments as follows. First Appellant argues that the trial court mischaracterized his claim as a challenge to the discretionary aspects of the sentence. Second, he contends that he was entitled to credit for time spent at South Mountain as a matter of law under 42 Pa.C.S. § 9760.

At the outset, we agree with Appellant that the trial court's analysis of Appellant's claim for sentencing credit as a challenge to the discretionary aspects of the sentence is misplaced. Instead, it is well settled that a "challenge to the trial court's failure to award credit for time spent at custody prior to sentencing involves *1100 the legality of sentence[.]" 3 Commonwealth v. Fowler , 930 A.2d 586 , 595 (Pa. Super. 2007) (citation and quotation marks omitted). Because the legality of a sentence raises questions of law, our standard of review is de novo , and our scope of review is plenary. Commonwealth v. Gibbs , 181 A.3d 1165 , 1166 (Pa. Super. 2018) ; accord Commonwealth v. Kyle , 582 Pa. 624 , 874 A.2d 12 , 17 (2005).

Section 9760(1) provides:

Credit against the maximum term and any minimum term shall be given to the defendant for all time spent in custody as a result of the criminal charge for which a prison sentence is imposed or as a result of the conduct on which such a charge is based. Credit shall include credit for time spent in custody prior to trial, during trial, pending sentence, and pending the resolution of an appeal.

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Bluebook (online)
198 A.3d 1097, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-vidal-pasuperct-2018.