 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Commonwealth v. Kyle5/16/2005
t would result from permitting conditional release on bail in an instance such as this one, they might be less likely to grant such requests. One of the benefits of home monitoring is the flexibility it affords the defendant and the court. If a court is to be required to pretend that such release is a period of incarceration, it may determine that actual incarceration, rather than bail release, is the only way to ensure service of an appropriate punishment.
Our conclusion logically follows from Kriston and Conahan, as well as the Superior Court's decision in Shartle, which we have discussed above. Release on any form of bail necessarily restricts one's liberty, but release to one's home on bail subject to electronic monitoring does not reach the level of restriction that necessarily attends placement in an institutional setting. Accordingly, we hold that time spent subject to electronic monitoring at home is not time spent in "custody" for purposes of credit under Section 9760. The case-by-case test proposed by the lead opinion in Chiappini is specifically disapproved. This interpretation and resulting bright-line rule will obviate the necessity of evidentiary hearings into the particulars of each electronic monitoring program around the Commonwealth, which would be necessary to implement a case-by-case test. See Vanskiver, 819 A.2d at 79 (Graci, J., concurring). This holding also has the salutary benefit of avoiding inconsistent results in these matters, based on perceived nuances in various programs across the Commonwealth.
What remains is a consideration of whether there are equitable factors which weigh against giving force to our conclusion on this matter of statutory construction. In the past, credit has been awarded for time spent on electronic monitoring based upon equitable circumstances. See Kriston (assurance by prison authorities that time spent in monitoring program would count toward prison sentence); Chiappini (Nigro, J., concurring); see also Jacobs v. Robinson, 410 A.2d 959 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1980) (convict inadvertently released from prison because of clerical error awarded credit for time spent at large in community, under supervision of probation authorities). Appellee has not argued that such an equitable circumstance is present here and the record reveals that none exists. Unlike Chiappini, there is no suggestion that the parties believed that sentencing credit would be available.
Nor did the trial court lead appellee to believe he would receive sentencing credit. Furthermore, the very fact that four Justices wrote separately in Chiappini to explain their view that monitoring programs are not "custody" for purposes of credit against a prison term, combined with this Court's previous decisions in Kriston and Conahan, served to reduce, if not eliminate, the prospect that a defendant could have a reasonable expectation of an entitlement to such credit. As a practical matter, defendants now must choose whether to accept the condition that they post bail and spend time on electronic monitoring, should the court so require -- in which case credit will not be awarded -- or to forgo release on bail restriction and immediately serve their prison sentences -- for which credit will be available.
We also necessarily conclude that Vanskiver was wrongly decided to the extent it applied the case-by-case test proposed by the Chiappini lead opinion. Although the Vanskiver court may have reached the proper result, that result was premised upon its erroneous belief that the Chiappini lead opinion was controlling law. The Vanskiver line of cases is hereby disapproved.
Accordingly, we hold that the Superior Court erred as a matter of law in remanding this case t
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Pennsylvania DUI Attorneys
DUI Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|