For the Defense - Vol. 8, Issue 1 - 41
DUI Merger Under Deana's Law
D
UI defendants with prior convictions may be facing
significantly longer sentences because of a recently
enacted law requiring consecutive sentences in certain
cases.
Act 59 of 2022 ( " Deana's Law " ) requires that sentences for 3rd
and subsequent Tier 3 DUI offenses run consecutive to " [a]ny
other sentence the individual is serving and to any other sentence
being then imposed by the court, except for those with which
the offense must merge as a matter of law. " 1
The Pennsylvania
General Assembly's reference to merger is lamentable because
Pennsylvania has never had a succinct, easy-to-follow appellate
court merger opinion. Expect mayhem as courts grapple with
what offenses merge under Deana's Law.
Even so, this article distills Pennsylvania merger law into four
basic principles for use in Deana's Law sentencings:
1. Pennsylvania merger law is statutory (mostly);
2. Pennsylvania has a " single harm " exception that
merges DUI offenses;
3. Two competing analyses currently exist for merging
non-DUI offenses; and
4. PennDOT penalties (e.g. suspensions) simply don't
merge.
[N]o crimes shall merge for sentencing purposes unless the
crimes arise from a single criminal act and all of the statutory
elements of one offense are included in the statutory
elements of the other offense. Where crimes merge for
sentencing purposes, the court may sentence the defendant
only on the higher graded offense.2
Merger only applies to offenses arising from a single criminal
act. Thus, in relation to Deana's Law, cases that are consolidated
for a plea but do not arise from the same criminal act do not
merge.
DUI Offenses Merge Under the Single Harm Doctrine (For Now)
The good news for defense practitioners is that Section 9765
does not apply to DUI offenses. Pennsylvania DUI offenses merge
under the " single harm " doctrine. Just beware, the single harm
doctrine could change, as will be discussed below.
Commonwealth v. Williams is a watershed DUI case.3
It
memorialized the single harm doctrine and anchored it
to Pennsylvania's current DUI statute.4
Vol. 8, Issue 1 l For The Defense 41
Relying on years of
Joshua Goldberg
Merger Doctrine General Rule
The merger doctrine is codified in 42 Pa.C.S. ยง 9765 which states:
For the Defense - Vol. 8, Issue 1
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