explaining that “[h]ad the legislature intended to preclude multiple punishments under [the REAP statute], that section would read: “a person commits a misdemeanor of the second degree if he recklessly engages in conduct which places or may place another person or persons in danger of death or serious bodily injury”
How later courts described this case
- explaining that “[h]ad the legislature intended to preclude multiple punishments under [the REAP statute], that section would read: “a person commits a misdemeanor of the second degree if he recklessly engages in conduct which places or may place another person or persons in danger of death or serious bodily injury”
- concluding that reckless endangerment statute, which prohibited conduct jeopardizing “ ‘another person,’ ” “was written with regard to an individual person being placed in danger of death or serious bodily injury, and that a separate offense is committed for each individual person placed in such danger”
- “Among [the purposes of the Crimes Code] are that of insuring that punishment is proportionate with criminal liability, 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 104(3), and that of differentiating among offenders based on the seriousness of their offenses, 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 104(5).”
- comparing the language of 18 Pa.C.S. Sec. 2705 with that of 18 Pa.C.S. Sec. 2707 and 2710
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
ZAPPALA, Justice,
concurring.
I join in the Opinion of the Court. I would emphasize, however, that the number of counts under Section 2705 which might arise out of a single act is tied, as a matter of logic, to the number of persons placed in danger of death or serious bodily injury, not to the number of persons actually killed or seriously injured. As a matter of practical application, however, given the difficulties to be encountered in trying to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a person was in danger of injury although he was not in fact injured, it is to be anticipated that the Commonwealth, as here, will exercise its discretion so as to prosecute only those counts as to which the danger of death or serious injury is supported by evidence of actual death or injury.