explaining the required application of issue preclusion, rooted in the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee against double jeopardy, as concerns issues of ultimate fact decided favorably to an accused via a valid and final judgment citing Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 443, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 1194, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970)
How later courts described this case
- explaining the required application of issue preclusion, rooted in the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee against double jeopardy, as concerns issues of ultimate fact decided favorably to an accused via a valid and final judgment citing Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 443, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 1194, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970)
- holding that the Commonwealth cannot establish probation violation where defendant was acquitted of the charges that constituted the alleged VOP
- regardless of how United States Supreme Court may ultimately resolve federal constitutional issue, as matter of state law principle of collateral estoppel precludes finding of probation revocation based on probationer’s participation in a crime where probation revocation hearing was deferred until after trial at which probationer was acquitted of the crime
- “In a revocation hearing the Commonwealth has the obligation of establishing its case by a preponderance of the evidence.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
Later courts went against this
Limited by Lyness v. Com., State Bd. of Medicine, 127 Pa. Commw. 225 (1989)
See People v. Grayson, 58 Ill. 2d 260 (1974), cert. denied, 421 U.S. 994 (1975), questioned in In re Nau, 153 Ill. 2d 406, 428 (1992); Commonwealth v. Brown, 503 Pa. 514 (1983), limited in Lyness v. State Bd. of Medicine, 127 Pa. Commw. 225, 239 (1989), and in Hawkins v. Pennsylvania Bd. of Probation & Parole, 88 Pa. Commw. 547, 553 (1985).1
Distinguished
Distinguished by Commonwealth v. Shepler, 43 Pa. D. & C.5th 225 (2014)
Brown, therefore, is inapposite, its reasoning having no application where the facts underlying a probationer’s new charges have not already been resolved in his favor.
Distinguished by Commonwealth v. Davis, 17 Pa. D. & C.4th 439 (1992)
We believe Brown is distinguishable on its facts.
Distinguished by Hawkins v. Commonwealth, Pennsylvania Board of Probation & Parole, 88 Pa. Commw. 547 (1985)
Brown is also distinguishable from the case ait bar in that the only violation of probation alleged in Brown was new criminal conduct — the probationer’s alleged participation in a robbery.
The opinion
McDERMOTT, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent and would affirm based upon the opinion of the Superior Court. See Commonwealth v. Brown, 281 Pa.Super. 348 , 422 A.2d 203 (1980).
HUTCHINSON, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.