holding that this Court erred in reweighing the SVP evidence presented to the trial court; “the Superior Court stepped beyond its authority when it reweighed the evidence, giving more weight to the ‘absent’ factors than those found and relied upon by the trial court”
How later courts described this case
- holding that this Court erred in reweighing the SVP evidence presented to the trial court; “the Superior Court stepped beyond its authority when it reweighed the evidence, giving more weight to the ‘absent’ factors than those found and relied upon by the trial court”
- holding reviewing court “stepped beyond its authority when it reweighed the [SVP] evidence, giving more weight to ‘absent’ factors than to those found and relied upon by the trial court, and ignoring the Commonwealth’s expert’s explanation of the relevance of the absent factors”
- holding “Superior Court stepped beyond its authority when it reweighed the evidence, giving more weight to ‘absent’ factors than to those found and relied upon by the trial court, and ignoring the Commonwealth's expert's explanation of the relevance of the absent factors.”
- holding this Court erred in reweighing the SVP evidence presented to the trial court to give more weight to factors that were absent than to those found and relied upon by the trial court.
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Chief Justice CAPPY,
concurring.
I join the Majority Opinion, with the understanding that in this case, the test for conducting appellate review of the sufficiency of the evidence is whether the evidence and all reasonable inferences deducible therefrom, viewed in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth as the prevailing party, was sufficient to establish all of the elements of sexually violent predator (“SVP”) status under 42 Pa.C.S. 9792, see Commonwealth v. Frey, 588 Pa. 326, 904 A.2d 866, 871 (2006), and that Mr. Loop’s testimony as to the process he followed in examining the factors listed in 42 Pa.C.S. 9795.4(b) for assessing SVP status represents nothing more than his own notion of the evaluation the statute required of him. In the present case, this Court was not asked to construe 42 Pa.C.S. 9795.4(b). That matter remains for another day.
Justice BAER joins this concurring opinion.