Lackawanna County District Attorney v. Coss, 532 U.S. 394, 5 (2001)

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398

LACKAWANNA COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY v. COSS

Opinion of the Court

been pending for almost 14 years, and has never been the subject of a judicial ruling. Neither petitioners nor respondent is able to explain this lapse. Tr. of Oral Arg. 4, 29.

In 1990, after he had served the full sentences for his 1986 convictions, Coss was again convicted in Pennsylvania state court, this time of aggravated assault. He was sentenced to 6 to 12 years in prison, but successfully challenged this sentence on direct appeal because of a possible inaccuracy in the presentence report. App. 62a.

On remand, the court's first task was to determine the range of sentences for which Coss was eligible. In calculating Coss' "prior record score"—one of two determinants of the applicable sentencing range, see 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 9721 (1998) (reproducing 204 Pa. Code § 303.9(a) (1998))—the new presentence report took account of Coss' most serious juvenile adjudication and Coss' 1986 misdemeanor convictions, counting the latter as separate offenses. See Record Doc. No. 101 (Pl. Exh. 3, at 10). Coss objected, claiming that his 1986 convictions should be counted as one misdemeanor offense because they arose from the same transaction. See ibid. (Pl. Exh. 5, at 3-4). The trial court sustained Coss' objection, finding that the convictions should be "view[ed] . . . as being one transaction, one incident, one conviction." Id., at 5. Under the Pennsylvania Sentencing Guidelines, one prior misdemeanor does not affect the prior record score. See id., at 10 (displaying grid for calculating prior record score). Thus, the practical effect of the court's decision was to eliminate the 1986 convictions from Coss' prior record score entirely. See ibid.; see also 204 F. 3d 453, 467-468 (CA3 2000) (en banc) (Nygaard, J., dissenting). Consequently, Coss' 1986 convictions played no part in determining the range of sentences to which Coss was exposed.

The court's next task was to choose a sentence within that range. In doing so, the trial court considered a number of factors, including "the seriousness and nature of the crime involved here, the well being and protection of the people

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