Freundt v. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Driver Licensing

In Freundt v. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Driver Licensing, 584 Pa. 283, 883 A.2d 503 (2005), the licensee was charged with and convicted of 16 counts of fraudulently acquiring a controlled substance, for which DOT had issued 16 separate notices of suspension pursuant to Section 1532 (c) of the Vehicle Code. The Court explained that because the Supreme Court had reasoned that the General Assembly's use of the words "conviction" and "offense" in Section 1532 (c) meant they intended for the words to have two separate meanings, it followed that "since a conviction of an offense is a conviction stemming from a criminal episode, an offense for the purpose of 1532(c) is a single criminal episode." Freundt, 584 Pa. 283, 290, 883 A.2d 503, 507. The Court concluded therefore, that Freundt stood for the proposition that "the single criminal episode analysis should be undertaken only where the suspension is brought under 75 Pa. C.S. 1532 (c), which authorizes suspensions for crimes that have nothing to do with the operation of a motor vehicle, such as the crime of possession of controlled substances." In Freundt, the Supreme Court adopted the "single episode standard" holding that "the statutory framework requires 'when there is a conviction, the appropriate suspension shall be determined by whether or not the conviction stemmed from a single criminal episode, or multiple criminal episodes.'" The Freundt dissenters also thought our Supreme Court was adopting a single episode standard. Justice Eakin, joined by Justice Newman, disagreed with the "single criminal episode standard" stating: "I would hold that under 1532(c), a separate suspension is properly imposed for each count of which the licensee is convicted, regardless of whether the counts occurred in a single criminal episode." Id. at 295, 883 A.2d at 509-510.