Pennsylvania Rule Criminal of Procedure 700 to 721 involves proof of prior convictions with regards to sentencing. In the case of Jasper, the defendant's prior criminal record was introduced in the penalty phase by a Special Agent of the FBI who testified from a document prepared by the Bureau's identification division. The evidence was introduced as a business record offering competent proof of the matters asserted in them. The Agent testified that the record was compiled in the regular course of business by law enforcement authority. It was determined that there is nothing on the record to demonstrate to any degree that the FBI document was unreliable regarding the sources of information and method and time of preparation source to make the information inadmissible.
The Jasper case seems relatively reasonable and make sense regarding an official document being entered into to the sentencing to establish a criminal record. Some additional cases however begin to make the matter of prior convictions a bit more murky. When these issues arise, with respect to persons prior convictions, the court may conduct an evidentiary hearing at sentence to determine facts necessary to decide a prior record score. The defense and their Lehigh County criminal lawyer has the burden of specifically alleging invalidity of prior convictions and the Commonwealth must then establish the validity of convictions. In the case of medley from 1999, the defendant challenged the inclusion of certain North Carolina convictions in the calculation of his prior record scores. The defendant denied that the North Carolina convictions were attributable to him.
At the sentencing proceedings, the Commonwealth presented testimony from a Berks County detective who testified that he had called the appropriate county in North Carolina and obtained the fingerprints for the person whose name, date of birth, and social security number or the same as this defendant. Copies of the fingerprints were faxed from North Carolina to Berks County. The detective took the faxed fingerprints to an expert with the Reading police department who compared to fingerprints and expressed the opinion that they were obtained from the same person. One particular judge in this matter upheld this use of hearsay testimony in light of the wide latitude afforded sentencing courts to receive evidence. The court noted that the defendant had acknowledged that he had been arrested North Carolina. Another judge dissented on this matter and stated that he would have required proof by some form of official document from North Carolina, however this judge was overruled by the majority.