Under Pennsylvania's merger doctrine, what a person is convicted of several crimes based on the same fax, the sentences for those crimes will not merge unless the crimes are greater and lesser included offenses. This all relates to Commonwealth v. Anderson, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania case from 1994 that clarified the merger doctrine, holding that, "in all criminal cases," the same facts must support multiple convictions and separate sentences for each conviction except in cases where the offenses are greater and lesser-included offenses.
"The same facts" means any act or acts which the accused has performed in any intent which the accused has manifested, regardless of whether these acts and intents are part of one criminal plan, scheme, transaction, or encounter, or multiple criminal plans, schemes, transactions, or encounters. For example, it does not matter for purposes of merger whether one records a defendant's striking a customer and kidnapping him as one encounter or as two encounters, because the same facts – the defendant struck the victim with a gun – may be used to satisfy the force requirements of at least two crimes, kidnapping and aggravated assault, and the sentences for each crime will not merge because the two crimes are not greater and lesser-included offenses. The Anderson opinion concluded with a lengthy and tortured period in the courts merger doctrine jurisprudence, but throughout, the court's intent was to avoid giving criminals a "volume discount" on crime, much to the chagrin of any Lehigh County criminal lawyer.
The test for determining whether offenses merge for sentencing purposes is identical to the inquiry as to whether the Fifth Amendment double jeopardy protection against multiple punishments for the same offense has been violated. As announced in Blockberger v. United States, when the same act or transaction constitutes a violation of two distinct statutory provisions, the test to be applied to determine whether there are two offenses or only one is whether each provision requires proof of a fact which the other does not. TheBlockberger test depends only on a comparison of the elements of the crimes charged, not on the similarity are even the identity of the evidence introduced at trial to establish the commission of the crimes. Only when all the elements of one crime are also elements of the other may they be classified as the "same offense" for purposes of merger.
Applying this test, the Anderson court concluded that the elements of aggravated assault were subsumed in the elements of attempted murder. The court stated, "The act necessary to establish the offense of attempted murder – a substantial step towards an intentional killing – includes, indeed, coincides with, the same act which was necessary to establish the offense of aggravated assault, namely, the infliction of serious bodily injury. Likewise, the intent necessary to establish the offense of attempted murder – specific intent to kill – is greater than and necessarily includes the intentional, knowing, or reckless infliction of serious bodily injury, the intent required foraggravated assault… In as much as aggravated assault, the lesser offense, contain some, but not all the elements of the greater offense, attempted murder, the two offenses merge for purposes of sentencing."