Commonwealth v. Nixon

LIPEZ, Judge:

This is a Commonwealth appeal under section 5 of Act 319, 1 which provides for interim sentencing guidelines, pending adoption of guidelines by the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing. 2 Section 5(a) 3 of Act 319 provides a guideline sentence of at least four to eight years imprisonment for certain specified offenses, if the defendant has been previously convicted of any of the specified offenses. Section 5(b) requires that, if the sentence deviates from the section 5(a) guideline, “the court shall provide a contemporaneous written statement of the reason or reasons for the…