Pennsylvania’s probation reform law, Act 44 of 2024, was supposed to fix a broken system. For years, people on probation were being sent to state prison for technical violations — not new crimes, but things like missing a check-in, traveling without permission, or failing to complete a program. The legislature finally stepped in, putting strict limits on when a judge can impose a prison sentence for technical violations and, critically, capping how long that sentence can be.
Recently, the first major test of those new limits reached the Superior Court. In Commonwealth v. Seals, 2026 PA Super 29 (Pa. Super. 2026), an en banc panel held that violating those caps produces an illegal sentence . Now, in Commonwealth v. Goodwin, 2026 PA Super 54 (Pa. Super. 2026), a three-judge panel has applied those principles to another case, with results that are instructive.
What the New Law Actually Says
Before getting to Goodwin’s situation, it helps to understand what Act 44 changed.
Under Pennsylvania’s Sentencing Code — specifically, 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9771 — a judge who finds a probation violation must decide whether to revoke probation and, if so, what sentence to impose. The old law gave courts broad discretion, including the ability to send someone to state prison simply to “vindicate the court’s authority.” That language is now gone.
The amended version of § 9771, effective June 11, 2024, does several things at once. First, it creates a presumption against total confinement for technical violations. A technical violation is exactly what it sounds like — a violation of the conditions of probation that isn’t a new criminal offense. Missing an appointment is a technical violation. Traveling out of state without permission is a technical violation. Failing to complete a required program is a technical violation.
Second, the new law creates a list of specific circumstances that can override the presumption and justify a prison sentence for a technical violation. Two of them are relevant here: absconding from supervision (§ 9771(c)(1)(iii)(E)) and intentionally failing to follow recommended programming or conditions on three or more separate occasions (§ 9771(c)(1)(iii)(F)). Both require the court to find not only that the violation occurred, but also that the defendant “cannot be safely diverted from total confinement through less restrictive means.”
Third — and this is the part that matters most for Goodwin — the new law caps the length of the sentence for technical violations based on where the defendant stands in the violation sequence:
- First technical violation: maximum 14 days.
- Second technical violation: maximum 30 days.
- Third or subsequent technical violation: the full range of sentencing options available at the time of the original sentence.
The logic is deliberate. The legislature wanted a graduated, recidivist-based system — give the person a short, sharp punishment, let them try again, and only impose a serious prison term after they’ve demonstrated they won’t comply even after receiving second and third chances.
Goodwin’s Story
Secario Goodwin was not, by any measure, a model probationer. He had a prior criminal case from 2021 and picked up new burglary charges in 2022 while out on bail. In August 2023, he pled guilty to burglary, theft, and criminal mischief in Monroe County. That November, he was sentenced to five years of “restrictive probation” — a term that included a specific condition: he had to successfully complete the two-week Outmate Program, a Monroe County program that combines a brief period of incarceration with daily community service.
He never did it.
He also left Pennsylvania for North Carolina without permission, failed to report to his probation officer, and gave his probation officer incorrect information about where he was living. When his Monroe County officer found out where he was and offered him a chance to come back to Pennsylvania voluntarily — no violation petition, just get back here and start the Outmate program — Goodwin didn’t take it. A detainer was issued, a violation petition was filed, and when Goodwin was eventually arrested in North Carolina, he initially refused to waive extradition.
Goodwin ultimately came back to Pennsylvania, and in June 2024 — the same day Act 44 took effect — he admitted to three technical violations: failure to report, leaving the Commonwealth without permission, and failing to complete the Outmate program. (A fourth violation, a new assault charge in Allegheny County, was withdrawn by the Commonwealth.)
The VOP court (the court presiding over the violation proceedings) revoked probation and sentenced Goodwin to one to two years in a state correctional facility, treating his three technical violations as three separate violations and sentencing him under the “third or subsequent” tier of § 9771(c)(2)(iii).
Goodwin appealed.
Three Issues, Three Very Different Outcomes
Goodwin raised three arguments on appeal. He lost the first two cleanly. The third one he won — and the Commonwealth agreed with him.
Issue One: Was Revocation Itself Proper?
Goodwin argued that his violations were the product of poverty and temporary homelessness, and that his conduct wasn’t the kind of flagrant, willful disregard that justifies revocation and imprisonment. The VOP court rejected that argument, and the Superior Court affirmed.
The standard for revoking probation is straightforward: the Commonwealth must show by a preponderance of the evidence — meaning it’s more likely than not — that the defendant violated a specific condition of probation. The court can impose imprisonment if the conduct was flagrant and demonstrated an inability to reform.
Here, the court found the evidence clear. Goodwin gave inconsistent stories about his living situation. He didn’t contact his probation officer before leaving the state or ask for help with housing. He was offered a chance to return to Pennsylvania without a formal violation and declined. He refused extradition when arrested. And he never completed a sentencing condition — the Outmate program — that would have, as the court noted with some irony, actually given him a roof over his head for two weeks.
The Superior Court also rejected Goodwin’s effort to frame all of this as a consequence of homelessness. The VOP court found that Goodwin hadn’t established he was homeless to the extent he couldn’t comply with his probation conditions, and the Superior Court wasn’t free to second-guess that factual finding on appeal.
I don’t think the court got this one wrong. The facts presented a pattern — not a moment of hardship — and the probation officer behaved about as reasonably as anyone could ask before filing. If the new law is going to work, revocation itself still needs to be a meaningful sanction for genuinely bad conduct. Goodwin’s conduct qualified.
Issue Two: Did the Court Have Authority to Impose Any Prison Sentence at All?
Goodwin’s second argument was that the VOP court never made the specific findings required under § 9771(c)(1)(iii)(E) and (F) — specifically, the finding that he “cannot be safely diverted from total confinement through less restrictive means.”
The Superior Court rejected this too, finding the record supported the conclusion that nothing short of imprisonment would deter Goodwin’s non-compliance. The opinion walks through the conduct in detail: the absconding, the lying, the refusal to return, the initial refusal to waive extradition. Taken together, the court found that the VOP court’s findings — even if not stated in the statute’s exact words — were sufficient.
This holding is worth paying attention to in practice. The “less restrictive means” finding isn’t just boilerplate that a court can skip over. It’s a real statutory requirement. The Superior Court found it satisfied here, but it affirmed on the substance of what the VOP court found — not on the basis that the finding is implied whenever imprisonment is imposed. Defense lawyers should be arguing this issue at every technical violation hearing going forward and making sure the VOP court’s findings are on the record.
Issue Three: The Sentence Length Was Illegal
This is where the Commonwealth threw in the towel and agreed with Goodwin, and where the Superior Court’s holding will have the broadest practical impact.
The VOP court sentenced Goodwin under § 9771(c)(2)(iii) — the provision for “third or subsequent” technical violations, which allows the full range of sentencing options. The problem is that Goodwin had never been sentenced for a first or second technical violation. This was his first violation hearing. The court took three violations that arrived together in the same petition and counted them as three separate rungs on the statutory ladder, jumping straight to the maximum exposure tier.
The Superior Court said that was legal error.
The court’s reasoning goes to the core of the recidivist philosophy embedded in the statute. A recidivist scheme — a scheme that imposes progressively harsher penalties for repeated offenses — only makes sense if the person actually had a chance to correct their conduct between punishments. The whole point is to give someone a short sentence, let them return to supervision, and impose something more serious if they violate again. As the court put it, quoting a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision: “the point of sentencing enhancement is to punish more severely offenders who have persevered in criminal activity despite the theoretical beneficial effects of penal discipline.”
You can’t skip straight to step three. A first violation hearing is a first violation hearing, regardless of how many individual technical violations are bundled into the petition.
The practical result: Goodwin’s three-violation, one-to-two-year sentence is vacated, and the case goes back for resentencing. Under § 9771(c)(2)(i), the maximum for a first technical violation is 14 days. That’s the cap the VOP court will be working with on remand.