Grimes, J. v. Prothy of the PA Supreme Ct.

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• concluding that when a criminal statute was ambiguous and none of the alternative reasonable interpretations was most persuasive, under the rule of lenity, the statute would be construed in favor of the defendant
• stating that the rule of lenity only applies when there is “a grievous ambiguity or uncertainty in the statute”
• noting that when a proposition is phrased in the negative, the use of the word “or” may give rise to an interpretation that the “or” is conjunctive
• explaining that a statute's use of a conjunctive requires that all subparts be satisfied
• applying the rule of lenity as a last resort, only after exhausting the other canons of construction
• discussing the rule of lenity and holding that it applies only when a grievous ambiguity exists after exhausting the other canons of construction

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).