When the Superior Court says it is going to employ “rationality and realism,” you know you’re in for a doozy. In Commonwealth v. Rankin, the Commonwealth charged the defendant with misdemeanors and summaries related to traffic tickets and poor driving. A jury acquitted him of the misdemeanor, but the trial judge immediately convicted him on the same record of the summary offenses. Kidding aside, the Superior Court did a superior job of applying the rules of Double Jeopardy and collateral estoppel to the facts and vacated the summary convictions.
