During a trial a defendant can be brought up on more than one charge and usually those charges are not merged. In certain situations, however, charges are merged together. No crimes shall be merged in court unless the different crimes arise from a single criminal act, and all of the statutory elements of one offense are included in the statutory elements of the other crime. Where the crimes merge for sentencing purposes only, the court can sentence the defendant only on the higher graded offense. If a charge got wrongly merged during your trial in the Court of Common Please in Bucks County you must immediately contact your Bucks county criminal lawyer.
In the case of Commonwealth v. Belsar, there are different elements that could be identified for the charges to merge but according to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court they do not.
Clarence Belsar purchased a .22 caliber rifle and shot and robbed someone that he knew in a parking lot. He was charged with aggravated assault, and robbery. Now the prosecution was trying to merge the charges while Mr. Belsar was standing trial. For the charges to be merged that must have the same elements in their respective statutes. They were not merged because aggravated assault has the element of requiring proof of circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life which the charge of robbery does not own, and robbery has the element of proof of theft that aggravated assault does not have. According to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court since the two crimes do not have the same elements they do not merge. To find out more about this specific case; the site is Commonwealth v. Belsar 544 Pa. 346 (Pa. 1996).