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Pa. R.Crim.P. 583

Not legal advice. Verify against official sources before relying on this text in any legal matter.

Rule 583 Severance of Offenses or Defendants

Chapter 5: Pretrial Procedures in Court Cases

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Rule Text

The court may order separate trials of offenses or defendants, or provide other appropriate relief, if it appears that any party may be prejudiced by offenses or defendants being tried together.

Plain-English Summary (for reference only — not a substitute for the rule text above)

This summary is not the rule. The rule text controls.

If you are charged with multiple crimes at once, or if you are being tried alongside other defendants, all of those charges or defendants are usually handled in one trial. This keeps things efficient for the court.

However, if combining everything into one trial would be unfair to you or to another party, a judge can split things up. For example, if hearing about one charge might cause a jury to unfairly judge you on a different charge, a judge could order separate trials for each charge.

Either side can ask the judge to separate the charges or the defendants. The judge then decides whether being tried together would cause enough harm to justify the extra time and cost of separate trials.

Committee Notes

This rule provides the procedure whereby the court may, because of prejudice to a party, order separate trials of offenses or defendants that otherwise would be properly tried together under Rule 582. A defendant may also request severance of offenses or defendants on the ground that trying them together would be improper under Rule 582.

Under Rule 578 (Omnibus Pretrial Motion for Relief), any request for severance must ordinarily be made in the omnibus pretrial motion or it is considered waived unless a later filing is permitted under the exceptions enumerated in Rule 579. See Rules 578 and 579.

Rule 1128 adopted December 11, 1981, effective July 1, 1982; renumbered Rule 583 and amended March 1, 2000, effective April 1, 2001.

Final Report explaining the March 1, 2000 reorganization and renumbering of the rules published with the Court’s Order at 30 Pa.B. 1477 (March 18, 2000).

← Previous Rule 582: Joinder—Trial of Separate Indictments or Informations Next → Rule 584: Motion for Change of Venue or Change of Venire