Prosecutors seeking to bring bigamy charges in Pennsylvania should do so only if the second, offending marriage occurs within the state's borders, a Superior Court panel has ruled.

The decision, reached by a unanimous three-judge panel, found guidance in earlier case law, and also ruled that a first marriage is simply an "attendant circumstance."

"Under section 102(a)(1) [of the Crimes Code], only that 'conduct which is an element of the offense' that occurs in Pennsylvania will give rise to jurisdiction," Judge Anne E. Lazarus wrote in Commonwealth v. Seiders. The alleged bigamist had married in Pennsylvania, and then years later in Las Vegas, before his first marriage ended.

The prosecutor in the case, Francis T. Chardo of the Dauphin County District Attorney's Office, said he understood the panel's decision, but would consider filing a petition for allocatur with the state Supreme Court since it's the first case to be brought on the issue since Pennsylvania adopted the Crimes Code in 1973.

"From a practical perspective, this is the crime that affects people in Pennsylvania much more than it would anybody in Nevada," Mr. Chardo said. "The argument I made was: Suppose Delaware had legalized polygamy; someone could go there from Pennsylvania, marry someone else, come back and live here in Pennsylvania and he's not committing a crime anywhere, just because he crossed the border for an hour."

Mr. Chardo said the defendant, Hap Al Seiders, was a "career criminal."

The delay in finalizing the divorce on his first marriage clame because Mr. Seiders was hiding assets, Mr. Chardo said. He also allegedly lied to the second woman he married about his marital status. "This wasn't an honest mistake," Mr. Chardo said.

Mr. Seiders' attorney, George H. Matangos of Costopoulos Foster & Fields in Lemoyne, in southcentral Pennsylvania, said he did not know the details of Mr. Seiders' criminal history, but that he had been prosecuted in federal court for an alleged arson.

The federal Bureau of Prison's website shows a Hap A. Seiders was released from custody in 1983.

Mr. Matangos said, "His only violation here is an alleged second marriage while a divorce was years in the making."

Mr. Seiders' first wife reported the second marriage to the district attorney's office, and investigators followed up. Mr. Matangos, though, said the case law on the issue was dated because "there has not been a challenge in recent times."

Mr. Matangos said "there was very little guidance since 1973 .... However, it's still good case law."

Hap Al Seiders was married in 1983 in Perry County. A divorce action on that marriage was opened in 2002 in Dauphin County, but was not resolved by the time he married another woman in Las Vegas in 2006. That marriage was annulled by a Massachusetts court in 2007, according to Judge Lazarus.

Prosecutors in Dauphin County subsequently charged Mr. Seiders with bigamy. A trial court judge convicted Mr. Seiders of the charge in May 2009 and sentenced him to community service, intermediate punishment and ordered him to pay fines and costs. Mr. Seiders appealed.

According to Judge Ldazarus, the state Supreme Court had determined in 1876 case Gise v. Commonwealth that subject matter jurisdiction remained with the court where the second marriage took place, because that is where the crime occurred.