Title: Commonwealth v. Perez (Concurring And Dissenting Opinion)

State: pennsylvania

Issuer: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Document:

[J-57-2002] IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA EASTERN DISTRICT COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, Appellee v. JOHN PEREZ, Appellant : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : No. 44 EAP 2001 Appeal from the Order of the Superior Court entered on 9/26/2000 at No. 1607 PHL 1998, affirming the Judgment of Sentence entered on 4/24/98 at Nos. 96 12-0160, 0161, 0163 & 0164 in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County 760 A.2d 873 (Pa. Super. 2000) ARGUED: April 9, 2002 CONCURRING AND DISSENTING OPINION MR. JUSTICE NIGRO DECIDED: March 24, 2004 As I cannot agree with the majority that the Court should abandon the six-hour rule established by Commonwealth v. Duncan, 525 A.2d 1177 (Pa. 1987), and Commonwealth v. Davenport, 370 A.2d 301 (Pa. 1977), I must dissent. However, because I ultimately agree that the Duncan-Davenport rule was not violated here, I agree with the majority that Appellant is not entitled to relief. In Davenport, this Court held that an arrestee must be arraigned within six hours of arrest in order to “guard against the coercive influence of custodial interrogation [and] to ensure that the rights to which an accused is entitled at preliminary arraignment are afforded without unnecessary delay.” 370 A.2d at 305. If an arrestee is not arraigned 2 within six hours of arrest, Davenport held, any statement by the accused obtained between arrest and arraignment is not admissible at trial. Id. at 306. As the majority notes, Duncan then modified the six-hour rule, indicating that the “focus should be upon when the [defendant’s] statement was obtained, i.e. within or beyond the six hour period.” 525 A.2d at 1181. Finding that the Duncan-Davenport rule has essentially become ineffectual, the majority now abandons the rule and instead adopts a “totality of the circumstances” approach to the question of when statements will be deemed admissible. My primary concern with this approach is simply that, in the absence of reasonable and clear time restraints in which police officers are allowed to question suspects, suspects are much more likely to be exposed to the coercive effect of prolonged police interrogation, which in turn, will yield a greater pool of unreliable confessions. By using time restrictions to curb police officers’ potential abuse of the interrogation process, the Duncan-Davenport rule, in my view, better safeguards the constitutional rights of defendants than the new “totality of the circumstances” approach adopted by the majority today and thus, should not be abandoned. Applying the Duncan-Davenport rule to the instant case, however, I do agree that Appellant is ultimately not entitled to relief. As this Court stated in Commonwealth v. Washington, and as I have reiterated above, the Duncan-Davenport rule is premised on a desire to avoid the coercive effect of prolonged police interrogation. 692 A.2d 1018, 1023 (Pa. 1998). Consistent with this principle, this Court has found that the Duncan-Davenport rule has not been violated when a statement was obtained within six hours of the start of questioning on the offense at issue, even if that statement was obtained after the defendant had been in police custody for more than six hours. See Washington, 692 A.2d at 1023 (no violation of Duncan-Davenport rule where period of pre-arraignment interrogation did not exceed six hours); Commonwealth v. Persiano, 725 A.2d 151, 153-54 (same). Here, Appellant was arrested at 6:30 p.m., but interrogation did not begin until approximately 3 11:15 p.m. The interrogatrion ended at 4:35 a.m., less than six hours after it began, and Appellant gave his statement. Under these facts, I would follow the reasoning of this Court in Washington and Persiano, and find that the Duncan-Davenport rule has not been violated. As such, I am able to concur in the majority opinion’s denial of relief to Appellant.