Case Name: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellant, v. Charles R. KEASLEY
Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Jurisdiction: Pennsylvania
Decision Date: 1983-07-08
Citations: 501 Pa. 461
Docket Number: 
Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellant, v. Charles R. KEASLEY.
Judges: Before ROBERTS, C.J., and NIX, LARSEN, FLAHERTY, McDermott, hutchinson and zappala, jj.
Reporter: Pennsylvania State Reports
Volume: 501
Pages: 461–465

Head Matter:
462 A.2d 216
COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellant, v. Charles R. KEASLEY.
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
Submitted April 19, 1983.
Decided July 8, 1983.
Eric B. Henson, Deputy Dist. Atty., Gaele McLaughlin Barthold, Philadelphia, for appellant.
Darryl A. Irwin, Philadelphia, for appellee.
Before ROBERTS, C.J., and NIX, LARSEN, FLAHERTY, McDermott, hutchinson and zappala, jj.

Opinion:
OPINION OF THE COURT
ROBERTS, Chief Justice.
The sole issue presented on this appeal is the admissibility of an inculpatory statement given to police by appellee Charles Keasley within an hour of his arrest. Appellee was taken by police to be preliminarily arraigned just over two and one-half hours after his arrest, but because of the unavailability of an arraignment judge was not in fact arraigned until twelve hours after his arrest. A panel of the Superior Court, 301 Pa. Super. 597, 447 A.2d 639, agreed with the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia that the prompt-arraignment requirement of Commonwealth v. Davenport, 471 Pa. 278, 370 A.2d 301 (1977), had not been met and thus concluded that appellee's statement should be suppressed. This Court granted the Commonwealth's petition for allowance of appeal.
As the record is clear that the delay in appellee's arraignment was caused by exigent circumstances and that the police made diligent efforts to secure appellee's prompt arraignment in the face of these circumstances, we reverse the order of the Superior Court affirming the order of the court of common pleas and remand the record for trial.
Appellee was arrested pursuant to a warrant on December 17,1978, at 6:20 p.m., charged with rape, simple assault, and indecent assault, and taken to the headquarters of the West Philadelphia Detective Division for questioning. By 7:30 p.m. that same evening, appellee had been advised of his rights and had completed and signed the inculpatory statement at issue. All interrogation ceased, and appellee was placed in a detention room where he remained until 9:00 p.m. while the processing of papers relating to his arrest was completed.
At 9:00 p.m., just over two and one-half hours after arrest, police took appellee to the "CCTV Room" located at 55th and Pine Streets, where suspects are brought before an arraignment judge in another area of the City by way of closed-circuit television. See generally Commonwealth v. Terebieniec, 268 Pa.Super. 511, 408 A.2d 1120 (1979). The arraignment judge scheduled to be on duty was, in fact, not present when appellee arrived at the CCTV Room. The judge's clerk had suffered a heart attack at approximately 8:15 p.m. that evening, and the judge had left the arraignment room to accompany him to the hospital. Efforts by police to secure the presence of the arraignment judge scheduled to be on duty as well as another arraignment judge were unsuccessful, and appellee was not arraigned until 6:25 a.m. that morning, after the judge scheduled to be on duty at 8:00 a.m. came on duty early at police request. No interrogation of appellee occurred during the period of delay occasioned by efforts to locate an arraignment judge.
In Commonwealth v. Jenkins, 500 Pa. 144, 454 A.2d 1004 (1982), this Court held that the prompt-arraignment rule of Commonwealth v. Davenport, supra, had been complied with where the police released a defendant within six hours of his arrest because of the unavailability of a judicial officer to conduct a preliminary arraignment and then rearrested the defendant the following day and secured a prompt arraignment. In so holding, we observed that if the police had continued to detain the defendant beyond the six-hour limit without any interrogation while they attempted to secure a judicial officer, the case would have fallen "within the exigent circumstances dispensation . . assuming the Commonwealth's ability to establish its diligent effort in seeking a timely arraignment." 500 Pa. at 151, 454 A.2d at 1007. On this record, the Commonwealth has shown that the police diligently sought to locate an arraignment judge and to secure appellee's prompt arraignment both before and after it became apparent that the six-hour limit could not be met. Accordingly, the order of the Superior Court must be reversed.
Order of the Superior Court reversed and record remanded for trial.
McDERMOTT, J., files a concurring opinion.