Case Name: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellant, v. Andrew HUNSBERGER
Court: Superior Court of Pennsylvania
Jurisdiction: Pennsylvania
Decision Date: 1986-11-03
Citations: 358 Pa. Super. 207
Docket Number: No. 955
Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellant, v. Andrew HUNSBERGER.
Judges: Before CIRILLO, President Judge, and CAVANAUGH and TAMILIA, JJ.
Reporter: Pennsylvania Superior Court Reports
Volume: 358
Pages: 207–219

Head Matter:
516 A.2d 1257
COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellant, v. Andrew HUNSBERGER.
Superior Court of Pennsylvania.
Argued June 17, 1986.
Filed Nov. 3, 1986.
Stephen B. Harris, Assistant District Attorney, Warring-ton, for Com., appellant.
Robert W. Suter, Assistant Public Defender, Doylestown, for appellee.
Before CIRILLO, President Judge, and CAVANAUGH and TAMILIA, JJ.

Opinion:
TAMILIA, Judge:
A complaint was filed against appellee charging him with first degree murder in the death of his mother, Carol Hunsberger. Subsequently, trial counsel for appellee filed notice of appellee's plans to assert the insanity and mental infirmity defense. After a pre-trial suppression hearing, the lower court granted appellee's omnibus pre-trial motion to suppress certain statements voluntarily uttered by the appellee after Miranda warnings and his request for counsel were made, but before appellee's first meeting with counsel. The matter before this Court is the appellant's interlocutory appeal from the suppression Order.
Appellee claims that the Commonwealth has failed to assert jurisdictional grounds for this appeal and that the Commonwealth must demonstrate that the evidence suppressed by the trial court substantially handicaps the Commonwealth's prosecution of this case. We disagree. As this Court stated in Commonwealth v. Benjamin, 346 Pa.Super. 116, 121-122, 499 A.2d 337, 339 (1985):
In Commonwealth v. Dugger, 506 Pa. 537, 486 A.2d 382 (1985), our Supreme Court held that the Commonwealth's appeal from a suppression order was proper as long as the Commonwealth certified in good faith that the order either 'terminates' or 'substantially handicaps' the prosecution. The good faith certification is a precaution to meritless appeals designed solely for delay. It is no longer necessary for this Court to make an independant determination from the record whether the suppression order 'terminates' or 'substantially handicaps' the prosecution.
Since the certification requirement has been satisfied, we find that the Commonwealth has an absolute right of appeal to this Court to test the validity of the pre-trial suppression Order.
Our standard of review in an appeal from a suppression Order is limited to determining whether the factual findings of the suppression court are supported by the record and whether the legal conclusions drawn therefrom are in error. Commonwealth v. Webb, 491 Pa. 329, 334, 421 A.2d 161, 163 (1980); Commonwealth v. Hubble, 318 Pa.Super. 76, 78, 464 A.2d 1236, 1237 (1983).
The parties stipulated that the statements suppressed were made voluntarily by the appellee after he was read Miranda warnings, had answered that he wished to remain silent, and had answered that he wanted an attorney present during questioning. After the appellee's response to the Miranda warnings was made, the appellee was not subjected to further questioning. The appellant has conceded that those remarks made by appellee immediately following the administration of Miranda warnings concerning his desire to speak to an attorney were inadmissible. However, the appellant maintains that the court below erred in suppressing the following statements:
1. The appellee's question to First District Attorney Alan Rubenstein after being advised that he would be able to receive a public defender, "Are public defenders as good as money lawyers?";
2. The appellee's question to District Justice Kathryn Stump at the time of his preliminary arraignment in which he asked, "How can I get to see the public defender on the sixth floor of the courthouse if I am in jail?"; and
3. The appellee's question to Deputy District Attorney Rea Mabon when she approached him in the Dublin Barracks of the Pennsylvania State Police as to whether she was his lawyer, and when she replied in the negative, his statement that he did not want to speak to her.
The importance of the statements becomes apparent when viewed in light of the appellee's raising the insanity defense and the subsequent burden this places on the Common wealth to prove the appellee's sanity beyond a reasonable doubt. Commonwealth v. Bruno, 466 Pa. 245, 352 A.2d 40 (1976). The Commonwealth asserts that the statements are highly probative of the appellee's state of mind immediately following the crime.
Appellant claims that because the statements in question were made voluntarily by the appellee after his arrest and after Miranda warnings were administered, no violation of appellee's constitutional rights would occur if the statements were admitted at trial. We find we must disagree with appellant and affirm the lower court's suppression of the statements to avoid infringing appellee's fifth Amendment protection against compelled self-incrimination which provides the right to counsel during custodial interrogation. Commonwealth v. Hackney, 353 Pa.Super. 552, 558, 510 A.2d 800, 803 (1986).
In Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610, 611, 96 S.Ct. 2240, 2241-42, 49 L.Ed.2d 91 (1976), the United States Supreme Court held that silence in the wake of Miranda warnings may be nothing more than the arrestee's exercise of his Miranda rights and that because such silence is "insolubly ambiguous", it cannot be used for impeachment purposes at trial. It is the implicit assurance the Miranda warnings carry, "that silence will carry no penalty", which is the source of the Doyle Court's holding that use of an arrestee's silence is fundamentally unfair and therefore violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Id. at 618, 96 S.Ct. at 2245, 49 L.Ed.2d at 422. Recently, the Supreme Court has held that it is fundamentally unfair for the prosecution to use a defendant's post-arrest and post-Miranda warnings silence as evidence of his sanity. Wainwright v. Greenfield, 474 U.S. 284, —, 106 S.Ct. 634, 640-41, 88 L.Ed.2d 623, 632 (1986).
In Wainwright, the Court ruled that the Doyle due process rationale applies to an insanity defense situation in which the prosecution attempts to use the post-arrest and post-Miranda warnings silence as affirmative proof of sanity in the case in chief. Id. at —, 106 S.Ct. at 638-39, 88 L.Ed.2d at 630. The Wainwright Court stated that the fundamental unfairness found to exist in Doyle, that a promise that silence will not be used against an arrestee and the subsequent breach of that promise by using silence to impeach his trial testimony, exists when a breach of that promise is used to overcome the insanity defense. Id. at —, 106 S.Ct. at 639-40, 88 L.Ed.2d at 631. The significance of the majority Opinion in Wainwright does not rest solely on the Supreme Court's application of the Doyle due process rationale to the prosecution's use of an arrestee's silence as proof of sanity, but also rests on the Court's comment that an arrestee's constitutional right to consult counsel cannot be used against him after assurance by the state that his exercise of that right will not be so used. Id. at —, 106 S.Ct. at 640-41, 88 L.Ed.2d at 632. The Wainwright court stated that:
[T]he State's legitimate interest in proving that the defendant's behavior appeared to be rational at the time of his arrest could have been served by carefully framed questions that avoided any mention of the defendant's exercise of his constitutional rights to remain silent and to consult counsel. What is impermissible is the evidentiary use of an individual's exercise of his constitutional rights after the State's assurance that the invocation of those rights will not be penalized. Id. (Emphasis added)
Therefore, we find that the Court should suppress post-arrest and post-Miranda warnings statements made by the appellee concerning his right to counsel and questioning the meaning of his Miranda rights.
The cases relied upon by the appellant are distinguishable from the present case because they do not deal with post-Miranda statements by an arrestee concerning his right to counsel, but instead deal with voluntary statements concerning the commission of the crime in question. For example, Commonwealth v. Hubble, 509 Pa. 497, 514, 504 A.2d 168, 174 (1986), involved self-incriminating statements pertaining to the crime itself, voluntarily given by the defendant after a written waiver of his Miranda rights, not statements concerning the defendant's right to counsel. Appellant quoted the Hubble court as stating:
To hold that every utterance of the word 'lawyer' automatically erects the Edwards 'cone of silence' around the accused, thus insulating him from all further police-initiated questioning and communication, would be far too rigid and would not serve the interests or needs of justice.
Id., 509 Pa. at 511, 504 A.2d at 173. Use by appellant of the above quoted comment and its referral to Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981), reh'g denied, 452 U.S. 973, 101 S.Ct. 3128, 69 L.Ed.2d 984 (1981), is inapposite to this case as the issue in Hubble, supra, was whether the accused had invoked his right to counsel before making inculpatory statements, not whether the statements made by the accused were an effort on his part to understand the meaning of his right to counsel. As we have stated, it was stipulated by appellant that appellee invoked his right to counsel.
For the above stated reasons, we affirm the suppression Order entered by the lower court.
Order affirmed.
CIRILLO, President Judge, files a dissenting opinion.
. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 467-73, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 1624-27, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966).