Opinion ID: 1436760
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Suppression Due to Allegedly Invalid Third Party Consent

Text: On June 29, 1989, the police received the consent of Appellant's wife to search the home in which Appellant and his wife lived. The police had to go to the hospital to obtain the consent of the wife. The wife was hospitalized for abdominal pain and fever for which she received medications including Tylenol, Unasyn, Gastroview, Vistaril, Demoral and Phenobarbital. Suppression Hearing Transcript 5/26/92, at pp. 64-65. The police obtained consent from the wife to search the home, as well as the wife's consent to search the car which Appellant operated and which was titled in the wife's name. Appellant argues that the Commonwealth did not meet its burden of proving at the Suppression Hearing that the consents to search were voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently given. Commonwealth v. Davenport, 453 Pa. 235, 308 A.2d 85 (1973). Appellant asserts that the Commonwealth failed to present any evidence that the medications which the wife was taking did not impair her ability to give a valid consent. Appellant's allegation is belied by the record. The Commonwealth presented the testimony of Dr. Ross Richardson, a staff physician at Washington Hospital. He testified that the drugs which Appellant's wife received would not have affected her ability to understand. Suppression Hearing Transcript 5/26/96, at pp. 65-67. Moreover, the state police officers who presented the consent forms to Appellant's wife asked permission of the nurses before they approached Appellant's wife and also testified at the Suppression Hearing that she had no trouble understanding the forms or the explanations. Accordingly, this issue does not afford Appellant relief. [10]