Opinion ID: 2208977
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Privacy of Prison Medical Records

Text: Next, appellant contends that his constitutional and statutory rights to privacy were violated when appellant's prison medical records were seized pursuant to a search warrant issued by a neutral and detached magistrate upon probable cause to believe that evidence of the crime of rape would be discovered, in that the records would confirm that appellant had gonorrhea, as had the victim's assailant. We find no merit in the contention. Appellant claims that his right to privacy under the Disease Prevention and Control Law of 1955 (35 P.S. § 521.15), the Patient's Bill of Rights (28 Pa.Code § 115.27), the Clinical Laboratories Act (28 Pa.Code § 5.53), and the Constitution was violated. None of the statutory restrictions apply by their terms to prison medical records. More importantly, this Court has previously held that even statutorily privileged confidential medical records must be disclosed to the Commonwealth in sexual abuse cases when the presence or absence of venereal disease is relevant to an issue at trial. Commonwealth v. Moore, 378 Pa.Super. 379, 548 A.2d 1250 (1988). Moreover, we find no basis whatsoever for appellant's amorphous constitutional privacy claim. Here, the Commonwealth obtained a search warrant for the evidence, rather than following the petition procedure described in Moore. While the petition procedure may be preferable, it is not mandated as yet by statute or by procedural rule. Though the subpoena process may lack safeguards provided by the petition procedure, we nonetheless find it adequate authority upon which the prison may rely in disclosing appellant's medical records. Finally, even if the procedures followed were inadequate, exclusion would not be an appropriate remedy. There was no statutory exclusionary rule enacted in any of the statutes cited, and there has been no pattern of willful violations to warrant application of a judicially created exclusionary rule. Hence, we find no merit in the second contention.