Opinion ID: 4527707
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Choice of Law Approach

Text: Under a choice of law analysis, “courts analyze the issue as if it were a civil case and apply the choice of law method of the forum state to determine whether the law of the forum state or the situs state should be followed, and what sanctions are to be used if the appropriate law is violated.” People v. Porter, 742 P.2d 922, 925 (Colo. 1987).4 The first question a court would ask is whether the rule pertains to procedure or substance, 3 At the time of Mapp, only six states with judicially-adopted exclusionary rules had considered the reverse silver platter, with five of those states excluding evidence obtained by federal officers. See Berman & Oberst, supra at 548. With regard to the interstate silver platter, five states had considered that doctrine, with mixed holdings on admitting the evidence. See id. at 549; Galler, supra at 459 n.23 4 The “forum state” refers to the state of the prosecution (in this case, Pennsylvania), while the “situs state” refers to the state of the search (in this case, California). In reverse silver platters, “situs” could also refer to the jurisdiction of the federal government, even though the search is taking place within the physical boundaries of the forum state. [J-40-2019] [MO: Baer, J.] - 9 as the trial court did in this instance. See Trial Court Opinion, 10/27/2016, at 4-5 (“Trial Ct. Op.”). In Burge v. State, 443 S.W.2d 720 (Tex. Crim. App. 1969), the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the high court in that state for all criminal matters, concluded that determination of how to apply the exclusionary rule in an interstate silver platter case was a procedural, rather than a substantive, question. Id. at 723. With little analysis, the court simply stated that “in such instances the law of the forum (Texas in this case) governs as to procedure and rules of evidence,” citing three treatises. Id. The court found that “[a]ny other view would lead to endless perplexity.” Id. Courts that have selected other choice of law approaches, see, e.g., People v. Saiken, 275 N.E.2d 381, 383-85 (Ill. 1971), and exclusionary rule approaches, see, e.g., Lucas, 372 N.W.2d at 736-37, have rejected the idea that application of the exclusionary rule is a procedural choice of law matter. And the Burge approach has been much criticized in scholarly commentary. See, e.g., Wayne R. LaFave, 1 Search & Seizure § 1.5(c) (5th ed. 2019) (“The summary disposition in Burge on the ground that the law of the forum controls on matters of procedure has been justly criticized for its imprecision.”); Morrison, supra at 581 (“Although the exclusionary rule in criminal procedure governs the admissibility of evidence, it is neither a rule of procedure nor a rule of evidence for choiceof-law purposes.”); Tullis & Ludlow, supra at 85 (“The approach taken by the Burge court was criticized by one commentator as a ‘mechanical application of the substanceprocedure choice of law.’”) (quoting Note, Conflict of Laws—Criminal Procedure—Law of Forum Applies to Search and Seizure in Accused’s Out-of-State Residence, 23 VAND. L. REV. 425 (1970)). While application of the exclusionary rule fits into the broad category of law called “criminal procedure,” it is not procedural in the same way that rules of criminal or civil [J-40-2019] [MO: Baer, J.] - 10 procedure are. “Given this Court’s recognition that the exclusionary rule is essential to protect the individual rights enumerated in our own Pennsylvania Constitution,” Commonwealth v. Bishop, 217 A.3d 833, 853 (Pa. 2019) (Wecht, J., dissenting), and not essential to protect the individual rights enumerated in our Rules of Criminal Procedure, the designation of the exclusionary rule as merely a rule of procedure is unsatisfactory, as the trial court correctly found, see Trial Ct. Op. at 5 (“This issue is a constitutional law question involving the fundamental right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.”). Other courts, however, have chosen to do a substantive choice of law analysis, whereby a court “adopt[s] one of the multifactor conflict-of-laws approaches that have arisen in the last century (or . . . create[s] a unique multifactor approach that draws on the factors used in more than one of the recently developed approaches),” such as those embodied in the Restatement (First) Conflict of Laws or Restatement (Second) Conflict of Laws. Megan McGlynn, Note, Competing Exclusionary Rules in Multistate Investigations: Resolving Conflicts of State Search-and-Seizure Law, 127 YALE L.J. 406, 435 (2017). For example, the Illinois Supreme Court had to decide whether to apply the Illinois or Indiana exclusionary rules for a prosecution in Illinois court of a crime committed in Illinois, but where the search took place in Indiana and violated Indiana law. Saiken, 275 N.E.2d at 383-84. That court used a “significant relationship” or “center of gravity” test and considered a number of factors: The crime was committed in Illinois; it was being prosecuted there; the defendant was a resident and citizen of Illinois; the great majority of the witnesses, who would testify at the trial, were Illinois residents; Indiana had no vital contact with the crime; and the application of Illinois evidentiary law would not offend the comity of interstate relationships between Indiana and Illinois. [J-40-2019] [MO: Baer, J.] - 11 Id. at 385. Based upon those factors, the court concluded that the Illinois exclusionary rule should apply. Id. at 386. Similarly, the Rhode Island Supreme Court used a fivefactor test to determine whether the Rhode Island Constitution and its exclusionary rule should apply to statements given to the New Hampshire police. State v. Briggs, 756 A.2d 731, 739-40 (R.I. 2000). But there are significant criticisms of the substantive choice of law approach as well. A multi-factor balancing test, drawn from civil choice of law treatises, does not give serious consideration to the exclusionary rule, which is at the heart of the Pennsylvania Constitution’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. See McGlynn, supra at 437 (writing that the civil choice of law factors “give too little weight to the purposes of the exclusionary rule and too much weight to factors irrelevant to the administration of the criminal justice system”); Tullis & Ludlow, supra at 88 (“Many of the factors which are of significance in civil law are of little or no importance to a determination of whether evidence should be excluded because of a violation of a state rule.”). And such a test is both indeterminate and susceptible to reverse engineering. Additionally, the same criticism of treating the exclusionary rule as procedural applies to a substantive choice of law analysis. Just as our Rules of Criminal Procedure are promulgated by this Court, pursuant to authority granted by our Constitution, see PA. CONST. art. V, § 10, determination of which factors to choose in a choice of law analysis is within the purview of this Court, see Griffith v. United Air Lines, Inc., 203 A.2d 796, 80001 (Pa. 1964). In that sense, the Rules of Criminal Procedure and choice of law analyses are subordinate to this Court. A constitution, in contrast, is “a superior, paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means.” Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 177 (1803). This Court is subordinate to this Commonwealth’s Constitution and all that it dictates, including the exclusionary rule. To allow a choice of law analysis to control how [J-40-2019] [MO: Baer, J.] - 12 and when we apply our exclusionary rule would be to elevate this Court above our Constitution, a result that goes against the very nature of our form of government.