Court Opinion

ID: 9652911
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:35:02.994949+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:55.060238
License: Public Domain

Chief Justice CASTILLE,
concurring.
I join the learned Majority Opinion in its entirety. I write to address the scope of the exclusionary rule, and Mr. Justice Baer’s Concurrence concerning Pennsylvania state constitutional analysis.
Respectfully, the governing law concerning the scope of the exclusionary rule’s application is nuanced. Thus, as a Fourth Amendment matter, the U.S. Supreme Court has applied the exclusionary rule in civil proceedings that are merely “quasi-criminal,” such as forfeiture proceedings. See One 1958 Plymouth Sedan v. Pennsylvania,, 380 U.S. 693, 700, 702, 85 S.Ct. 1246, 14 L.Ed.2d 170 (1965) (exclusionary rule applies in forfeiture proceedings, which are quasi-criminal in character *124because, like a criminal proceeding, the purpose is “to penalize for the commission of an offense against the law”). On the other hand, there are a number of criminal (or quasi-criminal) proceedings or circumstances in which the exclusionary rule does not apply. For example, exclusion is not an available remedy for Fourth Amendment claims raised in collateral review proceedings, Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 494-95, 96 S.Ct. 3037, 49 L.Ed.2d 1067 (1976), or at parole board hearings, Pa. Bd. of Prob. & Parole v. Scott, 524 U.S. 357, 369, 118 S.Ct. 2014, 141 L.Ed.2d 344 (1998). Further, in both the Fourth Amendment and Fifth Amendment contexts, otherwise excludable evidence may be introduced for impeachment purposes. See Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 307, 105 S.Ct. 1285, 84 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985) (“Despite the fact that patently voluntary statements taken in violation of [Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966)] must be excluded from the prosecution’s case, the presumption of coercion does not bar their use for impeachment purposes on cross-examination.”); Oregon v. Hass, 420 U.S. 714, 722, 95 S.Ct. 1215, 43 L.Ed.2d 570 (1975) (unlawfully obtained statement admissible solely for impeachment purposes when defendant testifies contrary to statement, knowing that such information had been ruled inadmissible for prosecution’s case-in-chief); Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222, 225-26, 91 S.Ct. 643, 28 L.Ed.2d 1 (1971) (unlawfully obtained statement inadmissible against defendant in prosecution’s case-in-chief may be admissible for impeachment, purposes to attack defendant’s credibility if statement’s trustworthiness satisfies legal standards); Walder v. United States, 347 U.S. 62, 74 S.Ct. 354, 98 L.Ed. 503 (1954) (defendant’s assertion on direct examination that he never possessed any narcotics opened door, for purpose of attacking his credibility, to evidence that heroin had previously been unlawfully seized from him).
I also write to address Justice Baer’s discussion of the application of the exclusionary role under Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. As the Majority makes clear, the claim in this case is raised exclusively under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, and therefore no sepa*125rate and distinct Pennsylvania constitutional argument is made. In his Concurring Opinion, Justice Baer notes that the result might be different under this Court’s jurisprudence concerning the exclusionary rule as applied under the aegis of the Pennsylvania Constitution. Quoting Commonwealth v. Edmunds, 526 Pa. 374, 586 A.2d 887 (1991), Justice Baer states that, unlike the Fourth Amendment, which has been characterized as deterrence-based, the history of Article I, Section 8 indicates that “the exclusionary rule in Pennsylvania has consistently served to bolster the twin aims of Article I, Section 8; to-wit, the safeguarding of privacy and the fundamental requirement that warrants shall only be issued upon probable cause.” Concurring Op. at 441 (quoting Edmunds, 586 A.2d at 899). Respectfully, I believe the existing jurisprudence is more nuanced.
Edmunds is not the last word on the history of Article I, Section 8, and particularly with respect to the underpinnings of the exclusionary rule as a state constitutional remedy. As this Court has very recently noted, Edmunds overlooked the indisputable historical fact that “[t]he exclusionary rule itself [ ] was not an organic part of Article I, Section 8” but was rather “a federal imposition, made applicable against the states for Fourth Amendment purposes by [Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961)].” Commonwealth v. Russo, 594 Pa. 119, 934 A.2d 1199, 1207 (2007); see also Commonwealth v. Glass, 562 Pa. 187, 754 A.2d 655, 662 n. 11 (2000) (“The philosophical divergence traced in Edmunds concerned the purposes of the exclusionary rule originally commanded by Mapp: the U.S. Supreme Court has since come to focus on deterrence of police misconduct, while the more recent Article I, § 8, cases from this Court have focused on the potentiality of the rule, once embraced by us, to safeguard privacy and ensure that warrants are issued only upon probable cause.”). The Edmunds Court considered the purpose of Article I, Section 8 and whether it had been violated, but declined to conduct a separate analysis of whether the exclusionary rule’s remedy was appropriate. Cf. Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 223, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d *126527 (1988) (whether exclusionary rule’s remedy is appropriate in particular context is separate issue from question of whether constitutional rights of party seeking to invoke rule were violated by police conduct).
More importantly, Edmunds failed to appreciate (having adopted a new paradigm, the point was most likely not briefed to the Court) that, prior to Mapp, Pennsylvania courts had repeatedly rejected the notion that the exclusionary rule (a federal Fourth Amendment remedy in existence since the High Court’s 1914 decision in Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 34 S.Ct. 341, 58 L.Ed. 652 (1914)) was an available remedy under Article I, Section 8. Russo, 934 A.2d at 1207. As a matter of state constitutional law, Pennsylvania courts instead “always followed ‘the fundamental principle of the common law that the admissibility of evidence is not affected by the illegality of the means, by which it was obtained.’ ” Id. (citing Commonwealth v. Chaitt, 380 Pa. 532, 112 A.2d 379, 381 & n. 1 (1955); Commonwealth v. Agoston, 364 Pa. 464, 72 A.2d 575, 585 (1950); Commonwealth v. Hunsinger, 290 Pa. 185, 138 A. 683 (1927); Commonwealth v. Dabbierio, 290 Pa. 174, 138 A. 679, 681 (1927); Commonwealth v. Montanero, 173 Pa.Super. 133, 96 A.2d 178 (1953); Commonwealth v. Dugan, 143 Pa.Super. 383, 18 A.2d 84 (1941)). Thus, “there is no relevant history to support a broader state constitutional interpretation [of Article I, Section 8] because there was no point in seeking such an interpretation, at least in a criminal case, since there was no exclusionary remedy available.” Id.1 And, of necessity, this history applies to the proper scope of the exclusionary rule.
To be sure, Russo recognized that there is a substantial post -Mapp body of Pennsylvania cases, too:
*127... Pennsylvania courts, having become familiar by necessity with the command and operation of the federal exclusionary rule, began to entertain equivalent claims under the guise of Article I, Section 8. The progression was not consciously announced or explained, and indeed, in many instances, such disclosure was unimportant because this Court, while citing both the Fourth Amendment and Article I, Section 8, employed a coterminous approach. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Bosurgi, 411 Pa. 56, 190 A.2d 304 (1963); Commonwealth v. Eazer, 455 Pa. 320, 312 A.2d 398 (1973); Commonwealth v. White, 459 Pa. 84, 327 A.2d 40 (1974); Commonwealth v. Brooks, 468 Pa. 547, 364 A.2d 652 (1976); Commonwealth v. Holzer, 480 Pa. 93, 389 A.2d 101 (1978). Eventually, however, exclusionary decisions arose that were rendered exclusively under Article I, Section 8, and other decisions were so rendered while recognizing that the course taken represented a break from U.S. Supreme Court authority, and an embrace of a greater protection of privacy rights than that which was commanded under the Fourth Amendment and Mapp. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. DeJohn, 486 Pa. 32, 403 A.2d 1283 (1979); Commonwealth v. Sell, 504 Pa. 46, 470 A.2d 457 (1983); Edmunds, supra. Even this development was not entirely clear, for no decision of this Court has squarely purported to examine and disapprove of the long and unbroken line of pre-Mapp decisions holding that, far from recognizing greater exclusionary-rule-related privacy rights, Article I, Section 8 contained no exclusionary remedy whatsoever.
Id. at 1207-08.
The point is that the historical examination in Russo supplements what can only be regarded as an incomplete historical analysis in Edmunds, which cautions greater precision in the future. The fact that Article I, Section 8 rather recently has been construed as embracing twin aims, does not mean that the Pennsylvania exclusionary rule, which is not an organic part of Article I, Section 8, can accurately be construed as commanding a broader application than the federal exclusionary rule from which it directly, and very recently, descended. *128Flexibility, including the flexibility to recognize police good faith and other exceptions to the exclusionary rule’s reach, is not foreclosed.

. Justice Baer responds that coming to terms with the deficiencies in Edmunds does not diminish the "innumerable occasions” where Pennsylvania courts have applied the exclusionary rule since Mapp was decided. Concurring Op. at 130 n. 3, 960 A.2d at 441 n. 3. But the fact that Pennsylvania courts dutifully followed the federal command does not prove the legitimacy of the eventual Edmunds divergence. That divergence was explained, in part, by a historical analysis of Article I, Section 8. Obviously, it remains significant that Edmunds misapprehended the most relevant history.