Court Opinion

ID: 9764416
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:21:13.139574+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:56.349394
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. At trial, the most important evidence against appellant was a statement he made to police. Appellant now asserts that his counsel was ineffective for failing to *282move to suppress the statement as a product of an illegal arrest and of illegally seized evidence.
Appellant asserts that he confessed while in custody only after police showed him a pair of shorts which had been illegally seized. The Commonwealth admits that the shorts were seized upon a search warrant issued without probable cause, but contends that appellant was not shown the shorts before he confessed. The Commonwealth also contends the arrest itself was made with probable cause because appellant was one of two men with the victim the last time she was seen alive, two days before the body was discovered.
The majority suggests that challenging the statement as the fruit of an illegal arrest and the fruit of the seizure of the shorts would have been futile because there was some evidence indicating the arrest was based on probable cause and the shorts did not induce the confession. The majority concludes counsel was not ineffective for failing to raise these issues, citing Commonwealth v. Rice, 456 Pa. 90, 318 A.2d 705 (1974).
However, appellant’s trial attorney knew that appellant would testify that the shorts did in fact induce him to make the statement. This testimony, if believed, would require suppression of the statement. Similarly, trial counsel knew that the evidence supporting the arrest was sufficiently weak that a reasonable factfinder could have found probable cause to arrest lacking.
I am unable to conclude that raising these issues at the suppression hearing would have been futile; hence counsel may not be excused for failure to do so. Further, I see no reasonable strategic basis on which counsel could have decided to forego the opportunity to have the probable cause for appellant’s arrest and the connection between the seizure of the shorts and the statement tested by an impartial factfinder, particularly in view of the damning nature of the statement and its importance to the case.
I would therefore reverse the decision of the Post Conviction Hearing court and remand so that appellant may raise these issues at a suppression hearing.