Court Opinion

ID: 9652912
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:35:03.000391+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:55.062504
License: Public Domain

Justice BAER,
concurring.
I join the majority’s holding that the exclusionary rule does not apply to a civil disciplinary proceeding of the Pennsylvania State Board of Dentistry. I write separately, however, to emphasize that this holding generally has no applicability to criminal proceedings and should not be interpreted as equating federal exclusionary rule jurisprudence with that concerning the exclusionary rule, as viewed under the Pennsylvania Constitution.
Based primarily on the United States Supreme Court decisions in Pennsylvania Board of Probation & Parole v. Scott, 524 U.S. 357, 118 S.Ct. 2014, 141 L.Ed.2d 344 (1998), and United States v. Janis, 428 U.S. 433, 96 S.Ct. 3021, 49 L.Ed.2d 1046 (1976), the majority opinion engages in a sound federal analysis regarding why the exclusionary rule does not apply to the particular civil disciplinary proceeding at issue.1 Employing the balancing test set forth in Janis, the majority weighs the potential deterrent effect of excluding the evidence, which Appellant alleges was obtained illegally, against the societal costs that would arise from doing so in this medical license suspension proceeding. The majority persuasively concludes that, under such circumstances, the societal cost of excluding the evidence in question outweighs any deterrent effect that might arise from its exclusion. Thus, the exclusionary rule does not apply.
This paradigm, however, has no application to criminal proceedings, as is demonstrated by the fact that the cases cited by the majority, both federal and state, all involved civil administrative actions. See Scott, supra (parole revocation hearing); Janis, supra (federal civil tax proceedings); Pennsylvania Department of Transportation v. Wysocki, 517 Pa. *129175, 535 A.2d 77 (1987) (driver’s license suspension proceeding), Kyte v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation & Parole, 680 A.2d 14 (Pa.Cmwlth.1996) (parole revocation hearing); Sertik v. School District of Pittsburgh, 136 Pa.Cmwlth. 594, 584 A.2d 390 (1990) (board of school directors termination hearing); Pennsylvania Social Services Union v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation & Parole, 96 Pa.Cmwlth. 461, 508 A.2d 360 (1986) (labor arbitration); DeShields v. Chester Upland School District, 95 Pa.Cmwlth. 414, 505 A.2d 1080 (1986) (school board termination hearing); Kleschick v. Civil Service Commission of Philadelphia, 27 Pa.Cmwlth. 125, 365 A.2d 700 (1976) (proceeding before the Civil Service Commission).
Contrary to the balancing of interests that occurs in determining the application of the exclusionary rule in civil administrative proceedings like the instant case, the application of the rule in the criminal setting is entrenched in our common law and remains unaffected by the Court’s decision herein. Regarding the rule’s utility in the criminal realm, this Court declared in the seminal case of Commonwealth v. Edmunds, 526 Pa. 374, 586 A.2d 887 (1991):
Although the exclusionary rule may place a duty of thoroughness and care upon police officers and district justices in this Commonwealth, in order to safeguard the rights of citizens under Article I, Section 8, [of the Pennsylvania Constitution] that is a small price to pay, we believe, for a democracy.
Id. at 906.
In addition to the exclusionary rule’s universal application in criminal settings,21 note that the majority’s analysis specifical*130ly has no application to a claim seeking the exclusion of evidence under our Constitution’s counterpart to the Fourth Amendment, Article I, Section 8, which has been interpreted as affirmatively protecting our citizens’ right to privacy as well as curtailing police misconduct. The majority properly relies upon the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Janis, and this Court’s decision in Wysocki, for the proposition that the “prime purpose” of the exclusionary rule in Fourth Amendment situations is to deter unlawful police conduct. Op. at 117, 960 A.2d at 433. The same cannot be said, however, for claims seeking to apply the exclusionary rule under Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.
In Edmunds, supra, we explained that the history of Article I, Section 8 indicates that the purpose underlying the exclusionary rule in this Commonwealth is quite distinct from the purpose underlying the exclusionary rule under the Fourth Amendment.3 Rather than the sole purpose being to deter *131police misconduct, we have held 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.” Id. at 889.
While I recognize that Appellant has not raised a claim under the Pennsylvania Constitution, I set forth my observations solely to place on the record my strong opposition to any future attempt to thwart Pennsylvanians’ sacred civil liberties by applying the instant holding to circumstances that lay outside the parameters in which in this case was decided. I believe the majority opinion should be viewed for what it is—a reasoned determination that the exclusionary rule does not apply to a civil disciplinary proceeding of the Pennsylvania State Board of Dentistry.

. The majority further cites Commonwealth Court cases where the Janis balancing test has been employed to determine whether the exclusionary rule applies to particular civil proceedings.

. The import of this statement regarding universal application of the exclusionary rule in the criminal setting is not meant to suggest the applicability of the exclusionary rule to any nuanced exception referenced by the Chief Justice in his concurring opinion. Rather, I authored this concurring opinion to make absolutely clear my position that we should guard against the erosion of one of society's most cherished of freedoms—the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The only effective means of protecting such right in the realm of criminal law is to preserve the remedy which chills improper conduct on the part of police, i.e., the application of the exclusionary rule. While I readily acknowledge that it is unfortunate when a *130lawbreaker cannot be brought to justice due to the applicability of the exclusionary rule, as noted in Edmunds, this is a costly, but worthwhile price to pay to preserve liberty and freedom for the vast majority of Americans who will never engage in criminal conduct.

. To be precise, tire Court was looking to the histoiy of the purpose underlying the exclusionary rule, i.e., the right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures, and not the history of the exclusionary rule itself, which became applicable to the slates in 1961 pursuant to the United States Supreme Court's decision in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961) (holding that the exclusionary rule is applicable to state criminal trials because the Fourth Amendment's right of privacy has been declared enforceable against the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment).
In his concurring opinion, the Chief Justice faults the historical analysis of Article I, Section 8, as set forth in Edmunds, on the ground that it failed to appreciate the fact that, prior to Mapp, Pennsylvania courts did not recognize the exclusionary rule as an available remedy under Article I, Section 8. Such view, however, does not diminish the innumerable occasions in which Pennsylvania courts have applied the exclusionary rule to protect against unreasonable searches and seizures since Mapp was decided. Moreover, similar to the High Court’s adoption of the exclusionary rule in Mapp as the remedy to preserve the constitutional right against unreasonable searches, there are other examples of judicially-created safeguards or remedies, which were adopted years after the constitutional right they protect was recognized. For example, the requirement of reading a defendant his rights pursuant to Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 *131id 966), was found to be essential to assure that a defendant was accorded his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. As with the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, Miranda rights are protected through the exclusionary rule. Also, the appointment of counsel, as required by Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963), was found to be essential to protect the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The fact that these judicially-created safeguards or remedies did not exist at the time the constitutional rights they protect were recognized does not diminish their significance, but rather emphasizes it. As these principles form the bedrock of our constitutional jurisprudence, I respectfully suggest that it would be unwise and, indeed, dangerous to advocate erosion of the exclusionary rule when applied in "typical” criminal cases.