Court Opinion

ID: 9747121
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:57:23.294426+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:20.263810
License: Public Domain

POMEROY, Justice
(dissenting).
The Court in its decision today continues its practice, to me unjustified, of reversing a conviction and ordering a new trial because evidence was introduced at trial which had been obtained through a violation by the police of a rule of court (Pa.R.Crim.P. 118), notwithstanding that the violation occurred prior to the time the penalty of exclusion of such evidence was announced by this Court as a measure of police deterrence. See Common*305wealth v. Futch, 447 Pa. 389, 290 A.2d 417 (1972). To apply the exclusionary rule in such cases is to penalize law enforcement officials throughout the Commonwealth for a lack of clairvoyance on their part as to the future pronouncements of this Court made not on constitutional grounds but in the exercise of our supervisory powers. I therefore again dissent. See the dissenting opinion of this writer in Commonwealth v. Johnson, 459 Pa. 171, 327 A.2d 618, 620 (1974) and the opinions therein cited. See also Commonwealth v. Wilson, —— Pa.-,-n. 6, 329 A.2d 881, 884 n. 6 (1974) (Opinion in support of affirmance).
JONES, C. J., and EAGEN, J., join in this opinion.