Court Opinion

ID: 9710874
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:19:28.875705+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:00.707286
License: Public Domain

Wilkins, J.
(concurring). I agree that an order may be lawfully issued to compel the appointment of an alternate keeper to deliver the previously subpoenaed records to the grand jury. The plurality opinion just barely hints, however, at some of the substantial issues underlying such an order and at the possibility that such an order will have no practical effect.
There may well be a need for a showing of probable cause to seize the records. The court may not be justified in simply directing a warrantless search for them. The keeper thus may need a search warrant issued on probable cause to believe that, more likely than not, the records contain evidence concerning the commission of a crime. The witnesses in turn may or may not have standing to object to any unlawful seizure of particular records.
Certainly the witnesses have no obligation to point to or to identify the records. Such conduct could be testimonial and self-incriminatory. The person appointed as alternate keeper, therefore, may have no knowledge of where to look for the records or how to gain access to them. Although I disagree with the dissent’s statement that the plurality opinion embraces a fiction, an order compelling the appointment of an alternate keeper of the records may be illusory because it will serve no worthwhile purpose of the Commonwealth.