Court Opinion

ID: 9752322
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 17:58:03.451246+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:14.069920
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Justice
(dissenting).
The statement appellant gave the police was clearly a product of a violation of Pa.R.Crim.P. 118 (now 130) and was therefore inadmissible, Commonwealth v. Futch, 447 Pa. 389, 290 A.2d 417 (1972). Because the Com*596monwealth was permitted to use this statement, appellant is entitled to a new trial.
Appellant was arrested at 2:30 a. m., on November 23, 1970. The police dallied for almost 24 hours while appellant was confined before they brought appellant before a magistrate for preliminary arraignment. Meanwhile, they repeatedly sought to obtain a statement from him. At about 4:30 a. m., November 23, their efforts bore fruit when appellant admitted he had been in the victim’s apartment building on the night of the murder. This statement was used at trial to refute appellant’s alibi defense. The claim was properly preserved for appellate review.
The Commonwealth does not deny that the delay between arrest and the time at which appellant made his statement was unnecessary. Instead, it argues that there was no causal connection between the delay and the statement and therefore that the statement is not inadmissible under Futch.
While it is true that a defendant must show “a nexus between the delay and the challenged evidence,” Commonwealth v. Tingle, 451 Pa. 241, 244, 301 A.2d 701, 703 (1973), we have repeatedly held that this requirement is met unless the evidence obtained during the unnecessary delay bore “no reasonable relationship to the delay whatsoever.” Futch, supra at 394, 290 A.2d at 419. See, e. g., Commonwealth v. Cullison, 461 Pa. 301, 336 A.2d 296 (1975); Commonwealth v. Barilak, 460 Pa. 449, 333 A.2d 859 (1975); Tingle, supra. When it is established that an accused has given a statement while in custody during an unnecessary delay between arrest and arraignment, it is the Commonwealth’s responsibility to prove that the statement was a product of circumstances other than the delay.
Here the police used the delay as an opportunity to repeatedly attempt to extract a confession. They were eventually rewarded with a statement that was instru*597mental in rebutting appellant’s alibi defense. Surely this is not a case where the evidence bore no reasonable relation to the delay whatsoever. It must be concluded, that the admission of the statement at trial was reversible error and I therefore dissent.
MANDERINO, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.