Court Opinion

ID: 9694505
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 17:44:31.133067+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:02.538190
License: Public Domain

McDERMOTT, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. The Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Control Act is intended to protect against the discovery of private conversations through telephone taps without the prior showing of probable cause and futility of other investigative methods. 18 Pa.C.S. § 5710. It also provides for the suppression of evidence of private conversations obtained through a tap if the requirements annunciated by the legislature are not met. Majority Op. at p. 206. However, neither the Act nor Article 1 § 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution offers protection to those speakers who are aware that their conversations are being intercepted by persons other than the intended recipients, since, under such circumstances, there can be no reasonable expectation of privacy.
Here, the appellant knew that Ms. Kulick’s phone was tapped, yet he knowingly committed and risked conviction of the crime for which he was ultimately charged to avoid some greater harm. He cannot seek the suppression of words he knew others would hear because he suffered no violation of his constitutional rights. Furthermore, he has no standing to invoke the protection of suppression for any constitutional violation towards Ms. Kulick. Therefore, suppression is not constitutionally mandated.
Neither would suppression further the purposes of the Act. The post seizure requirement of listing names and crimes not initially targeted in a final report to be approved *208by a court prior to disclosure is intended to protect against the use of general warrants and the infringement of privacy interests. Here, there was a failure to include the appellant’s name and crime in the final report and to receive permission from a court for the disclosure of the evidence prior to its disclosure in the appellant’s preliminary hearing. Nevertheless, prior to appellant’s trial, a Superior Court Judge approved the district attorney’s application to utilize appellant’s recorded conversations, thereby ensuring the evidence was not procured as the result of a general warrant. Furthermore, as discussed above, the appellant’s privacy rights were not violated.
Therefore, I would affirm the appellant’s conviction.