Court Opinion

ID: 9641438
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:31:58.262397+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:37.603731
License: Public Domain

POMEROY, Justice,
dissenting.
It would perhaps suffice in this case merely to repeat my long-held views (1) that this Court’s rules regarding waivers of Miranda rights by juveniles are “unwise, unnecessary, and unwarranted,” 1 and (2) that the application of these rules to *562this arrest and interrogation, occurring as they did before this doctrine had evolved2 is particularly without justification, since the exclusion of appellant’s statement “is not a response to police activity in disregard of a rule of law which they knew or should have known . . .”3 This case, however, warrants some additional discussion, because of the majority’s holding that the fact that before he made his inculpatory statement appellant stated twice that he did not want his father to be present is not evidence of a knowing and intelligent waiver, but rather only of appellant’s “immaturity.”
The majority now states that the opportunity to consult with an interested adult is not enough; in addition, it must be shown that there was a “meaningful consultation” between the juvenile and an adult who is aware of the juvenile’s rights before a valid waiver can be said to have taken place. Opinion of the Court, ante at 557.4 Thus the Court *563has made explicit what prior cases had strongly implied.5 Although the Court’s conceptual basis is now consistent, today’s decision, like those which have preceded it, fails to explain the basis for the doctrine’s central assumption, viz., that all persons under the age of eighteen must be deemed incapable of ever making on their own the decision of whether to talk to the police in a custodial setting. For my own part, “I adhere to the view that some minors in some circumstances are capable of effectively waiving their constitutional rights without the advice of any adult and that no purpose is served by a per se rule which excludes from evidence a confession made by any juvenile whether or not the traditional test of voluntariness would mandate such exclusion.”6 Hence this dissent.
EAGEN, C. J., and LARSEN, J., join in this dissenting opinion.

. Commonwealth v. Chaney, 465 Pa. 407, 409, 350 A.2d 829 (1975) (Pomeroy, J., dissenting, joined by Jones, C. J., and Eagen, J.). See also, e. g., Commonwealth v. Smith, 472 Pa. 492, 506, 372 A.2d 797, 804 (1977) (Pomeroy, J., dissenting, joined by Eagen, C. J.); Commonwealth v. Webster, 466 Pa. 314, 329-31, 353 A.2d 372 (1975) *562(Pomeroy, J., dissenting); Commonwealth v. Stanton, 466 Pa. 143, 151, 351 A.2d 663, 667 (1976) (Pomeroy, J., dissenting); Commonwealth v. Starkes, 461 Pa. 178, 190, 335 A.2d 698 (1975) (Eagen, J., dissenting, joined by Jones, C. J., and Pomeroy, J.).

. See Commonwealth v. Roane, 459 Pa. 389, 329 A.2d 286 (1974); Commonwealth v. Starkes, supra note 1; Commonwealth v. McCutchen, 463 Pa. 90, 343 A.2d 669 (1975).

. Commonwealth v. Harvell, 473 Pa. 418, 423, 374 A.2d 1282, 1285 (1977) (Pomeroy, J., dissenting, joined by Eagen, C. J.). See also, e. g., Commonwealth v. Lawson, 478 Pa. 200, 207, 386 A.2d 509, 512 (1978) (Pomeroy, J., dissenting, joined by Eagen, C. J.); Commonwealth v. Walker, 477 Pa. 370, 377, 383 A.2d 1253, 1256 (1978) (Pomeroy, J., dissenting, joined by Eagen, C. J., and Larsen, J.); Commonwealth v. Lee, 475 Pa. 314, 316, 380 A.2d 371 (1977) (Pomeroy, J., dissenting, joined by Eagen, C. J.); Commonwealth v. Graver, 473 Pa. 473, 477, 375 A.2d 339, 340 (Pomeroy, J., dissenting); Commonwealth v. Gaskins, 471 Pa. 238, 242, 369 A.2d 1285, 1287 (1977) (Pomeroy, J., dissenting, joined by Jones, C. J., and Eagen, J.); Commonwealth v. Lee, 470 Pa. 401, 406, 368 A.2d 690, 693 (1977) (Pomeroy, J., dissenting, joined by Jones, C. J., and Eagen, J.).

. Cf. Commonwealth v. Smith, supra note 1, 472 Pa. at 505-06, 372 A.2d at 803-04 (Manderino, J., concurring). The new rule may still be difficult to apply, for how is one to know that the mandated consultation has in fact been “meaningful”?

. See, e. g., Commonwealth v. Starkes, supra note 1 (mother advises son to “tell the truth;” waiver found invalid); Commonwealth v. Smith, supra note 1. Apparently, today’s holding is the Court’s answer to the question which I ventured to put in my dissent in Smith, supra note 1, viz., whether “the minor could effectively reject an opportunity [to consult with a concerned adult], which the majority has invested with due process significance, when by hypothesis he is unable to make a valid waiver of his other constitutional rights regarding interrogation without the guidance of a concerned adult.” 472 Pa. at 508 n.4, 372 A.2d at 805 n.4.

. Commonwealth v. Smith, supra note 1, 472 Pa. at 509, 372 A.2d at 805 (emphasis in the original).