Court Opinion

ID: 9710163
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:03:38.909074+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:54.813513
License: Public Domain

NIGRO, Justice,
concurring.
While I agree with Mr. Justice Castille’s Majority Opinion that Appellant James Agnew, Jr. did not have a reasonable expectation of non-interception of his conversations under the circumstances of this case, I write separately to express my disagreement with the rationale employed by the Majority to reach that conclusion.
As the Majority notes, this Court discussed the Wiretap Act’s ‘expectation of non-interception’ requirement in Commonwealth v. Brion, 539 Pa. 256, 260, 652 A.2d 287, 288 (1994).1 In Brion, this Court stated that the Act requires that “a person uttering an oral communication must have a specific expectation that the contents of a discussion will not be electronically recorded. However, this expectation must be *43justifiable under the existing circumstances. Implicit in any discussion of an expectation that a communication will not be recorded, is a discussion of the right to privacy.” Id. at 260, 652 A.2d at 288. While I fully agree that the existence of a reasonable expectation of privacy is an important consideration in the total analysis of whether or not a reasonable expectation of non-interception existed, I do not agree with the Majority’s sweeping conclusion that “one cannot have an expectation of non-interception absent a finding of a reasonable expectation of privacy.” Neither Brion or Commonwealth v. Henlen, 522 Pa. 514, 564 A.2d 905, 905 (1989), which the Majority also cites, stand for the proposition that a lack of an expectation of privacy necessarily forecloses a finding of an expectation of non-interception, i.e. an expectation that words will not be electronically seized and carried away.
Contrary to the Majority’s position, I believe that the expectation of non-interception and the expectation of privacy involve two distinct inquiries. Thus, a speaker, under certain circumstances, may possess a reasonable expectation of non-interception even in the absence of a reasonable expectation of privacy. As stated by the Superior Court in Commonwealth v. McIvor:
Generally, where there is an expectation of privacy there is also an expectation of non-interception. Such is not always the case, however. For instance, ... if one is speaking with the town gossip at a public swimming pool under circumstances insuring that the gossip is not wearing a body wire, one’s expectation of non-interception is very high, but the expectation of privacy is very low. Thus, an expectation of privacy does not always carry a concomitant expectation of non-interception, and vice versa. For purposes of violation of the Wiretap Act, while we consider the expectation of privacy as a factor, it cannot be the determining factor in our analysis.
Commonwealth v. McIvor, 448 Pa.Super. 98, 104-05, 670 A.2d 697, 700 (1996) (stopped motorist, while possessing no expectation of privacy in communications to police officer, possessed justifiable expectation under the circumstances that his words would not be electronically seized and carried away by officer).
*44In the instant case, I agree with the Majority that Appellant did not possess a reasonable expectation of privacy in his conversations, which could easily have been overheard both inside and outside the public squadroom in which they were spoken. However, unlike the Majority, I do not believe that this lack of a reasonable expectation of privacy automatically ends the inquiry of whether a reasonable expectation of non-interception may have existed. Under the circumstances of this case, however, I find that Appellant also could not have a reasonable expectation that his conversations would not be subject to interception. Given that Appellant did not take any steps to protect his conversations made in a public squadroom, which contained four telephones with an intercom system that could be open at any time,2 I do not believe that Appellant can now legitimately claim that he had a justifiable expectation that his words would not be electronically seized and carried away.
FLAHERTY, C.J., joins in this concurring opinion.

. Brion involved the issue of whether Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution requires the police to first obtain a judicial determination of probable cause before engaging in a unilaterally consensual interception of oral communications in a suspect's home pursuant to § 5704(2)(ii) of the Wiretap Act. Here, the issue does not involve a constitutional question but rather, whether Appellee Dupler violated § 5725(a) of the Wiretap Act by intercepting any oral communications made by Appellant in a public squadroom.

. Appellant testified that he knew there was an intercom system in the phone system which allowed someone to speak and be heard from remote locations and that the intercom system was used routinely through the course of the day. (N.T. at 63-64).