Court Opinion

ID: 9747786
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:35:44.338798+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:27.292763
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Chief Justice Bell:
This defendant was tried and convicted of burglary, larceny and receiving stolen goods. For approximately a century the silence of a defendant (or an accused) when accused of a crime or of participation in a crime amounted to a “tacit admission,” and such testimony was admissible in evidence as proof of an implied acquiescence on the part of the defendant (or the accused) in the truth of the criminal charges or accusations made against him.
The Supreme Court of the United States, merely by a footnote in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 468 (June 13, 1966) has apparently overruled this important and long established law. However, Johnson v. New Jersey, 384 U.S. 719, specifically decided that Miranda v. Arizona was not to he applied retroactively, and this Court so held in Commonwealth ex rel. Shadd v. Myers, 423 Pa. 82, 85, 223 A. 2d 296, 298.
If the Supreme Court intends to overrule a law which has been established for approximately one hundred years, it would remove all doubt if the Court specifically overruled in the body of its Opinion all its prior contrary Opinions.
For this reason, I dissent and would affirm the judgment of sentence.