Court Opinion

ID: 9711737
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:38:03.032417+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:07.167623
License: Public Domain

POPOVICH, Judge,
concurring:
While I join the majority’s conclusion that John Hall was not serving as an agent of the Commonwealth when he elicited appellant’s “jailhouse confession” and conveyed it to the authorities, I believe this conclusion resolves the suppression issue and further discussion is unnecessary. See Commonwealth v. Rhoades, 364 Pa.Super. 54, 527 A.2d 148 (1987), allocatur denied, 521 Pa. 611, 557 A.2d 343 (1989). Accordingly, I believe the majority’s citation to Illinois v. Perkins, — U.S. -, 110 S.Ct. 2394, 110 L.Ed.2d 243 (1990), is misleading under these facts.
Resolving both the Fifth and Sixth Amendment arguments, the majority found persuasive: (1) that John Hall, appellant’s prison mate, was not acting at the behest of the police when he obtained appellant’s “jailhouse confession;” and (2) that he was not promised favorable treatment for giving testimony against appellant. To that, I will add two additional observations. First, the record indicates that John Hall initiated communications with the District Attorney’s office vis a vis a letter indicating that he wished to speak with the person handling appellant’s prosecution. (N.T. suppression hearing of September 18, 1987, at 29). Second, nothing can be gleaned from the record to conclude that Hall was placed strategically in the prison so as to elicit a confession. In fact, Hall’s cell was on a different tier in the prison. (N.T. 392-95, 400-03). As such, I agree with the majority’s conclusion that the informant’s legal status was no different than any other prisoner who may have elicited defendant’s “jailhouse confession.”
*638With respect to both the Fifth and Sixth Amendment arguments, the fact that the informant was acting on his own initiative is dispositive. See Rhoades, 527 A.2d 148. We need not inquire into the nuances of the differing standards of “interrogation” and “deliberate elicitation” under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, since instantly we do not have the “state action” necessary to invoke the protections of either amendment. Compare United States v. Henry, 447 U.S. 264, 100 S.Ct. 2183, 65 L.Ed.2d 115 (1980) (deliberate elicitation found where the State intentionally creates a situation likely to induce defendant to make incriminating statements), with, Maine v. Moulton, 474 U.S. 159, 106 S.Ct. 477, 88 L.Ed.2d 481 (1985) (Sixth Amendment not violated when, by luck or happenstance the State obtains incriminating statements), United States v. Hicks, 798 F.2d 446 (11th Cir.1986), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 1035, 107 S.Ct. 886, 93 L.Ed.2d 839 (1987) (despite fact that informant worked as a government informant in the past, no Sixth Amendment problem where cellmate informant was not deliberately planted to elicit confession), and, Commonwealth v. Rhoades, supra 364 Pa.Super. at 57, 527 A.2d at 150 (following Hicks).
Once we conclude that Hall was not serving as an agent for the Commonwealth, our analysis should end. The majority’s citation to Perkins is misleading in that it runs counter to our conclusion that the informant’s legal status was no different from any other prisoner acting on his or her own initiative. We must remember that Perkins stands for the narrow proposition that “an undercover law enforcement officer posing as a fellow inmate need not give Miranda warnings to an incarcerated suspect before asking questions that may elicit an incriminating response.” Perkins, 110 S.Ct. at 2399 (emphasis added). Consequently, our conclusion that Hall was not serving as an agent for the Commonwealth forecloses all need to reach the question of whether a confession to an undercover state agent invokes the protections of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. Ac*639cordingly, to the extent the majority embraces the Perkins doctrine under these facts, I concur only in finding that the confession was competent evidence under the theory that Hall was not serving as an agent for the Commonwealth.