Court Opinion

ID: 9707768
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 02:20:54.3046+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:37.956913
License: Public Domain

BECK, Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
I agree with the majority that Slaton’s cross-appeal must be quashed. A suppression court’s denial or partial denial of a motion to suppress evidence is not appealable by the defendant as a final order. I would note, however, that under appropriate circumstances a defendant may seek an interlocutory appeal by permission from the denial or partial denial of a suppression motion. See 42 Pa.Cons.Stat. Ann. § 702(b) (Purdon 1981); Pa.R.App.P. 1311.
I dissent from that portion of the majority’s opinion which holds that agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration violated the defendant’s rights in December, 1983 when they removed forged prescription slips from his pharmacy. I do not agree that in order to conduct a valid consent search of a pharmacist’s records, DEA agents must inform the pharmacist that he is the focus of an investigation.
*346The majority relies upon the statutory requirement that a drug enforcement officer state his purpose before conducting an inspection of a pharmacy. Pa.Stat.Ann. tit. 35, § 780-124(b)(2) (Purdon 1977). I agree with Judge Kelly that the DEA agents fully complied with this requirement when they notified Slaton that they wished to look through his records for evidence of forged prescriptions. See op. at 1357-1358 (Kelly, J., concurring and dissenting).
The majority also suggests that the consent search was constitutionally deficient since the DEA agents allowed Slaton to proceed under the false assumption that he was not suspected of criminal wrongdoing. In support of this conclusion, the majority cites Commonwealth v. Wright, 411 Pa. 81, 190 A.2d 709 (1963) and Commonwealth v. Poteete, 274 Pa.Super. 490, 418 A.2d 513 (1980). Wright and Poteete are distinguishable; those cases suppressed evidence where a uniformed police officer misled a home owner in order to to gain entry to a private residence. The instant case does not involve a search of a private home — an area that has traditionally received an especially high level of protection under the fourth amendment. Moreover, it is important to remember that the DEA agents did not lie to Slaton, or employ any elaborate ruse that was designed to mislead him. This case does not involve any significant misconduct by government agents. Slaton’s sole complaint concerning the conduct of the agents is that they did not disclose that he was one of the targets of their investigation.
As former President Judge Spaeth has noted, “[t]he problem of defining the limits to be set on the use of police deception is one of the most difficult problems of the criminal law.” Commonwealth v. Morrison, 275 Pa.Super. 454, 471, 418 A.2d 1378, 1386 (1980) (en banc) (Spaeth, J., concurring), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1080, 101 S.Ct. 863, 66 L.Ed.2d 804 (1981). Each case must be carefully evaluated under the totality of the circumstances. In the instant case, I would conclude that the DEA agents acted properly and that Slaton’s consent was valid. I respectfully dissent.