Court Opinion

ID: 9760450
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:55:41.655527+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:12.427263
License: Public Domain

HOFFMAN, Judge,
concurring.
I write separately only to address further the Supreme Court decision in Commonwealth v. Galloway. In my view, Galloway is inapposite for an additional reason. The Galloway Court held that it was error to quash an information based upon an illegal arrest by a special agent of the Attorney General’s Office, because a later arrest by a State Trooper was valid. I see this question—i.e., whether a prosecution is defective from its inception because of an unlawful arrest—as being distinguishable from the more limited question of whether certain evidence secured as a result of the illegal arrest should be suppressed.1 And, on the latter point, I agree with the Majority that there is no question that the appropriate legal remedy for the initial illegal arrest is suppression of the fruits of the illegality. See Commonwealth v. Leet, 401 Pa.Super. 490, 585 A.2d 1033 (1991); Commonwealth v. Palm, 315 Pa.Super. 377, 462 A.2d 243 (1983), allocatur denied; Commonwealth v. Eshelman, 236 Pa.Super. 223, 345 A.2d 286 (1975) (HOFFMAN, J., dissenting), rev’d 477 Pa. 93, 383 A.2d 838 (1978). See generally, Comment, Arrest and Search Powers of Special Police in Pennsylvania, 59 Temp.L.Q. 497 (1986). Having made this comment, I join wholeheartedly in the excellent majority Opinion.

. The majority properly recognizes this distinction, as it summarily rejects appellant’s argument that the court below should have quashed the information against him. See at 169 n. 1.