Court Opinion

ID: 9638988
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:00:55.988662+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:11.243042
License: Public Domain

KELLY, Judge,
concurring:
I join the majority opinion. I agree that the affidavit adequately indicates the immediacy of the affiant’s observations and that the clerical omission of the date of the observations is not fatal to the validity of the warrant in this case.
I have no doubt that even if the warrant was deemed defective, the officers’ subsequent search would plainly fall within the recognized “good faith” exception to the federal exclusionary rule. See Annotation, Admissibility in Criminal Case of Evidence Obtained by Law Enforcement Officer Allegedly Relying Reasonably and in Good Faith on a Defective Warrant, 82 L.E.2d.2d 1054 (1986 & 1988 supp.) (collecting cases). I have noted previously my concerns regarding the existence and scope of a state constitutionally based exclusionary rule given our Supreme Court’s historical rejection of the federal exclusionary rule. See Commonwealth v. Shaeffer, 370 Pa.Super. 179, 262-271, 536 A.2d 354, 396-400 (Kelly, J., concurring and dissenting); allocatur granted 520 Pa. 596, 552 A.2d 251 (1988); see also Commonwealth v. Melson, 383 Pa.Super. 139, 171-75, 556 A.2d 836, 852-53 (1989) (Kelly, J., dissenting). The recent opinion in Commonwealth v. Mellini, 521 Pa. 405, 555 A.2d 1254 (1989), indicates the existence of a state constitutionally based exclusionary rule without delineating *74its scope. Consequently, rather than viewing this case as recognizing an exception to the state constitutionally based exclusionary rule applied in Mellini, I would view this case as declining to expand the scope of our nascent state exclusionary rule beyond the bounds which our Supreme Court’s decision commands. Whatever the scope of the new state exclusionary rule may be, I cannot believe it is intended to cover the error which occurred here.