Court Opinion

ID: 9634375
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:09:41.651253+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:01.206364
License: Public Domain

McDERMOTT, Justice,
dissenting.
Since we are bound by the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 88 S.Ct. 967, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968), I see no reason to adhere to the legal fiction of automatic standing. Both the Sim*69mons rule and automatic standing were designed to protect the same interest, i.e. the preservation of a defendant’s fifth amendment rights, and I believe that the protection afforded by Simmons is alone sufficient to preserve this interest. See U.S. v. Salvucci, 448 U.S. 83, 100 S.Ct. 2547, 65 L.Ed.2d 619 (1980).
I wish to emphasize, however, that this protection, in whatever form it takes, should not be construed as a license to lie, for this Court has previously held that a defendant’s suppression court testimony may be used by the Commonwealth in cross-examination. Commonwealth v. Sparrow, 471 Pa. 490, 370 A.2d 712 (1977).1

. Sparrow is consistent with the approach adopted by the United States Supreme Court in Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222, 91 S.Ct. 643, 28 L.Ed.2d 1 (1971); and our decision in Commonwealth v. Bennett, 498 Pa. 656, 450 A.2d 970 (1983). (See Concurring Opinions: Flaherty, J. and McDermott, J.) Although this Court has previously refused to adopt Harris as the law of this Commonwealth, Commonwealth v. Triplett, 462 Pa. 244, 341 A.2d 62 (1975), I believe that such decision was ill advised and should be reversed.