Court Opinion

ID: 9695858
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:30:30.000378+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:17.019008
License: Public Domain

PRICE, Judge,
dissenting:
The Private Detective Act of 1953, Act of August 21, 1953, P.L. 1273, § 1 (22 P.S. § 11) et seq., as amended, requires an applicant to establish that he “has been regularly employed as a detective, or shall have been a member of the United States government investigative service, a sheriff, a member of the Pennsylvania State Police, or a member of a city police department of a rank or grade higher than that of patrolman, for a period of not less than three years.” In order to interpret the general description “detective,” it is instructive to examine the other qualifying activities listed in the act. Each of the other activities necessitates membership in a trained, government regulated law enforcement organization. Each of the other positions carries with it the power to arrest. Yet, appellant’s employment has encompassed neither of these experiences.
In order to protect Pennsylvania citizens from untrained, self-styled detectives, the legislature has prescribed strict qualifications for those who would become licensed detectives. The legislature possibly could have included a broader range of experiences without opening the occupation to poorly qualified applicants. However, the purpose of the judiciary is interpretation of statutes, not amendment of them. If the legislature had intended to qualify members of the Pennsylvania investigative service, it could specifically have done so. If the legislature had intended to qualify persons who had been regularly employed as investigators, it could specifically have done so.
The majority interprets the statute to mean that an investigator is a detective. I am unconvinced. There can *188be no doubt that detectives must possess the ability to investigate. But that does not mean that an investigator is necessarily a detective. The word detective connotes experiences other than that of investigating. At the very least, a detective must have a strong working knowledge of the criminal laws, of the law enforcement system, and of law enforcement techniques. I do not believe that an investigator for the Auditor General’s Office has been regularly employed as a detective. Therefore, I dissent and would affirm the order of the lower court rejecting appellant’s application.