Court Opinion

ID: 9701898
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 22:42:37.344652+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:30.558040
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. The majority today rules that an incriminating statement obtained after an unnecessary delay of at least 26 hours between arrest and preliminary arraignment was admissible at trial. The majority reaches its result by characterizing the challenged statement as a mere reiteration of prior statements elicited from appellant during the course of the police interrogation. It concludes that the statement did not prejudice appellant and therefore need not have been suppressed under Pa. R.Crim.P. 130 and Commonwealth v. Futch, 447 Pa. 389, 290 A.2d 417 (1972). I believe the challenged statement, obtained after 26 hours of police detention, cannot fairly be regarded as a mere reiteration of appellant’s prior statements to the police. Because this statement, elicited after an unnecessary delay, substantially prejudiced appellant’s position, it should have been suppressed under Pa.R.Crim.P. 130 and Commonwealth v. Futch, supra.
On August 29, 1970, police sergeant Francis Von Colin was shot and killed while sitting at his desk in a guard house in Philadelphia’s Cobb Creek Park. Although appellant immediately became a suspect, he could not be located during the months that followed.
At about 6:45 p. m., on January 19, 1972, police officers investigating a possible robbery stopped appellant and two others and discovered that they were in possession of a number of weapons. The police did not at this time recognize appellant as a suspect in the Von Colin *568slaying. Appellant was arrested, apparently for a weapons offense, and was transported to police headquarters.
Three hours later, a detective who had taken part in the investigation of the Von Colin homicide identified appellant as a suspect in that case. In the following 50 minutes, appellant was informed of his constitutional rights, fingerprinted, and photographed. Upon completion of those procedures, interrogation commenced.
During the first 26 hours of appellant’s incarceration he denied any involvement in the Von Colin slaying, although he did admit membership in the Black Unity Council, an organization which the police suspected had a role in the Von Colin killing. Appellant admitted that the Council had discussed the use of violence against the police. Despite his initial denial of complicity in the Von Colin slaying, the police questioned appellant for 15 of the next 2114 hours. At about 8:30 p. m., January 20, almost 26 hours áfter his arrest, he was asked “Did you shoot and kill Sergeant Von Colin in the Park Guard Headquarters on August 29, 1970?” Appellant replied, “Fundamentally I did.” After making this statement, appellant refused to elaborate. The police then summoned appellant’s parents by telephone and, after an additional hour of interrogation, permitted appellant to talk with his parents. He was arraigned some time after 11:00 p. m., January 20, at least 28 hours after his arrest. Appellant contends that his statement at 8:30 p. m., on January 20, should have been suppressed.
When a person is arrested, our rules of criminal procedure mandate that he be taken without unnecessary delay before a judicial officer for preliminary arraignment. Pa.R.Crim.P. 122 & 130. In Commonwealth v. Futch, supra, we held that if evidence obtained during an unnecessary delay has any reasonable relationship whatsoever to the delay, it is not admissible at trial. We have employed a three-part test for determining whether evidence is inadmissible under the Futch rule.
*569“The delay must be unnecessary; evidence that is prejudicial must be obtained; and the incriminating evidence must be reasonably related to the delay.”
Commonwealth v. Williams, 455 Pa. 569, 572, 319 A.2d 419, 420 (1974).1
Appellant has satisfied the first and third prongs of Commonwealth v. Williams, supra. The Commonwealth has conceded that the delay in this case was unnecessary. In addition, the incriminating statement was undeniably a product of the unnecessary delay. From the time the police recognized appellant as a suspect in the Von Colin slaying, appellant was willing to discuss with them his membership in the Black Unity Council and his relationships with other suspects, but he steadfastly denied involvement in the slaying. Only after prolonged incommunicado incarceration and interrogation did he make the incriminating statement.
The majority, however, asserts that appellant’s statement that “fundamentally” he killed Von Colin was not prejudicial. According to the majority, appellant’s statement “did not supply the prosecution with any further information it had not already received” and thus “did not further prejudice appellant’s position.” I cannot agree.
In his prior statements to the police, appellant admitted that he was a member of an organization which discussed the use of violence against the police, but claimed that he never participated in the actual planning of such acts. His statement that “fundamentally” he killed Von Colin went beyond his prior admission that he was a *570member of the Black Unity Council. It permitted the jury to infer from appellant’s own words that he had participated in some fashion in the Von Colin homicide, whereas in his prior statements appellant denied participation in that act or any other act of violence.
The majority errs in stating that appellant’s statement “could only be construed as another way of stating his participation in the conspiratorial design.” Appellant had not previously admitted participation in a “conspiratorial design.” He had only admitted that he was a member of an organization. His statement that “fundamentally” he killed Von Colin linked appellant specifically to the homicide and thus was considerably more damaging than his mere admission of membership in the Black Unity Council. Cf. Scales v. United States, 367 U.S. 203, 224-25, 81 S.Ct. 1469, 1484, 6 L.Ed.2d 782 (1961).
In this respect, the prejudicial impact of the challenged admission was substantial. In its charge, the court gave the following instruction on aiding and abetting.
“It is the Commonwealth’s theory that the defendant aided and abetted others in the willful, deliberate, and premeditated murder of Sergeant Von Colin.
“One is an aider and abettor in the commission of any crime that he has joined in its commission. If he was an active partner in the intent which was the crime’s basic element, the least degree of concert or collusion between the parties to an illegal transaction makes the act of one the act of all.
“The guilt or innocence of the abettor is not determined by the quantum of his advice or encouragement. If it is rendered to induce another to commit the crime and actually had this effect, no more is required.”
The jury had to be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt not just that appellant was a member of the Black Unity *571Council, but also that he knew of the plan to kill Von Colin and had in some way encouraged it. In his closing argument, the prosecutor used appellant’s admission to support his theory that appellant was a conspirator in the Von Colin slaying. As used by the prosecution, appellant’s statement was not, as the majority asserts, a mere reiteration of his prior admission that he was a member of the Black Unity Council. Rather, the statement permitted the jury to infer from appellant’s own words what he had unequivocally denied in his earlier statements to the police, i. e., that he had participated in the killing. In the light of the court’s charge and the prosecutor’s closing argument, appellant’s statement that “fundamentally” he killed Von Colin might have convinced the jury that even if appellant was not the man who fired the fatal bullet, he had encouraged the crime, shared in the intent to commit it and thus was guilty as an aider and abettor.
Appellant’s admission was prejudicial and should have been excluded. This Court has held that where a defend- and initially denies his involvement in a crime to the police and afterwards, following a period of unnecessary delay between arrest and preliminary arraignment, admits complicity, a nexus between the admission and delay is established requiring suppression of the statement. See e. g., Commonwealth v. Cherry, 457 Pa. 201, 321 A.2d 611 (1974); Commonwealth v. Tingle, 451 Pa. 241, 301 A.2d 701 (1973).2 The trial court’s failure to suppress the statement in this case constituted reversible error.
I would reverse and remand for a new trial.
MANDERINO, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.

. A more general formulation of the Futch inquiry involves a single determination whether a “nexus” exists between the unnecessary delay and the challenged evidence. See e. g., Commonwealth v. Tingle, 451 Pa. 241, 301 A.2d 701 (1973). In this analysis, the prejudicial nature of the challenged evidence must be shown in order to establish the requisite nexus. See Commonwealth v. Palmer, 463 Pa. 26, 342 A.2d 387 (1975); Commonwealth v. Rowe, 459 Pa. 163, 327 A.2d 358 (1974).

. The majority relies on cases which are inapposite to the situation presented here. In those cases, the statements taken from the accused after unnecessary delay were essentially a reiteration of prior untainted admissions and thus did not further prejudice the accused. Here, appellant’s statement, taken after 26 hours of unnecessary delay, differed substantially from his prior statements and seriously prejudiced his position.