Court Opinion

ID: 9750019
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 14:13:31.673744+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:01.601165
License: Public Domain

NIX, Chief Justice,
concurring.
As the majority concedes, the Attorney General’s agent could have made the arrest in this case as a private citizen. This fact was also acknowledged by defense counsel. R.R. 12. Notwithstanding the Assistant District Attorney stipulated that the agent had acted as a police officer, not as a private citizen. R.R. 16. I concede the interest that the Attorney General may have in determining the extent of his agents’ authority, conferred under the Commonwealth Attorneys Act, Act of October 15, 1980, P.L. 950, No. 164, 71 P.S. §§ 732-101 through 732-504. However, I cannot accept the legitimacy of securing this clarification at the expense of quashing an information for conduct posing a serious threat to the lives and well-being of all who may have come into contact with appellee on that occasion.
The theory justifying the use of an exclusionary rule to exclude evidence damaging to a defendant is that the illegality in procuring that evidence offends our collective concept of fundamental fairness. We have made the societal judgment that it is better to relieve the culprit of responsibility for the act rather than condone law enforcement officers in conduct of such nature. In this case, the agent did what he had a right to do as an ordinary citizen, which he indeed was. The fact that he purported to act as an agent, under the mistaken view that he was so authorized, does not establish the type of “illegal conduct” which would justify the invocation of an exclusionary rule. Indeed, there was no illegality since the agent, as a citizen, had the right to act in the manner he did.
Nor can I accept the majority’s ingenious argument that the subsequent warrantless arrest by the State Trooper was *22valid. If it is accepted that the detention of appellee by the Agent, which was made under the color of law, was an illegal one, it would necessarily infect the subsequent “warrantless arrest” of the trooper.
I, therefore, concur in the result because the facts presented do not justify the invocation of an exclusionary rule.