Court Opinion

ID: 9757414
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:39:52.249295+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:39.255125
License: Public Domain

POMEROY, Justice
(dissenting).
I must respectfully dissent from the decision of the Court today because it involves the retrospective application of the decision of this Court in Com. v. Futch, 447 Pa. 389, 290 A.2d 417 (1972). Appellant’s arrest and interrogation occurred in December, 1971, four months before the Futch decision was announced in April, 1972. I fail to see how application of the exclusionary rule in such circumstances will advance its purposes. As I wrote in my dissenting opinion in Com. v. Dutton, 453 Pa. 547, 552, 307 A. 2d 238, 240 (1973):
“One may hope that the threat of exclusion will help to deter dilatory or illegal police conduct, but it can hardly be supposed that application of the exclusionary rule to events long past will add anything to the rule’s deterrent force for the future.”
See also my concurring opinion in Com. v. Mitchell, 464 Pa. 117, 346 A.2d 48 (1975) and the opinions cited in footnote two therein.