Court Opinion

ID: 9695739
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:28:25.822256+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:15.872240
License: Public Domain

CERCONE, Judge,
concurring:
I join in the majority opinion, but I wish to expand on the discussion of some points raised in the dissenting opinion by Judge Hoffman. The dissent states that by barring the use of wiretap evidence lawfully obtained in another state, and the fruits thereof, we would secure the public policy of Pennsylvania which declares the use of wiretaps illegal as an intolerable encroachment upon our citizens’ right to privacy. I fail to see how. In point of fact, the only interest which the result proposed by the dissent would protect is the criminal’s interest in not having highly probative evidence used against him in a criminal prosecution. The dissent admits that today’s decision can have no affect on New Jersey’s continued use of its own wiretap statute, even with respect to Pennsylvania citizens; yet, the dissent persists with the notion that its decision would safeguard the right of privacy of Pennsylvania citizens. One’s right to privacy is encroached upon when the wiretap occurs, not when criminally inculpatory evidence is used against him in a criminal proceeding. Even if the proposed dissent were adopted by the majority today, the news media certainly could use this suppressed information to declare to the world that Mr. Bennett trafficks in narcotics; but, we would be holding that the courts of law may not hear the evidence of that illegal conduct lest we encroach upon his privacy. Both practically and legally I see nothing to commend that conclusion.
Furthermore, the dissenting opinion’s analysis distorts the policy of this Commonwealth to achieve a wholly undesirable result. Certainly, no one would suggest that we have an anti-wiretap law in order to safeguard the “right” of criminals to effectively carry out their criminal designs. Rather, what our legislature has deter*464mined is that there is no effective way to determine in every instance in advance whether a telephone conversation will relate wholly or even partially to criminal matters. Reading on in Mr. Fineman’s speech before the legislature in 1957, quoted in part in the dissenting opinion, that point becomes altogether clear:
“Even the proponents of a modified form of wire tap admit that wiretapping is at best a dirty business. Although I recognize that we must strike some sort of balance, between the interests of the public and the right of the individual, no matter how delicate that balance may be we cannot sacrifice individual right when the end does not justify it.
“The thing that is most offensive about wire tapping is the fact that wire tapping has as a necessary result an extensive intrusion on the right of privacy of innocent persons. When a tap is placed on a wire, that tap is maintained day and night, 24 hours. Every conversation, no matter how foreign to the stated objective of the wire tap, is heard. Every conversation, no matter how confidential, how intimate, whether it concerns professional advice, business or confidential matters, is laid bare. Every conversation to the phone where the tap is placed is overheard. Every conversation from the phone where the tap is placed is overheard.
“I respectfully submit it would be a severe intrusion on our right of privacy to give the police even this limited right of wire tap . . . .” [Emphasis added.]1
Thus, the legislature determined that no matter how stringently it restricted the use of wiretapping there would be instances where personal, and even intimate, *465conversations were overheard and recorded. This being the case, the legislature ultimately determined that the right and expectation of privacy is too dear to be subrogated in these circumstances to the need to use wiretapping to ferret-out criminal activity. I have no quarrel with this policy determination which, of course, rests soundly in the discretion of the legislature. What I do strongly disagree with is the dissent’s proposing to use this determination to protect, and protect alone, those conversations which, if it could have, the legislature would have permitted to be monitored — criminal conversations. The dissenting opinion does not suggest, as it logically could not suggest, that New Jersey law enforcement agencies will desist from overhearing conversations between Pennsylvanians and New Jersey citizens. Nor will it cease to use such evidence to prosecute for criminal activities carried out in New Jersey. Hence, even if the dissenting opinion were adopted, no Pennsylvanian could speak over the telephone to a person in New Jersey absolutely secure in the knowledge that his conversation was not being monitored. But, a Pennsylvania criminal could do so secure in the knowledge that he could not be prosecuted for the Pennsylvania criminal activities which he divulged. Hence, the dissenting opinion, rather than advancing Pennsylvania public policy, in a more discrete sense would retard it. While affording no protection whatever to the legitimate interests of “innocent” Pennsylvanians, it would allow Pennsylvania criminals to operate over the telephone virtually unencumbered. That is hardly employing the balancing test of which Mr. Fineman spoke, and I cannot subscribe to any such rationale, especially when it is conjured in the name of public policy. Since we cannot enjoin New Jersey from monitoring innocent, interstate conversations of our citizens, we should at least attempt to reap the benefits of those conversations which our legislature would seek to monitor if more discriminating methods of predicting their occurrence were available.

. 2 Legislative Journal 1686-87 (1957). Interestingly, the arguments of Mr. Fineman and his colleagues were unpersuasive that day, since the House of Representatives thereafter voted to approve a draft of the legislation allowing exceptions for various forms of previously court-approved wiretaps, as does New Jersey, by a vote of 128 to 61. Id. at 1691-92.