Court Opinion

ID: 9697598
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:22:52.819665+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:34:02.960879
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent from the majority’s holding that appellee’s second and third statements were validly obtained under Commonwealth v. Futch, 447 Pa. 389, 290 A.2d 417 (1972) and Pa.R.Crim.P. 130. Appellee was arrested at 9:40 p.m., May 30, 1973. He gave an inculpatory statement at 12:05 a.m., May 31, 1973. He should have been arraigned before a neutral magistrate and warned of his constitutional rights.
Rather than following the procedure mandated by this Court in both case law and rules of criminal procedure,1 the officers continued to question appellee, in an attempt to convict him by. his own words. Appellee was arraigned over 13 hours after his arrest.2 This is precisely *399the course of conduct proscribed in Futoh. The effect of today’s majority holding is to encourage some police officers to obtain inculpatory statements from suspects as soon as possible, so that they may then “clear up discrepancies” at their leisure, all before preliminary arraignment. Rather, they should be required to follow the rules of procedure mandated by this Court.
MANDERINO, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.

. Pa.R.Crim.P. 130.

. In one or two judicial districts it has become the police practice to log the exact time of even the least important event during in-custody interrogation, but regrettably almost always to make the last entry, “Time unspecified — preliminary arraignment.”
When the accused has been arrested without a warrant, a delay prohibited by Rule 130 may render the arrest unlawful and any evidence which is the fruit of the arrest inadmissible. In Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 114, 95 S.Ct. 854, 863, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1974) (Powell, J.), the Supreme Court of the United States held that “the Fourth Amendment requires a judicial determination of probable cause as a prerequisite to extended restraint on liberty following arrest.” ■ Any restraint on liberty after the police could have taken the accused to a magistrate for a determination of probable cause is a violation of the Fourth Amendment and any *399confession obtained during the delay is thus inadmissible. See Browns v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975) (Blackman, J.) (the giving of Miranda warnings after an illegal arrest does not make a confession which is the fruit of the illegal arrest admissible).