Court Opinion

ID: 9752985
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 18:49:08.46537+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:27.208588
License: Public Domain

PAPADAKOS, Justice,
concurring.
I am compelled to concur in the result because Rule 2003(a) of the Pa. Rules of Criminal Procedure is absolute in requiring that the affidavit of probable cause supporting the issuance of a search warrant must be complete on its face in every essential detail, and that no testimony is permitted after its execution to fill in the blanks. The affidavit of probable cause in this case clearly lacks the essential element of the date when the informants saw the contraband growing. Although the affiant orally related to the magistrate, before the preparation of the affidavit of probable cause, the date on which the informants had seen the contraband growing, the magistrate, in acting the role of the scribe in typing the affidavit of probable cause, neglected to include this crucial date and the affiant neglected to spot this omission.
The majority correctly quotes this court’s prior pronouncement on the subject:
“After the effective date of the rule the determination of probable cause by a suppression hearing court and an appellate court upon review will be made only from the written record prepared contemporaneously with the issuance of the search warrant.”
Commonwealth v. Milliken, 450 Pa. 310, 314, 300 A.2d 78, 81 (1973), quoted by the majority opinion at p. 405.
In view of the clear, unequivocal command of Rule 2003(a), I see no reason for the majority to reinvent the wheel and re-express the rationale underpinning the judicially created rule of procedure. It’s all been said before. I see no issue of a good faith exception applicable in this case. I see only a reaffirmation of the dictates of Rule 2003(a) by simple statement to that effect or a change in the rule to
*413accommodate the error committed by the scribe. Since the majority apparently does not wish to change the rule to avoid the absurdity of excluding the evidence obtained by the police through no misconduct on their part, I see no need for the in-depth re-analysis given by the majority.
Were the rule not so absolute on its face, I would gladly join McDERMOTT, J., in dissent, for my sympathies and reason lie in his expression of outrage in the result of cases such as this.