Court Opinion

ID: 9716859
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:52:43.606822+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:49.528331
License: Public Domain

CAPPY, Justice,
concurring.
I join the excellent majority opinion authored by my learned colleague Mr. Justice Flaherty. However, I am constrained to write separately in order to emphasize my continued disagreement with this Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Cruz, 538 Pa. 550, 649 A.2d 657 (1994), Zappala, J. and Cappy, J. noting a dissent, the companion case in this matter.
Cruz was a visitor in the Melendez home who, as a result of the search and seizure deemed to be illegal by this Court, was convicted and sentenced for possession with intent to deliver the same controlled substances now being suppressed in this case. Commonwealth v. Cruz, 432 Pa. Super 683, 635 A.2d 201 (1993) (Mem.) This Court has reached the anomalous conclusion that the constitutional rights of Melendez, the focus of the search warrant and the owner of the house searched, have been violated, while it has previously denied relief to Cruz who was a guest in that very same house. As I indicated by noting my dissent to the decision to dismiss the Cruz appeal as having been improvidently granted, that decision was wrong then; it is wrong now. The injustice suffered by Cruz as a result of this Court’s inconsistency is, for lack of a better word, shameful.
ZAPPALA, J., joins this concurring opinion.