Court Opinion

ID: 9717134
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:58:55.42683+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:51.512853
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Roberts:
I must dissent from the majority’s decision holding Mrs. Maxwell’s testimony admissible. Mrs. Maxwell did not identify the voice she overheard; she only testified as to the content of the conversation. The majority holds that for her testimony to be admissible, there must be “evidence that she and Payne were speaking of the same conversation.” The record is *458cleai’, however, that they Avere not speaking of the same conversation.
Payne, the accomplice, testified as follows: On Sunday night, at exactly a quarter to eleven, he received a telephone call from Mrs. Sullivan, the defendant. Mrs. Sullivan asked Payne whether he was “ ‘still going to do what I told you to do—you know.’ ” She also related the amount he would be paid. “Right after” Payne received the call, he Avent to the park to meet Mrs. Sullivan and the victim, the meeting to occur at 11 :Q0 p.m. He further testified that he did not see his mother after hanging up the receiver and that he did not know she had listened in. He left the house “too fast” to find out such matters.
Mrs. Maxwell, Payne’s mother, testified as folloAvs: At approximately 7:15 p.m. she heard the telephone ring, but did not answer it. At approximately 7:45 p.m., after bathing and dressing, she picked up an upstairs extension phone to call a cab and overheard a conversation between her son and a woman. Mrs. MaxAvell did not testify that the woman Avhose voice she heard Avas the defendant, but she did testify that the unidentified caller said she wanted Payne to kill a man and would pay him f5000. While the conversation was in progress, Mrs. Maxwell, by her testimony, “walked doAvnstairs, took the phone out of his [Payne’s] hand and hung it up.” She talked with her son, telling him not to get involved Avith “people like that.” Since her cab had not arrived, her son agreed to drive her to her destination. This “must have been around 8:00 p.m.” Her son took her there, she stayed until “about 10:00 p.m.,” and arrived back home “at 10:30 p.m.” Mrs. Maxwell testified that she was sure of the time. When she returned home at 10:30 p.m. she went to bed—and did not see Payne any more that evening.
These detailed, and different, stories do not permit the conclusion that Payne and Mrs. Maxwell were tes*459tifying about the same telephone conversation. Hence, there is no link between Mrs. Maxwell’s overheard conversation and the defendant in this case, and, in my view, appellant is entitled to a new trial.
Further, in my view the facts of this case present a serious question under Commonwealth v. Murray, 423 Pa. 37, 223 A. 2d 102 (1966) and the Act of July 16, 1957, P. L. 956, No. 411, §1, 18 P.S. §3742 (pp) (commonly known as the “anti-wire tapping” statute), but I do not believe that the issue is properly before us.
Although appellant’s failure to object at trial to the admission of the testimony of the witness who overheard the telephone conversation on the ground that it violated the Act of July 16, 1957, can be excused by the fact that Murray (which interpreted the act) had not yet been decided, the same cannot be said for appellant’s failure to press this argument on appeal, either in briefs or at oral argument. This appeal was taken well after the date of the Murray decision, and appellant’s failure to argue that the admission of the evidence in question violated the Act of July 16, 1957, precludes us from giving her relief on that ground.