Court Opinion

ID: 9736077
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:42:37.032616+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:27:04.175501
License: Public Domain

ZAPPALA, Justice,
dissenting.
I cannot concur in the majority’s tortuous attempt to coerce the result in this case into cohering to what it perceives is a directive from the federal Supreme Court to supply sufficient predicates to reverse our prior holding. In so doing, the Majority strains the bounds of logic to reach an unnecessary and unwarranted conclusion, again deferring to our federal brethren rather than independently applying its own commonwealth’s body of constitutional precedent and principle. It is clear to this writer that the holding reached by the U.S. Supreme Court in The Florida Star v. B.J.F., 491 U.S. 524, 109 S.Ct. 2603, 105 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989) has no effect upon the decision reached by this court in (Boettger I), Boettger v. Loverro and Easton Publishing Company, 521 Pa. 366, 555 A.2d 1234 (1989).
The Majority distills the holding of the Florida Star decisión to its essence with the statement that “where a newspaper publishes truthful information which it has lawfully obtained, punishment may lawfully be imposed, if at all, only when narrowly tailored to a state interest of the *529highest order....” 491 U.S. at 541, 109 S.Ct. at 2613, 105 L.Ed.2d at 460 (Emphasis added) Maj. Opinion at p. 715. Having thus framed the holding, the majority completely ignores or abdicates its duty to examine the case sub judice in terms of that self same language. It is patently clear to this writer that the predicate for the relief granted in Boettger I was indeed narrowly tailored to a state interest of the highest order. What unquestionably distinguishes Florida Star from the case before us is the fact that in Boettger we are dealing with a strict statutory scheme which is in derogation of a basic constitutional right, the right to privacy, whereas in Florida Star, no such right existed in the material of which publication was prohibited. Thus, contrary to Florida Star, there is implicated a state interest of the highest order.
Having made that distinction, it would have been the next logical step for the majority to have looked at the reasoning of Boettger I and examined whether the sanctions set forth in the Act were indeed narrowly tailored to protect that interest. Analyzing the Act in terms of the right derogated, one comes away with the obvious conclusion that the balance was properly struck.
The sole purpose of the Act was to give to law enforcement agencies the tools of eavesdropping and electronic surveillance, tools which previous to the passage of the Act had been strictly prohibited given the individual’s right to privacy. The passage of the Act was a limited sacrifice to that right. Because of this, the use of information derived from the tools provided by the Act is strictly regulated, for the investigative and/or prosecutorial use of this intercepted information is the raison d’etre for the Act’s existence. Without the Act this information would not be available to anyone in any form. Only when the information derived from the use of the Act is disclosed pursuant to its provisions, as evidence introduced in open court, does that same information then lose its character and protection as provided by the Act. I cannot fathom how it can be said that this limitation is unreasonable or that it works a *530hardship upon the media or the First Amendment. The prohibition is not blanket as to the media, but neither is the protection absolute as to the individual. Each has the possibility that its respective right may be infringed upon. That is the proper balance.
This is not a situation where the media is being precluded from disclosing something that, but for the legislation, it would be free to do. This is clearly the distinguishing feature of the case sub judice and its relation to the Florida Star scenario. This is a situation where, but for the legislation, the disclosure would be absolutely illegal. Reasoning from this premise, the majority in Boettger I distinguished the present factual situation from those presented in the Cox line of cases, Smith v. Daily Mail Publishing Company, 443 U.S. 97, 99 S.Ct. 2667, 61 L.Ed.2d 399 (1979), Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U.S. 469, 95 S.Ct. 1029, 43 L.Ed.2d 328 (1975); Landmark Communications Inc. v. Virginia, 435 U.S. 829, 98 S.Ct. 1535, 56 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978); Oklahoma Publishing Company v. District Court of Oklahoma, 430 U.S. 308, 97 S.Ct. 1045, 51 L.Ed.2d 355 (1977). In so doing, we especially made note of the question, unanswered by the Court in the Landmark case, to wit, whether the publication of truthful information, withheld by law from the public domain, enjoyed the same privilege as publication for otherwise public information contained in court records. That question presented itself in the case sub judice and, applying the balancing test set forth in Boettger I and above, we deemed the interests in the citizens of this Commonwealth’s right to privacy were dominant given the factual situation presented. In so holding, we answered the question unanswered in Landmark according to our interpretation of the Pennsylvania Constitution. The same question was not presented in Florida Star, nor did the court there have reason nor inclination to address it. Nothing in the order of remand in the instant case states or suggests that we decided the question incorrectly. The order merely requests that we examine the case in light of the decision reached by that court in Florida *531Star. This writer has done so and finds no reason whatsoever to change the result reached previously. Nor does he see the remand as a mandate to do so. The cases, as stated, are clearly distinguishable and Florida Star should have no bearing on our decision in Boettger I. Had the federal court in Florida Star, been presented with the unanswered question presented in Landmark, and a different result than that reached by this court in Boettger I had obtained, I would deem it incumbent to then reevaluate the result of our first disposition in light of this state’s constitution. This, however, did not occur, and I see no reason to reach a different result, save a majority of this Court’s undying desire to seek the approval of its federal brethren.
I must also take issue with several of the majority’s factual predicates which simply cannot be justified and perhaps in large part led to the strained ratio decendi thus obtained. First the majority finds that the transcript of the recordings here challenged were not themselves of the category of protected interceptions as intended by the Act. Maj. Opinion at pp. 519-520. This major assumption is stated without justification nor citation to authority, instead attempting to justify the transformation into unprotected conversation by placing the blame of the transcript being “unsealed” and in the public domain upon Mr. Boettger for failing to request that the same be sealed. This is most patently a red herring. It would have been a useless act to request something that, by law, is presumed to be done. As we stated in Boettger I, it is indeed unfortunate that the District Attorney chose to place this protected information in a public file, however that act, in and of itself, did not change the attributes nor the prohibitions of the Act on the disclosure of the information. That the newspaper, or any other individual for that matter, had access to the transcript at that stage misdirects the inquiry as to the proscriptions of the Act. It was not the access, but the disclosure of the contents of the intercept which were prohibited. It would indeed be naive to assume that the reporter did not know the transcript was of an intercept authorized by the Act. It *532is clear that his intention at the suppression hearing was to gain access to the contents of the intercept. When they were not forthcoming at the hearing, the reporter sought them in the Clerk’s office. That he found them there is undisputed, that he was authorized to disclose them at that time is the issue. I would hold that under the provisions of the Act, he was not.
While the majority makes much of the newspaper’s forbearance from disclosure of the transcript until after the suppression court’s order was filed, I find this not to be “reasonable reliance” on a court order so much as it is evidence of the newspaper’s “mens rea” as to the provisions of the Act, thus strengthening the position that it was aware of the prohibition from disclosure absent its disclosure first in open court.
The majority next seeks justification for its position by finding that, because the information in the transcripts contained discussions about gambling and other illegal activity, the transcripts did not fall within a class of conversations intended to be protected by a “state interest of the highest order”. Id., at pp. 521-524. This presumption is ludicrous and completely without support. The content of the conversation is not germane, it is the interception and disclosure which is protected, regardless of its later perceived significance or illegality. Nowhere in the Act is it provided that at the moment it is deemed an intercepted conversation concerns illegal activity, the provisions of the Act disappear and the conversation can be disclosed to the world. Where the interception would otherwise be prohibited, the application of a hindsight test would be absurd.
Finally, the majority holds that the act of denying the motion to suppress the use of the intercepts removed any protections intended by the Act. It reasons that the Order denying suppression, was an order under § 5725 of the Act, which provides a defense to those in the position of the Appellant who disclose protected conversation for “good faith reliance on a court order”. This finding again not *533only misperceives the functioning of the Act, bui! in effect guts it.
Nowhere in the Act is it provided that, upon the denial of a motion to suppress intercepted evidence, it may be disclosed. Such a result may be presumed, if at all, only by those authorized by the Act to so disclose. Those authorized to so disclose may only do for the purpose of using the information obtained under the Act as evidence in open court. This was the intended and sole purpose of the Act. If, throughout this whole matter, the Appellee here chose to plead nolo contendré before trial, as he did, or, if the District Attorney, for any reason, deemed it unnecessary to use the evidence obtained in open court, as is his perogative, then the evidence obtained under the provisions of the Act would not have been disclosed by those authorized to do so in open court and therefore the contents could not have been thus disclosed by Appellant. Only at that particular point in time where the protected information was used as evidence in open court by one so authorized, could the Appellant have safely published, in 24 point type if he so desired, every word, colloquialism, expression and off color comment that had been revealed.
This result is clearly proper and comports undeniably with the letter and spirit of the Act. It is the only result which validates the Act’s ability to derogate the citizen’s right to privacy in his most intimate conversations, legal or otherwise. That validity rests on the predicate that the use of the information gathered is a strong tool for the prosecution of crime to be used by law enforcement officials. It is only for that purpose. It’s collection and disclosure is only permitted in furtherance of that purpose. If that purpose or use becomes unnecessary, so does the possession and use of the information by those authorized officials as well as the general public. The only time a media or individual’s interest in that information becomes operative is upon its disclosure and use in open court, as no one would deny it then should.
*534This result assures the confidence of our citizenry that the Act, while a necessary burden on their liberties, will be strictly policed so as to ensure that it will not be abused. This Court has stated that we would strictly enforce the provisions of the Act for exactly that purpose. Commonwealth v. Hasham, No. 152 E.D. Appeal Dkt. (Filed January 4, 1991), slip opinion at p. 8.
For these reasons I dissent from the about face of my brethren in the majority and would affirm the decision reached by this Court in Boettger I based upon the distinctions between that case and Florida Star, as the U.S. Supreme Court requested that we consider.
PAPADAKOS, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.