Court Opinion

ID: 9637948
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:27:25.906088+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:02.097207
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Justice
(concurring).
While I join in the opinion of the Court, I wish to note certain additional factors which support today’s decision. In Commonwealth v. Ware, 446 Pa. 52, 55-56, 284 A.2d 700, 701-702 (1971), we adopted the principles of Miranda as state law and decided, also as a matter of state law, that these principles must be applied in all cases where the trial had not yet commenced on the date Miranda was decided. Although we did not rely on this in Romberger I, nothing would prevent us from deciding as a matter of state law, that Ware renders the principles of Michigan v. Tucker inapplicable in Pennsylvania. We need not reach that question here because application of Tucker would not render the challenged statements admissible.
As a further point in distinguishing between what has been required by the United States Supreme Court and what this Court has articulated as a matter of state law, I note that in Commonwealth v. Triplett, 462 Pa. 244, *499341 A.2d 62, 64 (1975) we declined to adopt the limitation of the exclusionary rule to the government’s case in chief, as set forth in Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222, 91 S.Ct. 643, 28 L.Ed.2d 1 (1971). Mr. Justice O’Brien stated for the Court, “Our prohibition against the use of constitutionally infirm statements to impeach the credibility of a criminal defendant testifying in his own behalf is premised upon Pennsylvania Constitution Article I, Section 9.” This further distinguishes our consideration of the matter from that given by the United States Supreme Court.
O’BRIEN and MANDERINO, JJ., join in this concurring opinion.