Court Opinion

ID: 9759877
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:31:34.448196+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:05.739415
License: Public Domain

NEWMAN, Justice,

dissenting.

I respectfully dissent. Before we determine whether the rule announced in Commonwealth v. Brion, 539 Pa. 256, 652 A.2d 287 (1994), should apply retroactively or prospectively, we must first determine whether our holding in Brion even applies to the particular facts of the present case. I have serious concerns that this Court is promulgating a line of unduly confusing and impractical cases that misapply the exclusionary rule to allow accused drug dealers to escape criminal liability.
In Brion, the police sent an informant to purchase marijuana, while wearing a device that electronically recorded his conversations with the dealer, and transmitted them back to the police. The police in Brion followed all of the requirements set forth in Section 5704(2) of the Wiretap Act, by *36obtaining a designated assistant district attorney’s approval before using the recording and transmitting device. Nevertheless, this Court suppressed the wiretap evidence based on a conclusion that the tape recording occurred inside the defendant’s “home” and therefore violated Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.1 This Court deemed subsection 5704(2) of the statute unconstitutional only as it applied to the particular facts in Brion, where the recording occurred in the defendant’s home, stating:
[ W]e hold that an individual can reasonably expect that his right to privacy will not be violated in his home through the *37use of any electronic surveillance. In so holding, we need not find Section 5704(2) unconstitutional. We must presume that the General Assembly did not intend to violate the constitution. 1 Pa.C.S. § 1922(3), and will construe a statute so as to sustain its validity if such is fairly possible.
With respect to oral communications within one’s home, interception pursuant to 18 Pa.C.S. § 5704(2)(ii) can only be deemed constitutional under Article I, Section 8 if there has been a prior determination of probable cause by a neutral, judicial authority.
In this case, there is no evidence to suggest that Brion committed any act which would reasonably lead to the conclusion that he did not have an expectation of privacy within his home.
Brion at 260—61, 652 A.2d at 289 (citations omitted) (emphasis added). Importantly, the above language clearly indicates that Section 5704(2) of the Wiretap Act is constitutional on its face. The majority in Brion was apparently persuaded by the absence of evidence in the record to suggest that the appellant committed any acts that decreased his expectation of privacy in his home.2
Conspicuously absent from this Court’s majority opinion in Brion is a discussion of what facts in the record led to the conclusion that the house where the wiretap occurred was, in fact, Brion’s home. A home is a private dwelling where individuals live, accumulate their belongings, and perhaps gather with family and friends. Our homes are personal, *38private places and the right to be secure in one’s home is sacrosanct. However, when an individual opens his or her house to the public to operate an illicit business retailing drugs to the neighborhood heroin addicts, that house ceases to be a “home” as that word is commonly used. An individual who uses their living room to sell illicit drugs to members of the public has no greater an expectation of privacy than the owner of a legitimate pharmacy has on the sales floor of their store.
In a dissenting opinion in Brian, Chief Justice Nix stated the following:
Assuming for the sake of argument that there exists a heightened expectation of privacy in one’s home, nevertheless it is debatable as to whether this case presents an uncontroverted finding that this is a home. The record leaves unanswered the relevant question of whether this defendant was conducting a criminal business enterprise that was open to members of the public who sought marijuana. Such an enterprise would reduce the defendant’s expectation of privacy in the conversations relating to his “business”. If indeed the home does present a zone of privacy warranting greater protection with relation to the Wiretap Act, a factual finding of whether this is a home remains necessary.
Brian at 265, n. 2, 652 A.2d at 287, n. 2. Before punishing the Commonwealth with the sanction of suppressing evidence pursuant to Brian, the record must establish that the property in question is, in fact, a home.3
*39We have repeatedly seen cases in which drug dealers carry on their illegal transactions from inside their homes. Many drug dealers obviously prefer to sell drugs inside their “homes” to avoid detection by law enforcement officers. When this occurs, however, the character of the premises changes from a home to a business, although an illegal business. I cannot fathom why this Court is so eager to shield these illegal businesses with the extraordinary protections that have been traditionally extended only to homes.
A mere claim that the location of a drug business is in an individual’s “home,” without more, is ’usufficient to entitle that property to the heightened protections provided to homes pursuant to Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. Before this Court imposes upon the Commonwealth the drastic sanction of suppression of evidence pursuant to Brion, there must be evidence in the record that conclusively establishes that the premises in question are a true home, and not a “business.”
In the matter sub judice, the majority does not explain what factors — other than a statement that the wiretap occurred in Selby’s “home” — triggered the heightened protections provided to homes pursuant to Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. Instead, the majority opinion glosses over these vital facts and forges ahead into a discussion of retroactivity.4 Because the majority has omitted this vital informa*40tion, and because it appears from the limited facts that Selby opened his home to business invitees to further his retail heroin trade, I would not apply the holding of Brion to this case.
Moreover, this Court is creating unfair confusion for law enforcement officials who try in good faith to comply with the Wiretap Act. This confusion arises because the majority opinions in the present case and in Brion did not explain what constituted a “home” and because the “homes” in these cases evidently do not fit the traditional definition of that word. Law enforcement officers will now be forced to obtain prior approval from Superior Court judges nearly every time they seek to use wiretaps because of uncertainty regarding whether a court will later deem an unlikely location to be a “home.”
Selby surrendered his expectation of privacy, if one existed, because he consciously chose to engage in and discuss his heroin “business” with an individual who later turned out to be an informant. I therefore cannot agree with majority that Brion is factually indistinguishable from the present case. Nor can I agree that we should extend our holding in Brion to every case in which a defendant claims that a consensual tape recording occurred in his or her “home.” To so hold would extend the extraordinary protections we afford homes pursuant to Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution too far.
I would therefore affirm the Order of the Superior Court affirming the judgment of sentence.

. This Court's decision in Brion is clearly based on Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution and not the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The United States Supreme Court has held that the United States Constitution does not require prior judicial approval of a one-party consensual wiretap in a defendant's home. United States v. White, 401 U.S. 745, 91 S.Ct. 1122, 28 L.Ed.2d 453 (1971).
In White, an informant wearing a recording device recorded and transmitted to federal agents his conversations with the defendant occurring in various locations, including the defendant’s home. The United States Supreme Court ruled that the tape recorded evidence was admissible, and stated the following:
[ A] police agent who conceals his police connections may write down for official use his conversation with a defendant and testify concerning them, without a warrant authorizing his encounters with the defendant and without otherwise violating the latter’s Fourth Amendment rights.
For Constitutional purposes, no different result is required of the agent instead of immediately reporting and transcribing his conversation with defendant, either (1) simultaneously records them with electronic equipment which he is carrying on his person; (2) or carries radio equipment which simultaneously transmits the conversations either to recording equipment located elsewhere or to the other agents monitoring the transmitting frequency.
If the conduct and revelations of an agent operating without electronic equipment do not invade the defendant’s constitutionally justifiable expectations of privacy, neither does a simultaneous recording of the same conversations made by the agent or by others from transmissions received from the agent to whom the defendant is talking and whose trustworthiness the defendant necessarily risks.
401 U.S. at 751, 91 S.Ct. at 1125-26. As Justice Castille noted in his dissenting opinion in Commonwealth v. Roebuck, 545 Pa. 471, 681 A.2d 1279 (1996), this Court has repeatedly used Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution to extend to criminal defendants greater privacy rights than the United States Supreme Court has recognized *37pursuant to the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This Court continued that unfortunate trend when it decided Brion.

. Although I recognize that the majority in Brion made this statement, I cannot agree that a drug dealer who sells contraband from his or her home does not decrease his or her expectation of privacy in the home. Nevertheless, the majority in Brion so held, and the doctrine of stare decisis does not permit us to revisit that issue now.

. Also noteworthy is this Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Schaeffer, 547 Pa. 53, 688 A.2d 1143, reargument granted, (1993), affirmed by an equally divided court, 539 Pa. 272, 652 A.2d 294 (1994), in which this Court, being equally divided, affirmed a decision of the Superior Court which held that the police must obtain a “search warrant’’ before they can send an informant into a suspect’s home to electronically record his conversations and transmit them back to the police.
This Court granted reargument and affirmed its earlier decision in Schaeffer, but then effectively overruled Schaeffer sub silentio in Brion. Justice Papadakos’ dissent in this Court’s first decision in Schaeffer is compelling, in which he stated the following:
*39I must take issue again with my colleagues who mischaracterize the premises involved here as the "home” of the Appellee. I fully agree that the “home” must remain inviolate from unlawful government intrusion. But this is no “home” into which government intruded with the body wire. The Appellee may live there; he may eat there. He also carries on a commercial venture there. He is running a "drug" store there. In my view, Appellée is no different than the doctor or the lawyer or the accountant or the hairdresser or the tailor, etc., etc., etc., who operate their professions or businesses out of their “homes” (with lawfully obtained occupancy permits which, I surmise, Appellee does not have).
1993 Pa. Lexis 1993, pp. 25—26.

. This approach raises more questions than it answers. For example, the answers to at least some of the following questions would be helpful:
*401. Who owns this property? If it is owned by someone other than Selby, was Selby permitted to live there?
2. If the house is rented, is Selby's name on the lease? Who pays the utilities for this property?
3. Does Selby receive mail there? Does Selby use that address for purposes of driver's licensing or voter's registration?
4. Is diere any other property that could be considered Selby’s residence?