Court Opinion

ID: 9635231
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:43:07.216955+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:53:55.925658
License: Public Domain

McDERMOTT, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I join the majority, and write to emphasize that the determination of credibility by a trier of fact is the ultimate, pragmatic, epistemological canon of our law.
What can only be known through the senses and intellect of a person is a legally unacceptable premise, unless it is found credible, is believed and accepted by the trier of fact, under the different burdens of proof imposed in particular cases. The accepted credibility of a witness is the sole source of a fact derived through the senses of a person.
*580The testimony of a witness may be credible because it is possible, internally and circumstantially consistent, rational and probable; but to premise further consideration it must also be believed. That is, along with its credible content it must be filtered through the observation and attention of the trier of fact, under the great canon that they are to use all the experience of their lives in measuring the credibility and reliability of a witness.
We have said, times out of mind, that what the trier of fact sees and hears is the basis of all judgment. He need not believe any or all of the witnesses. What testimony he accepts is the only foundation of a judgment. See generally, Morrissey v. Commonwealth Dept. of Highways, 424 Pa. 87, 225 A.2d 895 (1967).
The content of credible testimony is examined along with the human agency that presents it. Unless the content can be reconciled beyond love, hate, fear, hope, interest and all the human things that tend to cloud the senses, twist the memory, fire the imagination, or tempt to mendacity, the testimony is not accepted. Unless what was offered is accepted, however true it may be in any other context, it is not legally true. See Shearer v. Insurance Co. of North America, 397 Pa. 566, 156 A.2d 182 (1959).
The power to determine facts from human testimony is a terrible power. The more so because our tools are few. Those that we have are mostly exclusionary. Hearsay evidence is first in the list of excluded evidence. Hearsay not only eludes oath, cross examination, and the right to face accusers, it evades the single most important consideration in the truth determining process; the witness is not seen nor heard by the trier of fact. 5 Wigmore, Evidence §§ 1362, 1364 (Chadboum rev. 1974).
All the trier of fact hears is that an absent witness made a statement. He can believe that a statement was made. Whether he would have believed the witness, in this case the deceased, if she spoke in his presence, he cannot know. To substitute, not only for admissibility, but for its truth, the statement of an absent witness, because that statement *581is allegedly against her social interest, is a leap past our only test, and a leap into the dark.
I would join with the Chief Justice in remanding this case back to be reheard absent the damning hearsay.*

 The opinion in this case in the Superior Court was written by the able and learned Judge Wickersham. Judge Wickersham has resigned from the bench to follow other endeavors. His excellent opinion here is testimony to the gap he will leave in our collective learning and experience.