Court Opinion

ID: 9716860
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:52:43.610265+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:49.529528
License: Public Domain

*336CASTILLE, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority opinion here holds that the “independent source” rule cannot prevent the suppression of allegedly tainted evidence1 seized from appellant’s house because the source of the evidence in question was neither independent of the tainted evidence nor independent of the police or investigative team’s action which entered appellant’s house without a warrant for the purpose of detaining those present in the house and preventing destruction of evidence until the application for a search warrant was approved by a neutral authority. The majority makes this holding even though the alleged tainted evidence in this' case was seized pursuant to a valid search warrant obtained without reference to any of the evidence observed by the police or from any information obtained by the police during the illegal entry into appellant’s house. I find that such a holding ignores the circumstances surrounding this search and the purpose of the independent source rule. Accordingly, because I believe that the majority’s holding ignores the independent source rule, I must dissent.
It is well established that the “independent source” rule applies in Pennsylvania. See Commonwealth v. Mason, 535 Pa. 560, 565-66, 637 A.2d 251, 254 (1993); Commonwealth v. Brundidge, 533 Pa. 167, 174-75, 620 A.2d 1115, 1119 (1993). As this Court stated in Commonwealth v. Melilli, 521 Pa. 405, 555 A.2d 1254 (1989): “[I]f the prosecution can demonstrate that the allegedly tainted evidence was procured from an independent origin—a means other than the tainted sources— the evidence will be admissible.” Id. at 421, 555 A.2d at 1262. Thus, this Court has held that evidence is admissible under the independent source rule, in spite of illegal conduct by the police, if the police decision to seek a search warrant was not *337prompted by what they observed during their initial illegal entry and that none of the information obtained during that illegal entry affected the court’s decision to issue a search warrant. Brundidge, supra at 176, 620 A.2d at 1119.
In the case sub judice, the police may have misjudged the existence of sufficient probable cause or exigent circumstances to justify the stop of appellant’s automobile or their warrant-less entry into the house. However, there is nothing of record to suggest that the police undertook these actions to attempt to discover if there was anything of evidentiary nature in the house for which to obtain a warrant, or in order to obtain information that they could then use as probable cause in securing a warrant. Rather, the record shows that none of the information included in the warrant was either derived from or related to the initial entry into or the occupation of appellant’s house.2 The record also shows that the information used to obtain the warrant came from sources wholly unconnected with the entry and which was known to the police well before their initial entry into the house. Moreover, the record shows that the police did not search for any evidence in appellant’s house until after they were informed that the warrant had been signed. Thus, the valid search warrant in this case was sufficiently independent of the entry to purge the evidence from any taint arising from the initial warrant-less entry into appellant’s house. As there was no causal link between the illegal entry and the discovery of the evidence seized from the house, I find no error in the Superior Court’s affirmance of the trial court’s refusal to suppress this evidence.
Affirmance of the refusal to suppress the evidence seized from appellant’s house is also supported by the purpose behind the establishment of the independent source rule. In Murray v. United States, 487 U.S. 533, 108 S.Ct. 2529, 101 *338L.Ed.2d 472 (1988), the plurality of the United States Supreme Court noted that the independent source rule developed as a corollary to the exclusionary rule because:
[T]he interest of society in deterring unlawful police conduct and the public interest in having juries receive all probative evidence of a crime are properly balanced by putting the police in the same, not a worse position, that they would have been in if no police error or misconduct had occurred ... When the challenged evidence has an independent source, exclusion of such evidence would put the police in a worse position than they would have been in absent any error or violation.
Id. at 537, 108 S.Ct. at 2533, quoting Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 443, 104 S.Ct. 2501, 2509, 81 L.Ed.2d 377 (1984). As described above, I believe that the evidence seized from appellant’s house should be admissible under the independent source rule. To hold otherwise would be contrary to the purpose of the independent source rule, for it would put the police in a worse position than they would have occupied if no illegal entry had occurred.
The majority limits the scope of the independent source rule and places the police in a worse position under the guise of protecting citizens from the possibility that police might engage in misconduct knowing that they can escape suppression because they requested a warrant before their illegal entry. I believe such a limitation is unwise since I view the incentives for the police to engage in such conduct differently. The police would be foolish to consistently enter premises illegally since it will increase their burden of convincing a court that no information gained from the illegal entry affected either their decision to seek a warrant or the decision of the district justice to grant the warrant. Nor would illegal entry by the police be ■wise since whatever was observed during the illegal entry could not be used to establish probable cause in seeking a warrant.
In sum, the majority’s failure to find the existence of an independent source in this case effectively operates to greatly curtail the independent source rule in this Commonwealth. I *339cannot agree to that since it would inexplicably afford criminals in Pennsylvania greater protection than that afforded criminals in other jurisdictions. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent and would affirm the order of the Superior Court.

. The evidence found and seized during the search of appellant’s clothes closet was a shoe box covered with handwritten recordings of drug transactions, nine thousand dollars ($9,000) in cash, and a holster with a loaded gun. In the middle bedroom, which was occupied by Julio Cruz (see Mr. Justice Cappy’s concurring opinion), the police found twelve (12) grams of cocaine, 214 grams of marijuana and a pager. In the kitchen, the police found four (4) ounces of cocaine in one drawer and a full kilo of cocaine in another. The police also found a digital scale, a candle to hot seal plastic packets, and sealing tape.

. The only factor from the initial stop and warrantless entry referenced in the affidavit of probable cause was that appellant was being detained while the warrant was being processed. However, this information was not essential to the issuance of the warrant since the affidavit details drug transactions undertaken by a confidential informant that occurred before either the stop or warrantless entry.