Court Opinion

ID: 9702810
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:24:54.747825+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:41.746235
License: Public Domain

*349CASTILLE, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the result as it is consistent with my dissenting opinion in Commonwealth v. Kilgore, Pa. , 544 Pa. 439, 677 A.2d 311 (1995), rev’d sub nom. Pennsylvania v. Labron, — U.S. —, 116 S.Ct. 2485, 135 L.Ed.2d 1031 (1996) (‘Kilgore I”) that the Majority in Kilgore I erroneously interpreted the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 45, 90 S.Ct. 1975, 1978, 26 L.Ed.2d 419 (1970), the United States Supreme Court held that seizing a vehicle while securing a search warrant is no less of an intrusion of the owner’s Fourth Amendment rights than is a warrantless search. However, in Kilgore I, the Majority held that there were no exigent circumstances justifying a warrantless search of an automobile since one officer could have remained with the automobile while another officer obtained a warrant to actually search the car. By requiring police to obtain a warrant to search an automobile except in extreme circumstances, the Majority in Kilgore I “essentially eviscerated the entire automobile exception.” Kilgore I, supra at , 677 A.2d at 314 (Castille, J., dissenting). As the United States Supreme Court acknowledged, this was an incorrect reading of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence on the automobile exception. Pennsylvania v. Labron, supra.
NEWMAN, J., joins this concurring opinion.