Court Opinion

ID: 9834963
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-02 01:59:28.690397+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:55.986473
License: Public Domain

Chief Justice SAYLOR,
concurring.
I join the majority opinion and write only to observe that, left to my own devices, I would move away from strict adherence to a substantive-procedural demarcation in connection with rules of evidence. The “procedural” label initially raises questions concerning legislative power to create eviden-tiary precepts, since this Court has maintained that its procedural rulemaking authority is exclusive. See Commonwealth v. McMullen, 599 Pa. 435, 444, 961 A.2d 842, 847 (2008). *342While the Court has abided an exception for evidentiary-matters, I have previously observed that it has never offered a satisfactory reconciliation of such exception with a constitutionally derived exclusivity principle. See Commonwealth v. Olivo, 633 Pa. 617, 638, 127 A.3d 769, 781 (2015) (Saylor, C.J., concurring). To me, the solution lies in recognizing that there are mixed substantive-procedural dynamics to many evidentia-ry precepts, and in affording tolerance for shared powers in the absence of undue impingements upon the Court’s constitutionally prescribed powers and prerogatives. See id.
From my point of view, it would be as well, in the present case, to simply decide that a statutory, rebuttable evidentiary presumption favorable to individual rights and liberties should be applied at the trial level at the earliest opportunity, absent explicit legislative direction to the contrary.