Court Opinion

ID: 9757539
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:45:22.394284+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:40.665950
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Roberts:
I must dissent because I am unable to conclude that the confession admitted into evidence was voluntary. I am also impelled to note my disagreement with the *169standard employed by the majority to determine whether hearsay statements admitted into evidence violated the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment.
I.
The majority holds voluntary a confession given by this sixteen-year-old defendant, interrogated alone by the police despite the boy’s mother’s request to accompany her sou during the interrogation. Less than two years ago in Commonwealth v. Harmon, 440 Pa. 195, 269 A. 2d 744 (1970), this Court in an unanimous opinion by Justice Eagen granted an eighteen-year-old defendant relief in precisely the same factual setting. I cannot accede to the majority’s sub silentio overruling of Harmon.
A comparison of the facts of the instant case and Harmon convincingly demonstrate the error of the majority’s result-. In Harmon the eighteen-year-old defendant confessed after interrogation, unaware that his mother and two other adults had come to the police station and requested to see him. This Court unanimously sustained the suppression of defendant’s confession as involuntary. We there pointedly noted that the police had “use[d] tactics in the securing of the challenged statement which we cannot condone. If for no more than fairness and policy, the suppression order should be affirmed.” Id. at 1.99, 269 A. 2d at 746.1
Here the boy’s mother made a demand, unheeded by the police, that she be present during the police interrogation of her sixteen-year-old son. Immediately upon learning that the boy had confessed she refused to *170allow Mm to sign a written statement. Here as in Harmon, once again the police “use[d] tactics in the securing of the challenged statement which we cannot condone.” Here as in Harmon, the defendant is also entitled to relief.
The majority’s result is in no way supported by our decision in Commonwealth v. Moses, 446 Pa. 350, 287 A. 2d 131 (1971).2 The facts in Moses differed from those in Harmon and in the instant case in one significant fashion—in Moses no request was made by the sixteen-year-old defendant’s adult guardians to be present during interrogation. That material factual difference makes the holding of Moses inapposite here. Nowhere in Moses did we give the slightest indication that our holding in Harmon was being in any way modified.
In my view, Harmon, when considered in light of constitutional standards, was correctly decided. Nothing since its decision has brought into question its vitality, on the contrary decisions from other respected jurisdictions only reaffirm its soundness. See, e.g., People v. Burton, 6 C. 3d 375, 491 P. 2d 793 (1971). I would reverse the judgment of sentence and grant a new trial on the authority of Harmon.
II.
Hearsay testimony, consisting of statements by appellant and his accomplices that “they beat up some white man” was admitted into evidence without objection. The statements were assertedly made during an interval in the assault on the deceased. It is unclear *171from the record what hearsay exception justified the admission of this testimony. The statements may have been properly admitted either under the spontaneous utterance3 or the co-conspirator’s4 exception to the hearsay rule.
The majority however in my view erroneously adopts a portion of Mr. Justice Stewart’s concurring opinion5 6in Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S. Ct. 1620 (1968), as the standard for determining whether hearsay testimony admitted under exceptions to the hearsay rule satisfies the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. In Bruton, the question facing the Supreme Court was whether the limiting instructions to the jury were sufficient to insure that the jury use the confession of a co-defendant solely to determine his guilt or innocence, not also the guilt or innocence of Bruton. Mr. Justice Stewart’s observations, made in the context of a case dealing with a joint trial and the effects of limiting instructions, are not constitutional authority for the question here in issue.6
*172In several decisions since Bruton, the Supreme Court has developed the standards to be applied in determining whether testimony admitted under a well-recognized exception to the hearsay rule satisfies the Confrontation Clause. First, in California v. Green, 399 U.S. 149, 90 S. Ct. 1930 (1970), the Supreme Court held that the Confrontation Clause is not a codification of the hearsay rule. Id. at 155-56, 90 S. Ct. at 1933-34; Dutton v. Evans, 400 U.S. 74, 81-82, 91 S. Ct. 210, 216 (1970). In Dutton v. Evans, supra, the admission of a statement by a co-conspirator to a cellmate which implicated the accused was held not to violate the Sixth Amendment. The statement, admitted under Georgia’s exception to the hearsay rule for declarations against penal interest, was proper because it “was spontaneous and it was against his penal interest to make it. These are indieia of reliability which have been widely viewed as determinative of whether a statement may be placed before the jury though there is no confrontation of the declarant.” Id. at 89, 91 S. Ct. at 220 (emphasis added).
Following these cases, we concluded in Commonwealth v. Ransom, 446 Pa. 457, 288 A. 2d 762 (1972) : “Therefore, well-recognized exceptions to the hearsay rule supported by circumstances guaranteeing sufficient indicia of reliability’ do not raise confrontation problems.” Id. at 461, 288 A. 2d at 764.
The statements in question here were admissible under “well-recognized exceptions to the hearsay rule” which are supported by “indicia of reliability,” The co-conspirator exception rests on considerations of trustworthiness because: “What one of the conspirators admits while the plot is afoot about the plan or the happenings in its execution, is said by one who has special knowledge and generally is against the declar*173ant’s interest.” McCormick, Evidence §244 at 522 (1954). The spontaneous utterance exception likewise is founded on considerations of reliability: “The factor of special reliability is . . . furnished by the excitement which suspends the powers of reflection and fabrication. . .. The most important factor is the time element. If as is frequently the case, the declaration occurs while the startling event is still in progress, it is easy to find that excitement prompted the utterance.” Id. 272 at 579-80.
The statements in question satisfied the requirements of the Confrontation Clause, not for the reasons stated by the majority, but because they were admissible under exceptions to the hearsay rule fortified by sufficient “indicia of reliability.” Dutton v. Evans, 400 U.S. 74, 89, 91 S. Ct. 210, 220 (1970) ; Commonwealth v. Ransom, 446 Pa. 457, 461, 288 A. 2d 762, 764 (1972).
Mr. Justice O’Brien joins in this dissent.

 Neither in Harmon nor in the instant case was there a specific request made by the defendant to have an adult present during the interrogation. In Harmon the Court noted that the defendant only “made repeated inquiries as to whether his mother or anyone else was there to see him. . . .” Id. at 198, 209 A. 2d at 745-

 In Commonwealth v. Moses, supra, a review of the relevant authorities persuaded me that a juvenile, absent the guidance of counsel or adult friend, is incapable of waiving his constitutional rights to remain silent and free counsel when necessary. Commonwealth v. Moses, 446 Pa. at 356, 287 A. 2d at 134 (1971) (dissenting opinion by Roberts, J., in which O’Brien, J., joined).

 Henry, Pennsylvania Evidence §466 (1953) ; McCormick, Evidence §272 (1954).

 Henry, Pennsylvania Evidence §§442-44 (1953) ; see also Davenport, The Confrontation Clause and the Co-Conspirator Exception in Criminal Prosecutions: A Functional Analysis, 85 Harv. L. Rev. 1378 (1972).

 Mr. Justice Stewart observed in his concurring opinion which was not joined by any of the Justices: “A basic premise of the Confrontation Clause, it seems to me, is that certain kinds of hearsay . . . are at once so damaging, so suspect, and yet so difficult to discount, that jurors cannot be trusted to give such evidence the minimal weight it logically deserves, whatever instructions the trial judge might give.” Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 138, 88 S. Ct. 1620, 1629 (1968) (emphasis in original) (citations omitted).

 The Supreme Court specifically noted in Bruton: “There is not before us . . . any recognized exception to the hearsay rule insofar as petitioner is concerned and we intimate no view whatever that such exceptions necessarily raise questions under the Con*172frontation Clause.” Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 128 n.3, 88 S. Ct. 1620, 1623-24 n.3 (1968).