Court Opinion

ID: 9716186
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:30:12.964199+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:42.853970
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Cohen:
Unlike the cases of Commonwealth v. Bosurgi, 411 Pa. 56, and Commonwealth v. Cockfield, 411 Pa. 71, the evidence in this case was not obtained as a result of a search and seizure. Hence, Mapp v. Ohio is inapplicable and we need not consider the problem raised by that decision of what standards govern the admissibility of evidence secured through an invasion of privacy.
Since Mapp is inapplicable, the issue of whether the misrepresentations made by the police officers require a suppression of this evidence is determined, just as before Mapp, by the test set forth in Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165 (1952). In that case, the United States Supreme Court held that the fourteenth amendment only requires state courts to suppress evidence obtained by police methods which either “shock the conscience” or “offend a sense of justice.” I would hold that the police tactics employed here of utilizing the efforts of a cooperative wife to secure evidence against the defendant do not rise to the level of this Constitutional proscription. Since the fourteenth amendment does not require its suppression, the evidence is admissible under Pennsylvania law.
I dissent.
*87Mr. Chief Justice Bell joins in this dissenting opinion.