Court Opinion

ID: 9644253
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:51:10.139201+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:10.448947
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, Judge,
dissenting:
For the reasons discussed in my dissenting opinion in Commonwealth ex rel. Marshall v. Gedney, 237 Pa.Super. 372, 380, 352 A.2d 528, 531 (1975) (allocatur granted, January 31, 1977), it is my opinion that when a request for extradition is based on affidavits sworn to before a magistrate in another state, the affidavits must be sufficient to support a finding of probable cause.
The majority says, however, that “[nevertheless, in the circumstances of this case, we find that there was probable cause . . . .” Majority Opinion 247 Pa.Super. at 351, 372 A.2d at 862. I submit that the majority’s own ensuing recitation demonstrates that there was not probable cause. All we are told is that “a Mrs. Smith” “told the police that [appellant] had telephoned her daughter . . . and had talked to her for quite a period of time.” What, one is bound to ask, did Mrs. Smith say her daughter said? And, whatever Mrs. Smith said, why believe her? Put the majority’s recitation in an affidavit for a search warrant, and a motion to suppress, filed on the ground that the warrant had not been issued on probable cause, would be granted. Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969); Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108 (1964).
Finally, the majority says:
A governor’s extradition warrant is prima facie evidence that all legal requirements have been met. . . . The *354fact that the affidavit in this case was made and sworn to before a magistrate on April 23, 1976, and the warrant was sworn to before a magistrate on April 10, 1976, thirteen days before the affidavit, does not require us to find that the papers are not in order. The law does not require such a highly technical reading of the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act.
Majority Opinion 247 Pa.Super. at 352, 372 A.2d at 862-863. The Act requires “a copy of an affidavit made before a magistrate . . . together with a copy of any warrant issued thereupon . . . .” 19 P.S. § 191.3 “[^hereupon” means nothing unless it means that the warrant was issued on the strength of the affidavit, i. e., after the affidavit. Here, as the majority acknowledges, the warrant was issued before the affidavit. There is nothing “highly technical” about this; it is the only possible way to read the Act. For the majority to say that it is “not require[d] to find that the papers are not in order” is equivalent to saying that it is not required to enforce the Act.
I would reverse.