Court Opinion

ID: 9651638
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:29:41.11984+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:36.905714
License: Public Domain

McDERMOTT, Justice,
dissenting.
With a flash of brilliance that is the exclusive province of hindsight, the majority holds that the issuing authority in this case fell into error by accepting and applying a clear holding of the U.S. Supreme Court that pen registers do not require probable cause. Now that the majority holds that probable cause is required for pen registers in this Commonwealth they find it inexcusable that others, lacking their authority, and their gifts of discernment, relied on the holding and analysis of the Supreme Court. The majority, in an abundance of good will, go beyond what the Supreme Court of the United States considers adequate protection of a citizen’s right to use a telephone, and now hold as a Pennsylvania constitutional right that who one calls cannot be questioned without probable cause that he is committing a criminal use. I might agree that the legislature can prohibit pen registers without probable cause, but I cannot agree that the legislature ought to be prohibited from doing so as unconstitutional under the majority opinion. Certainly its uses can be enrounded with sufficient protection short of total constitutional defect. The magics of electronic communication may not prove a blessing on all occasions. We have much yet to learn and perhaps much to bear. We should not slam a constitutional door shut until we know where the fire will start next time. To come to their point the majority dribble through “retroactivity” raising uncertainties of what the law is at the present time. But more, much more than that, they cannot, will not, say whether there is a “good faith” exception extant or possible in Pennsylvania. One can see, however, that if it is not “good faith” to follow a holding of the Supreme Court of the United States before it is examined by the factitious logic of hindsight, there is not and cannot be such an exception. *423The refusal of the majority to accept the analysis of the Superior Court that this is an appropriate case for a “good faith” exception is not a good faith mistake of their retroactive logic, it is a labored effort to avoid common sense and keep an open field for better crimes to come. This case will prove a major slipping ground for any analysis of “good faith” that is not a construct of whim, absurdity or repentance.