Court Opinion

ID: 9635512
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:52:47.829505+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:28.712178
License: Public Domain

POMEROY, Justice,
dissenting.
I must respectfully dissent, for I think the Court errs both in its presentation of the facts and in its .reasoning.
The central question before us in this appeal is whether or not a statement made by appellant Willie Lewis Perry while under treatment at the Methodist Hospital in Philadelphia for a self-inflicted gunshot wound was voluntary within the meaning of the federal constitution. The standard for determining whether or not a confession is voluntary is whether the statement was “the product of an essentially free and unconstrained choice by its maker.” Commonwealth v. Irvin, 462 Pa. 383, 386, 341 A.2d 132, 133 (1975). Accord, Commonwealth v. Ritter, 462 Pa. 202, 204, 340 A.2d 433, 434 (1975). There is still “no single litmus-paper test” for constitutionally permissible interrogation, Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U.S. 568, 81 S.Ct. 1860, 6 L.Ed.2d 1037 (1961), but the range of judicial inquiry is broad and judgment must be based upon a consideration of the “totality of the circumstances.” Blackburn v. State of Alabama, 361 U.S. 199, 206, 80 S.Ct. 274, 280, 4 L.Ed.2d 242, 248 (1960).
Obviously, one important circumstance which must be considered in examining the “totality of the circumstances” is the mental and physical condition of the accused at the time an inculpatory statement is made, Commonwealth v. Holton, 432 Pa. 11, 247 A.2d 228 (1968), for injury or illness may influence or impair an accused’s will to resist, Reck v. *9Pate, 367 U.S. 433, 440, 81 S.Ct. 1541, 1546, 6 L.Ed.2d 948, 953 (1961), and thus render a self-incriminating statement involuntary. See, e. g., Commonwealth v. Holton, supra; Commonwealth v. Maroney, 422 Pa. 171, 220 A.2d 628 (1966).
The totality standard for ascertaining voluntariness has been applied consistently and repeatedly by our courts; in my view it provides ample protection for the rights of ill or injured persons accused of committing crimes. In stating that “[t]he legislature has recognized in another context that statements made by injured persons in a hospital setting raise very serious questions as to whether such statements should be recognized as valid by the law . . . [and] . that decisions made by injured persons in a hospital setting must be considered extremely suspect”, Opinion of the Court, ante at 6, the Court seems to me to be leaning towards a rule of per se inadmissibility of in-hospital confessions. Such statements may, indeed, demand close judicial scrutiny but this Court has never until now held such statements to be per se “suspect”, nor until now have we felt the necessity to enunciate a special rule in such cases. I am of the opinion that such a rule is neither necessary nor wise and that in the instant case, it leads to a wrong result.
It is certainly possible for an ill or injured person to make an “essentially free and unconstrained” statement within the walls of a health care institution, and we have so held. Commonwealth v. Moore, 454 Pa. 337, 311 A.2d 620 (1973). To mandate the standard the majority suggests here would be needlessly to narrow the scope of permissible police investigation and to require the police to stand indefinitely idle. One may ask at what point the protection of illness or injury should be brought to an end.
My review of the record satisfies me that the trial court, both at the suppression hearing and at trial, carefully and thoroughly evaluated the circumstances relative to the voluntariness of appellant’s confession, and that the statement was properly held at both stages to be knowing and voluntary.
*10I.

The facts relative to voluntariness.

It is uncontested that all required warnings were given prior to any questioning of Willie Perry, that Perry affirmatively indicated that he would make a statement, and that although given an opportunity to terminate the interview he at no time requested to do so or indicated a desire to remain silent.1
The investigation of appellant’s mental and physical condition by the. suppression judge was thorough indeed. It included extensive testimony from the physician in charge of appellant’s care at the hospital,2 Dr. Thomas Ranieri. In support of its conclusion that appellant’s statement was involuntary the majority itemizes some of the medical proce*11dures to which appellant was subjected. As the sole medical testimony in the trial was that of Dr. Ranieri, I must assume that the Court draws its list of procedures from Dr. Ranieri’s testimony. I find it significant that the suppression court made no specific findings of fact as to the procedures this Court makes much of, and that the trial court’s conclusion, after hearing the relevant testimony and evaluating the credibility of the various witnesses, differs from that of this Court.3 Furthermore, Dr. Ranieri, called as appellant’s witness, testified both on cross-examination and on redirect that these procedures, i. e., the urethral catheter and the intravenous tubing, would cause some discomfort, but not pain, and would not have caused appellant to become unaware of where he was or what he was doing. N.T. (Suppression Hearing) 2.45 et seq.
The intricacies of hospital procedures sound and no doubt are unpleasant. The actual effect upon appellant, however, and hence on the voluntariness of his statement, as testified to by an experienced physician who was appellant’s own witness and found as fact by the suppression court, should not be ignored by this Court or avoided with sympathetic rhetoric. The sole evidence offered in contradiction to these *12findings is to be found in appellant’s testimony that he was in such pain that he neither understood the meaning of his statements nor remembered them. The possibility of this testimony being merely self-serving is obvious, and this would seem to have been the view of the lower court. Absent some clear showing of error, we are bound by the facts as the trial court found them. In my view, no such showing has been made.
II.

The applicable law.

In a case similar to the one at bar, Commonwealth v. Moore, supra, this Court upheld the validity of two confessions made by a defendant undergoing the symptoms of heroin withdrawal, one made just prior to hospitalization and the other just after treatment. We said:
“Here the suppression judge obviously chose to believe the testimony of the two police officers as to appellant’s condition and ability at the time the challenged statements were given, and not that of appellant. His findings of fact were categorical that appellant, in giving his two statements, was not affected by drugs or narcotics, or by withdrawal therefrom; and that they were ‘freely, intelligently and voluntarily made’. As we observed in Com. v. Smith, 447 Pa. 457, 291 A.2d 103 (1976):
‘An appellate court does not weigh evidence or pass upon the credibility of witnesses, and there is no basis for us to hold as a matter of law that the court’s finding of voluntariness of the confession was not adequately supported and well within the court’s discretion.’ ”
Commonwealth v. Moore, 454 Pa. 337, 341, 311 A.2d 620, 622-23.
In my opinion, the facts in the case at bar are much closer to those of Moore than to those of Commonwealth v. Maroney, 422 Pa. 171, 220 A.2d 628 (1966), upon which the majority relies. This is particularly true in view of the medical testimony in both Moore and in the case at bar that neither defendant was prevented by his mental or physical condition *13from understanding their respective situations and acting voluntarily. Such testimony was strikingly absent in Commonwealth v. Maroney, a case where the gravity of the facts stands in sharp contrast to those in the instant case.4
I must also voice objection to the Court’s argument by analogy to the Act of June 9, 1972, P.L. 395 No. 97, 12 P.S. § 1630 et seq. The Court states that the statute, which prohibits the use of either written or oral statements for the purpose of civil litigation when obtained from an injured and hospitalized person within fifteen days of the event causing the injury, demonstrates a legislative concern with legal recognition in civil litigation of in-hospital statements, a concern which the Court would extend to criminal litigation. In view of the differing policy considerations underlying civil and criminal legislation, it seems to me that this argument is both tenuous and unwise. 12 P.S. § 1630 reflects a legislative attempt to protect the ill or injured from possible loss of a deserved civil remedy or from rash choice of counsel in a civil suit; it is a legislative curb on one aspect of “ambulance chasing” and on attempts to purchase releases prematurely. This legislatively created per se rule works no hardship on any concerned party’s legitimate interest, nor does it frustrate the accomplishment of any valid state purpose. Judicial creation of a parallel rule in the criminal area, however, would not have a solely beneficent *14effect. While the state is concerned to protect defendants from involuntary self-incrimination due to the effects of illness or injury, it also has a duty to protect its citizens through prompt, thorough and effective investigative action in response to crime. Accepted rules of statutory construction mandate strict construction of penal statutes, Statutory Construction Act of 1972, Dec. 6, 1972, P.L. 1339, No. 290, § 3(b)(1); 1 Pa.C.S.A. § 1928(b)(1), and broad construction of statutes such as 12 P.S. § 1630 et seq., which is remedial in nature. Statutory Construction Act, supra, § 3(c). These rules, and their applications by the courts, underline legislative and judicial awareness of the different governmental purposes involved and suggest the inappropriateness of blending the standards of one body of law with those of the other, as the majority does today.
For the reasons stated above, I would affirm the judgment of the lower court on this issue.5
O’BRIEN and PACKEL, JJ., join in this dissenting opinion.

. Findings of fact to the above effect were made by the suppression court, N. T. (Suppression Hearing, Judge’s Decision) at 6-7. Appellant does not allege that he never agreed to make a statement, but asserted in his testimony at the suppression hearing that he remembered nothing about the content of his statement or his conversation with the interrogating officer, except that he talked with a police officer and that he was in pain at the time. The suppression judge apparently found this assertion somewhat incredille, for appellant had given a detailed statement (seven pages) and testified on cross-examination that he did remember talking about the homicide with the officer, that the officer showed him the statement, that he “glanced” at it and that he held it while signing all seven pages. N.T. (Suppression Hearing) 2.67-2.70.
In discussing appellant’s desire to remain silent or terminate the interview, the Court makes a significant, if inadvertent, error in factual summary. According to the majority, “At one point during the interrogation, appellant was asked by the detective if he wanted to continue the interrogation and the appellant answered that he ‘didn’t care’ ”. The record shows the following:
Q.: (interrogating officer) Do you feel like answering some more questions?
A.: (appellant) Yes, I don’t care, (emphasis mine.)
It is unclear to me whence this Court draws its version of the exchange, as both the transcript of the suppression hearing, N.T. (Suppression Hearing) at 1.59, and the notes of testimony (N.T. 81) report it as above. The Court’s omission of the affirmative “yes” renders the connotation of appellant’s statement something quite different than the statement as made.

. In addition to the testimony summarized by the majority, Dr. Thomas Ranieri, the attendant surgeon at the Methodist Hospital, *11testified that appellant’s vital signs on the 15th and 16th of February (the day of the interrogation and the day preceding it) were within the normal range, N.T. (Suppression Hearing) 2.19; that appellant was not removed from the accident ward for any surgery, N.T. (Suppression Hearing) 2.19; but that a “relatively minor” surgical procedure was performed to cleanse the wound in the accident room, N.T. (Suppression Hearing) 2.44; that appellant had no fever or serious internal injuries, N.T. (Suppression Hearing) 2.20-2.23; that the bullet was allowed to remain lodged under the surface of appellant’s skin where it could be felt with an examining finger, N.T. (Suppression Hearing) 2.17; and was not removed while appellant was at the hospital, N.T. (Suppression Hearing) 2.43; and that appellant was, after these procedures, thought “safe to be transferred to the I.C.U.” (Intensive Care Unit) for “further observation.” N.T. (Suppression Hearing) 2.25.

. The suppression court found that: “As a result of medical testimony submitted to the Court, the treatment and medication received by the defendant while in the Methodist Hospital did not in any way interfere with the defendant’s clarity of thinking, although defendant was in some pain while being interviewed.” N.T. (Suppression Hearing, Judge’s Decision) at 7.

. In Maroney, this Court found that the accused’s mental and physical state had sapped his powers of resistance, understanding and self-control and therefore overturned the lower court’s admission of the resultant confession. The defendant in that case had been admitted to the hospital in critical condition requiring immediate surgery. During a three and one-half hour operation damage to his liver, stomach walls, diaphragm and gastro-colic omentum was repaired, his spleen was removed and 40% of his blood supply was replaced. The interrogation which produced the inculpatory statement commenced only four hours after the surgery and defendant repeatedly lapsed into and out of unconsciousness. No attempt was made to secure permission from hospital personnel to interrogate the patient or to ascertain his condition before doing so. Hospital records showed that one hour after the confession the defendant was “speaking but incoherent” and the interrogating officer testified at trial that he himself cut short the interrogation because it was evident to him that the accused’s condition would not permit further questioning. Maroney, supra, 422 Pa. at 175-6, 220 A.2d 628.

. Appellant’s other assignment of error is that his statement should have been suppressed as the result of unnecessary delay between arrest and arraignment. See Pa.R.Crim.P. 130, Commonwealth v. Futch, 447 Pa. 389, 290 A.2d 417 (1972). Since this issue is not dealt with by the majority there is no need for me to discuss it. I have, however, reviewed the record and find the claim of unnecessary delay to be without merit.