Court Opinion

ID: 9747119
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:57:21.798983+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:20.263330
License: Public Domain

*419JONES, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. The majority opinion views appellant’s statements of November 27, 1972 as the product of his illegal arrest on November 22 and implies an acceptance of the “but for” test specifically rejected by the United States Supreme Court in Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 487-88, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963), and by this Court in Commonwealth v. Bishop, 425 Pa. 175, 182 n. 5, 228 A.2d 661, 665 n. 5 (1967).
The majority essentially argues that “but for” the illegal arrest of Tony Whitaker on November 22, the police would not have uncovered John Barton, who then would not have implicated Whitaker, who then would not have confessed after his re-arrest. However, Barton’s arrest was concededly legal. Once Barton was properly in custody any evidence flowing from his arrest was related to that arrest and not to the illegal seizure of Whitaker. More particularly, Barton’s decision to confess and implicate Whitaker itself provides a sufficient intervening circumstance to dissipate any taint of the illegality which occurred November 22.
In Commonwealth v. Wright, 460 Pa. 247, 332 A.2d 809 [J-554 filed January 27, 1975], Mr. Justice Pomeroy, again speaking for the majority, held that a confession following an illegal arrest was admissible even though prompted by the confrontation with another illegally-arrested suspect. The confession was ruled to be a product of the confrontation with the other suspect. If the confession at issue in Commonwealth v. Wright was sufficiently purged of any initial illegality, surely one that flows from a legal arrest must also be admissible evidence.
I maintain that Whitaker’s rearrest and subsequent statements were the products of Barton’s legal arrest and competent confession and, therefore, sufficiently attenuated from the initial illegality. Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. at 487, 83 S.Ct. 407, quoting Nardone v. *420United States, 308 U.S. 338, 341, 60 S.Ct. 266, 84 L.Ed. 307 (1939).
I would affirm.
EAGEN and O’BRIEN, JJ., join in his dissent.