Court Opinion

ID: 9700205
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:16:11.457414+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:05.421690
License: Public Domain

LARSEN, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent and adopt the Superior Court decision (opinion by Judge Van Der Voort) in this matter found at 247 Pa.Super. 208, 372 A.2d 11 (1977) and quote in part therefrom:
*358A Miranda statement in this form was sustained as sufficient in Wright v. North Carolina, 483 F.2d 405, 406-7 (4th Cir. 1973) certiorari denied 415 U.S. 936, 94 S.Ct. 1452, 39 L.Ed.2d 494 (1974). A similar position has been taken by the 2nd and 5th Circuits, but a contrary conclusion was reached in the 7th and 9th Circuits, all reviewed in Wright. In our view, the statement read to appellant was adequate.
In any event, it was not misunderstood by appellant. While the statement is capable of the construction that appellant would not be assigned a lawyer until his trial began, it is demonstrable that appellant knew he had a right to counsel before making any statement to the police. We know this because upon his first confrontation with the police following the Miranda statement he refused to put his verbal comments into written form without the presence of a lawyer. The record also shows that he was represented by counsel at his preliminary hearing and, of course, at the trial. The ruling of the trial court that his verbal statements to the police might be admitted in evidence was correct, the Commonwealth having proved that appellant received his Miranda warnings, and there being no showing that he misunderstood the warnings given to him.