Court Opinion

ID: 9757097
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:18:46.018975+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:34.809790
License: Public Domain

NIX, Justice,
concurring.
The majority has concluded that even if the statement elicited from the minor appellant was done so in a manner violative of the rules set down by this Court in Commonwealth v. McCutchen, 463 Pa. 90, 343 A.2d 669 (1975), and its progeny, that violation would necessarily be harmless error beyond a reasonable doubt because at trial the appellant testified on his own behalf and reiterated the facts set forth in that challenged statement. I do not agree.
The fact that appellant repeated the facts at trial consistent with his earlier statements to the police could only attest to the veracity of that statement. This fact, however, provides no basis for concluding that an error which may have occurred by the admission of that statement is thereby rectified. The essence of our rules relating to the waiver by a juvenile defendant during police interrogation is based upon a consideration of the juvenile’s lack of maturity and attempts to assure that the juvenile has been properly counselled through the intervention of adult guidance before permitting him to execute a waiver of his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights. The rule of exclusion was therefore developed not because of the unreliability of such evidence but rather because of our concern that the youth of the accused prevented him from being capable without adult guidance of intelligently waiving fundamental constitutional protections.
It may very well have been that this appellant would not have been required to take the stand in his own behalf if the statement was, in fact, violative of the McCutchen rule. It therefore cannot be said that the mere fact that he did take *543the stand after the statement had been entered against him by the Commonwealth in their case-in-chief, that an improper admission of that statement was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Compare, Commonwealth v. Saunders, 459 Pa. 677, 683, 331 A.2d 193, 195 (1975) (Dissenting Opinion, Nix, J., joined by Roberts, J.).
I am, however, able to agree with the result reached by the majority since it appears that the McCutchen argument was not preserved for appellate review. The defense did not raise the admissibility of Bridges’ confession as a basis for relief in its written post-trial motions filed in the court below, thus under the ruling of this Court in Commonwealth v. Blair, 460 Pa. 31, 331 A.2d 213 (1975), the matter is not cognizable on appeal at this time.