Court Opinion

ID: 9747589
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:22:19.158849+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:24.810661
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority holds that, even if appellant’s arrest was illegal and the statement later taken from appellant was tainted by the illegal arrest, the admission of this statement at trial was harmless error. The majority reasons that the statement was repeated when appellant took the stand in his own defense. I dissent for the reasons stated in Mr. Justice Nix’ dissenting opinion in Commonwealth v. Saunders, 459 Pa. 677, 683, 331 A.2d 193, 195 (1975), in which I joined.
I do not believe that today’s decision can be reconciled with Harrison v. United States, 392 U.S. 219, 88 S.Ct. 2008, 20 L.Ed.2d 1047 (1968). At Harrison’s first trial, the prosecution introduced three confessions into evidence. Harrison then took the stand and repeated his own version of the killing. On appeal, his conviction was reversed because the confessions were inadmissible. Harrison v. United States, 123 U.S.App.D.C. 230, 359 F. 2d 214 (1965), on rehearing en banc, 359 F.2d 223 *276(1965). On remand, the case was again brought to trial before a jury. The confessions were not used, but Harrison’s testimony from the first trial was admitted into evidence. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that petitioner’s testimony at the first trial was inadmissible at the second trial as the fruit of the illegally procured confession:
“As Justice Tobriner wrote for the Supreme Court of California,
‘If the improper use of [a] defendant’s extrajudicial confession impelled his testimonial admission of guilt, ... we could not, in order to shield the resulting conviction from reversal, separate what he told the jury on the witness stand from, what he confessed to the police during interrogation.’
[People v. Spencer, 66 Cal.2d 158, 164, 57 Cal.Rptr. 163, 168, 424 P.2d 715, 719-20 (1967)]
. Having ‘released the spring’ by using the petitioner’s unlawfully obtained confessions against him; the Government must show that its illegal action did not induce his testimony.”
Harrison v. United States, 392 U.S. at 223-25, 88 S.Ct. at 2010-11.
Here, there is no showing that appellant’s testimony at trial was not induced by the admission of the statement taken from him. Therefore, under the Supreme Court’s decision in Harrison, we cannot refuse to consider appellant’s claim that the statement was illegally obtained simply because its substance was repeated by appellant’s testimony. See also Stroble v. California, 343 U.S. 181, 72 S.Ct. 599, 96 L.Ed. 872 (1952) (Admission of confession is not harmless error, even though five confessions of similar substance were properly admitted into evidence).
I dissent.
*277NIX, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.