Court Opinion

ID: 9718226
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:19:17.590258+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:58.054136
License: Public Domain

ZAPPALA, Justice,
dissenting.
The hallowed principle that one remains innocent until proven guilty is hollow indeed if one’s constitutional rights must always bend to a statutory privilege. When a defendant has shown a legitimate need for access to communications, the testimonial privilege expressed in 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 5945.1 must yield to the constitutional rights of a criminal defendant to due process and to confront his accuser. In the absence of any demonstration by the defendant that the victim’s communications with the counselor would provide a source of impeachment, I would not breach the privilege. The majority, however, forecloses all possibility that the defendant may obtain a victim’s statements even upon a legitimate showing of need for access. I am gravely concerned that we have lost all sense of what our constitutional rights guarantee.
The majority’s sanctification of the statutory privilege is at great cost to our constitutional rights. I am sympathetic *285to the physical and emotional trauma suffered by a rape victim, but I am not willing to sacrifice the guarantees of our Constitution to assuage the harm. I commend the analysis of this Court in In The Matter of Pittsburgh Action Against Rape, (“PAAR”), 494 Pa. 15, 428 A.2d 126 (1981). It is no less compelling today:
There is an undoubtable public interest in helping victims of rape to cope with inevitable disruption of emotional stability caused by the physical assaults they suffer. There is an equally compelling public interest in encouraging victims of violent crime to come forward. We would be closing our eyes to reality were we to discount the value of rape crisis centers in fostering these vital public interests.
It must be remembered, however, that our system of criminal justice is a search for truth. As the Supreme Court of the United States observed, “disclosure, rather than suppression, of relevant materials ordinarily promotes the proper administration of criminal justice.” Dennis v. United States, 384 U.S. 855, 870, 86 S.Ct. 1840, 1849, 16 L.Ed.2d 973 (1966). Accord, e.g., Lewis v. Court of Common Pleas, 436 Pa. 296, 304 n. 4 260 A.2d 184,189 n. 4 (1969). So too, the American Bar Association Project on Minimum Standards for Criminal Justice states: “Where life, liberty and protection of communities from crime are the stakes, gamesmanship is out of place.” Standards Relating to Discovery and Procedure Before Trial § 1.1 Comment at p. 31 (Approved Draft 1970). I agree with the words of Justice Simon of the Supreme
Court of Illinois in his Dissenting Opinion in The People of the State of Illinois v. Foggy, 121 Ill.2d 337, 118 Ill.Dec. 18, 521 N.E.2d 86 (1988):
In determining which interests and relationships should be protected by privilege, and to what extent they should be protected, courts and legislatures must balance the State’s interest in the privilege against the constraints the privilege places on the fair and effective administration of justice. In the present case, the State’s interest in providing confidential counseling services to the victims *286of rape must be weighed against the defendant’s constitutional rights to due process of law and to confrontation of witnesses against him. Although the State’s interest in this case is a strong one and undoubtedly justifies a statute conferring some privilege protection on counseling records ... it is not strong enough to sustain an absolute privilege which renders meaningless the defendant’s constitutional rights.
The legislative action of enacting the privilege for a sexual assault counselor does not dissuade me from concluding that the Pennsylvania Constitution permits a defendant to obtain exculpatory evidence. The in-camera review procedure developed in PAAR successfully balanced the rights of the accuser and the rights of the accused. The accuser was protected from unwarranted intrusions into the counseling process and the accused had access to statements bearing on the facts of the alleged offense.
That the legislative response to PAAR was swift and empathetic to the rape victim does not relieve this Court of our responsibility to declare unconstitutional legislation that denies a defendant his constitutional rights. The Constitution of this Commonwealth is the absolute — a legislative enactment of a statutory privilege is not.