Commonwealth v. Alexander, K., Aplt. ( 2020 )

[J-51-2020][M.O. - Donohue, J.]
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA
EASTERN DISTRICT
SAYLOR, C.J., BAER, TODD, DONOHUE, DOUGHERTY, WECHT, MUNDY, JJ.
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, : No. 30 EAP 2019
:
Appellee : Appeal from the Judgment of Superior
: Court entered on 3/5/19 at No. 3246
: EDA 2017 affirming the judgment of
v. : sentence entered on 9/12/17 in the
: Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia
: County, Criminal Division at No. CP-51-
KEITH ALEXANDER, : CR-0005971-2016
:
Appellant : SUBMITTED: April 28, 2020
DISSENTING OPINION
CHIEF JUSTICE SAYLOR DECIDED: December 22, 2020
I respectfully dissent, since I wouldn’t overrule the holding of Commonwealth v.
Gary, 625 Pa. 183, 91 A.3d 102 (2014) (plurality opinion), which was supported by a
majority of Justices including myself. See id. at 243, 91 A.3d at 1138-39 (Saylor, J.,
concurring).
Substantively, I have many differences with the majority’s treatment. For
example, its textual comparison of Article I, Section 8 with the Fourth Amendment
stresses the former charter’s use of the word “possessions,” discerning that the use of
such an “expansive term[]” signals greater protection. Majority Opinion, slip op. at 43
(quoting Gary, 625 Pa. at 251, 91 A.3d at 143 (Todd, J., dissenting)). This analysis,
however, fails to recognize that the word “effects” appears in the Fourth Amendment in
place of “possessions.” U.S. CONST. amend IV.
In terms of the protections intended by the respective framers, I see no difference
between “possessions” and “effects.” Accord Soldal v. Cook Cty., 506 U.S. 56, 62, 113
S. Ct. 538, 544 (1992) (“[O]ur cases unmistakably hold that the [Fourth] Amendment
protects property[.]”). Indeed, the word “possessions” is also used in the Massachusetts
Constitution, see MASS. CONST. art. XIV, which served as a principal model for the
federal Constitution, “leaving no doubt but that textually and historically the federal and
state [protections against unreasonable searches and seizures] are essentially the
same.” Arthur Leavens, State Constitutionalism: State-Court Deference or
Dissonance?, 33 W. NEW ENG. L. REV. 81, 82-83 (2011); see also Commonwealth v.
Schaeffer, 370 Pa. Super. 179, 238-39 & nn.6-8, 536 A.2d 354, 384 & nn.6-8 (1987)
(Kelly, J., concurring and dissenting) (explaining that the terms presently reposed in
Article I, Section 8 were adopted by the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 1790,
contemporaneous with the Legislature’s ratification of the Fourth Amendment, and
highlighting the close similarity of the respective provisions).
More broadly, I have previously set forth my disagreement with the current
direction of the new judicial federalism in Pennsylvania relative to the portrayal of the
Pennsylvania Constitution as requiring broader applications of the exclusionary rule
than are required under federal constitutional law. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Arter,
637 Pa. 541, 571-75, 151 A.3d 149, 168-70 (2016) (Saylor, C.J., dissenting). I continue
to believe that greater significance should have been -- and should be -- attached to the
absence of any textual delineation of an exclusionary precept in the Pennsylvania
Constitution, as well as this Court’s non-recognition of a state-level exclusionary rule
throughout 200 years of its history. See id. at 572-73, 151 A.3d at 168.
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To me, the notion that this Court overlooked such a significant requirement for
two centuries is thoroughly implausible and has “left the Court vulnerable to criticisms of
revisionism and diminished legitimacy in this line of decisions.” Id. at 573, 151 A.3d at
169 (citing Francis Barry McCarthy, Counterfeit Interpretations of State Constitutions in
Criminal Procedure, 58 SYRACUSE L. REV. 79, 117, 135-36 (2007) (“Any claim by one of
the fourteen states that rejected the exclusionary rule that the state has a long history of
protecting state constitutional rights [in this fashion] must ring hollow.”)). In this regard,
and more broadly, I express my continuing reservations about the seminal decision in
Commonwealth v. Edmunds, 526 Pa. 374, 586 A.2d 887 (1991). Accord Arter, 637 Pa.
at 571-72, 151 A.3d at 168 (Saylor, C.J., dissenting) (citing Lawrence Friedman,
Reactive and Incompletely Theorized State Constitutional Decision-Making, 77 MISS.
L.J. 265, 300 (2007) (explaining that Edmunds failed to supply “a coherent theory to
explain how the exclusionary rule should be understood and applied” for purposes of
state constitutional law)).1
Additionally -- as pertains to the imposition of a state-level exclusionary rule more
exacting than the federal analogue -- I find continuing resonance in the position of some
commentators that the new judicial federalism has generated, and is generating, a
1 In 1914, the Supreme Court of the United States adopted the exclusionary rule
applicable to all federal courts, see Weeks v. U.S., 232 U.S. 383, 389, 34 S. Ct. 341,
346 (1914), which was later made applicable to the states in 1961 via the Due Process
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 655, 81 S. Ct.
1684, 1691 (1961). Throughout all this period and before, this Court had maintained the
common law rule that the admissibility of evidence is not affected by the illegality of the
means by which it is obtained. See Commonwealth v. Chaitt, 380 Pa. 532, 535 & n.1,
112 A.2d 379, 381 & n.1 (1955) (collecting cases). Furthermore, during the thirty years
following Mapp, criminal defendants in Pennsylvania could still be convicted using
illegally obtained evidence under various circumstances where there was no police
misconduct, until the good faith exception was rejected in 1991 in Edmunds. See
Edmunds, 526 Pa. at 411, 586 A.2d at 905-06.
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“perplexing mélange of disparate constitutional principles.” James W. Diehm, New
Federalism and Constitutional Criminal Procedure: Are We Repeating the Mistakes of
the Past?, 55 MD. L. REV. 223, 244 (1996); accord James A. Gardner, The Failed
Discourse of State Constitutionalism, 90 MICH. L. REV. 761, 763 (1992) (characterizing
various departure pronouncements under state constitutions as reflecting a “vast
wasteland of confusing, conflicting, and essentially unintelligible pronouncements”).
By untethering the exclusionary rule from its federal, deterrence-based rationale
while expansively construing Article I, Section 8 to provide greater protection than the
Fourth Amendment, I submit that the new judicial federalism impedes the effective
enforcement of criminal laws in a fashion well beyond any impact that the framers might
have envisioned.
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