Commonwealth v. Craft

669 A.2d 394, 447 Pa. Super. 371, 1995 Pa. Super. LEXIS 4121
CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedDecember 29, 1995
Docket214
StatusPublished
Cited by21 cases

This text of 669 A.2d 394 (Commonwealth v. Craft) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Commonwealth v. Craft, 669 A.2d 394, 447 Pa. Super. 371, 1995 Pa. Super. LEXIS 4121 (Pa. Ct. App. 1995).

Opinions

DEL SOLE, Judge:

The issue presented is whether Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania requires that confessions obtained while the defendant is in a custodial setting be memorialized, in their entirety, by a writing signed by the defendant or by audio recording.1 We hold that the due process requirements of our constitution does not require the recording of custodial confessions.2

To facilitate a thorough analysis of a provision under the Pennsylvania Constitution, our supreme court strongly encourages litigants to address the following factors:

1) text of the Pennsylvania constitutional provision;
2) history of the provision, including Pennsylvania case-law;
3) related case-law from other states;
4) policy considerations, including unique issues of state and local concern, and applicability within modern Pennsylvania jurisprudence.

[373]*373Commonwealth v. Edmunds, 526 Pa. 374, 390, 586 A.2d 887, 895 (1991). Appellant complied with the four-pronged method of analysis set forth in Edmunds.3 Accordingly, we shall begin our review.

Article I, Section 9 of the Pennsylvania Constitution provides as follows:

§ 9. Rights of accused in criminal prosecutions
In all criminal prosecutions the accused hath a right to be heard by himself and his counsel, to demand the nature and cause of the accusation against him, to meet the witnesses face to face, to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and, in prosecutions by indictment or information, a speedy public trial by an impartial jury of the vicinage; he cannot be compelled to give evidence against himself, nor can he be deprived of his life, liberty or property, unless by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land. The use of a suppressed voluntary admission or voluntary confession to impeach the credibility of a person may be permitted and shall not be construed as compelling a person to give evidence against himself.

Even though the “law of the land” provision is the equivalent of the “due process” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Commonwealth v. Chilcote, 396 Pa.Super. 106, 578 A.2d 429 (1990), appeal denied, 527 Pa. 615, 590 A.2d 756 (1991), we are not bound by the conclusions of the United States Supreme Court. Edmunds, supra. We may provide broader protections as long as we abide by the minimum guarantees established by the federal constitution.

Appellant relies upon the caselaw of two of our sister states to support the proposition that Pennsylvania should impose a mandatory rule of audio recording or writing confessions. The Alaska Supreme Court in Mallott v. State, 608 P.2d 737 (Alaska 1980), announced that law enforcement officials must [374]*374tape record, where feasible, any interrogation of persons accused of criminal offenses especially where it occurs in a custodial setting. In two subsequent 1980 cases, the Alaska Supreme Court noted the “Mallott rule” specifying that tape recording interrogations will greatly assist the courts when determining the circumstances of a confession or the waiver of a suspect’s rights, S.B. v. State, 614 P.2d 786 (Alaska 1980), and that if Miranda warnings are read to a defendant, this should be recorded as well. McMahan v. State, 617 P.2d 494 (Alaska 1980), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 839, 102 S.Ct. 146, 70 L.Ed.2d 121 (1981).

Five years later, the Alaska Supreme Court commented in Stephan v. State, 711 P.2d 1156 (Alaska 1985) that law enforcement agencies and lower courts had failed to implement the Mallott rule possibly because it was not clearly stated that it was a requirement of state due process. To remove any ambiguity with respect to the Mallott rule, the court in Stephan v. State held that “an unexcused failure to electronically record a custodial interrogation conducted in a place of detention violates a suspect’s right to due process, under the Alaska Constitution, and that any statement thus obtained is generally inadmissible” Id. 711 P.2d at 1158. The court reasoned that today a recording is a reasonable and necessary safeguard, essential to the adequate protection of the suspect’s right to counsel, right against self incrimination, and right to a fair trial. Furthermore, a recording provides an objective means for evaluating the circumstances of a confession, and it will provide an accurate record especially for determining the voluntariness of the confession. A recording of an interrogation not only protects the accused, but it also protects law officers from false allegations of improper tactics or claims by the defendant of a violation of constitutional rights.

Similarly, the Supreme Court of Minnesota was also concerned about the failure of law officers to record custodial interrogations. The Minnesota Supreme Court in State v. Robinson, 427 N.W.2d 217 (Minn.1988) and State v. Pilcher, 472 N.W.2d 327 (Minn.1991) explained that if the police recorded the conversations between police and their suspects [375]*375and the events preceding those interrogations, many factual disputes regarding the denial of the defendant’s constitutional rights would be eliminated, and the court commented that it would not look favorably upon any refusal to observe the court’s admonitions. In a subsequent case, State v. Scales, 518 N.W.2d 587 (Minn.1994), the defendant claimed that by failing to preserve the entire interrogation, the police intentionally ignored the court’s prior warnings, thereby denying his due process rights under the Minnesota Constitution. Although the Minnesota Supreme Court in Scales found the reasoning in Stephan, supra, to be noteworthy, the Court did not follow it and declined to determine whether under the Due Process Clause of the Minnesota Constitution a suspect has a right to have the interrogation recorded. Rather, the Court, exercising its supervisory power to ensure the fair administration of justice, held that “all custodial interrogation including any information about rights, any waiver of those rights, and all questioning shall be electronically recorded where feasible and must be recorded when questioning occurs at a place of detention.” Scales, 518 N.W.2d at 592. Failure to comply with the recording requirement would result in the exclusion at trial of any statements a defendant made in response to police questioning. Id.

With the exception of Alaska and Minnesota, Appellant acknowledges that the majority of states who have considered the issue of requiring police to record interrogations decided not to adopt such a rule. See Commonwealth v. Fryar, 414 Mass. 732, 610 N.E.2d 903 (1993); State v. James, 858 P.2d 1012 (Utah App.1993); People v. Raibon, 843 P.2d 46 (Colo. App.1992);

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Commonwealth v. Craft
669 A.2d 394 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 1995)

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Bluebook (online)
669 A.2d 394, 447 Pa. Super. 371, 1995 Pa. Super. LEXIS 4121, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-craft-pasuperct-1995.