DocketNumber: Appeal, 380
Citation Numbers: 411 Pa. 81, 190 A.2d 709, 1963 Pa. LEXIS 479
Judges: Bell, Musmanno, Jones, Cohen, Eagen, O'Brien
Filed Date: 4/16/1963
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 10/19/2024
Opinion by
The Commonwealth appeals from an order of the Court of Oyer and Terminer of Philadelphia County, granting the petition of the defendant, Walter Wright, under indictment for murder, to suppress certain money evidence allegedly obtained through an illegal search and seizure.
Following the arrest, the defendant was taken to police detective headquarters and questioned.
About 10:30 a.m., the police investigating officers returned to the defendant’s apartment. Up to this point, the defendant had not made any incriminating statements. No search warrant had been issued or was in their possession. The officers were met in the hallway by the defendant’s wife and they told her that her husband was under arrest. They also told her that he had admitted the crime and sent them for the “stuff.” This latter statement was false. Admittedly, the wife was frightened and upset. She admitted them to the apartment and immediately told them that her husband had returned home earlier in the morning in a highly excited state and asked her the whereabouts of the “doll with the hole in it,” which was a doll with a zipper in the back. She related that the defendant had opened the zipper and stuffed money into the opening. The police then picked up a doll, but the wife said that it was not the one and pointed to another. An examination of this last mentioned doll revealed the presence of one hundred sixteen dollars inside.
Two questions are raised in this appeal: (1) Does the Commonwealth have the right to appeal from the order of suppression? (2) 'Was there a valid consent by the defendant’s wife to a search of the apartment so as to waive any constitutional guarantees the defendant personally enjoyed against unlawful' search and seizure of his home?
The first question involving the right of the Commonwealth to appeal herein has been effectively answered by this Court in the scholarly opinion of Mr. Justice Jones in the case of Commonwealth v. Bosurgi, 411 Pa. 56, 190 A. 2d 304 (1963).
The second question requires attention and is determinative.
Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961), ruled that “all evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the Constitution is, by that same authority, inadmissible in a state court.” (page 655). Such rule of exclusion being “an essential part of both the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments . . . .” (page 657). Save in certain cases as incident to arrest, there is no sanction in the decisions of the courts, federal or state, for the search of a private.dwelling without a warrant: Agnello v. U.S., 269 U.S. 20 (1925) ; United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56 (1950). However, it is likewise the law that the constitutional right prohibiting an unreasonable search and seizure may be waived by the defendant personally: Judd v. U.S., 190 F. 2d 649 (1951) ; Com. v. Bosurgi, 198 Pa. Superior Ct. 47, 182 A. 2d 295 (1962), aff’d 411 Pa. 56, 190 A. 2d 304 (1963) ; 58 A.L.R. 737 (1929). It has also been held that such consent or waiver is valid even if made under a threat to procure a search warrant: U.S. v. Maas, 106 F. Supp. 295 (1952).
In view of the circumstances herein present, the lower court correctly concluded that coercion was present and that the Commonwealth had failed in its burden to prove the alleged consent of the wife was valid. The order of suppression was, therefore, properly entered.
Order affirmed.
Following this, the officers made another search of the apartment trying to locate a gun, but to no avail.