Commonwealth v. Crenshaw

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Decided October 7, 1977

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1977-10-07

Relies on Commonwealth v. McCutchen · Commonwealth v. Smith · Commonwealth v. Gaskins

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1977-10-07

How this case has been cited

Cited by 61 later decisions — most recently October 2021 · most notably Steuart v. McChesney (1982), Mellon Bank, N.A. v. Aetna Business Credit, Inc. (1980)

2 federal appellate · 50 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1 OPINION OF THE COURT

PER CURIAM.

¶2 Appellant was convicted of murder of the third degree, robbery, conspiracy and possession of an instrument of crime in a non-jury trial. The sole issue raised on appeal is that the trial court erred in failing to suppress the inculpatory statement of appellant, a 17 year old youth, which he gave to the police without being afforded an opportunity to consult with an attorney or other interested adult. The facts disclosed by the record are not in dispute and substantiate this claim. Accordingly, the statement should have been excluded. Commonwealth v. Smith, 472 Pa. 492, 372 A.2d 797 (1977); Commonwealth v. Gaskins, 471 Pa. 238, 369 A.2d 1285 (1977); Commonwealth v. McCutchen, 463 Pa. 90, 343 A.2d 669 (1975).

¶3 Judgment of sentence is reversed and a new trial is ordered.

EAGEN, C. J., and POMEROY, J., dissent.