504 Pa. 46 - Commonwealth v. Sell

How this case has been cited

Cited by 249 later decisions — most recently December 2016 · most notably Commonwealth v. Edmunds (1991), Commonwealth v. Gray (1986)

247 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.

McDERMOTT, Justice,

¶1dissenting.

¶2Since we are bound by the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 88 S.Ct. 967, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968), I see no reason to adhere to the legal fiction of automatic standing. Both the Sim*69mons rule and automatic standing were designed to protect the same interest, i.e. the preservation of a defendant’s fifth amendment rights, and I believe that the protection afforded by Simmonsis alone sufficient to preserve this interest. See U.S. v. Salvucci, 448 U.S. 83, 100 S.Ct. 2547, 65 L.Ed.2d 619 (1980).

¶3I wish to emphasize, however, that this protection, in whatever form it takes, should not be construed as a license to lie, for this Court has previously held that a defendant’s suppression court testimony may be used by the Commonwealth in cross-examination. Commonwealth v. Sparrow, 471 Pa. 490, 370 A.2d 712 (1977).1

¶4. Sparrowis consistent with the approach adopted by the United States Supreme Court in Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222, 91 S.Ct. 643, 28 L.Ed.2d 1 (1971); and our decision in Commonwealth v. Bennett, 498 Pa. 656, 450 A.2d 970 (1983). (See Concurring Opinions: Flaherty, J. and McDermott, J.) Although this Court has previously refused to adopt Harrisas the law of this Commonwealth, Commonwealth v. Triplett, 462 Pa. 244, 341 A.2d 62 (1975), I believe that such decision was ill advised and should be reversed.