Com. v. McFeely

• Decision Date: 12 December 1985
• Citation: 509 Pa. 394,502 A.2d 167
• Parties: , 54 USLW 2379 COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Rodger McFEELY, Appellant. 83 W.D. 1984.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 167

502 A.2d 167

509 Pa. 394, 54 USLW 2379

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Rodger McFEELY, Appellant.

83 W.D. 1984.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Submitted Sept. 19, 1985.

Decided Dec. 12, 1985.

John H. Corbett, Jr., Paulette J. Balogh, Pittsburgh, for appellant.

Robert E. Colville, Dist. Atty., Robert L. Eberhardt, Deputy Dist. Atty., Kemal Alexander Mericli, Asst. Dist. Atty., Pittsburgh, for appellee.

Before NIX, C.J., and LARSEN, FLAHERTY, McDERMOTT, HUTCHINSON, ZAPPALA and PAPADAKOS, JJ.

OPINION OF THE COURT

FLAHERTY, Justice.

In this case a confessed killer seeks to have his conviction for second degree murder reversed and a new trial granted on the theory that his confession should have been suppressed. McFeely's argument is that his confession was obtained as a result of an illegal arrest, and that the decision of this Court in Commonwealth v. Williams, 483 Pa. 293, 396 A.2d 1177 (1978), invalidating warrantless arrests made in the home of the arrestee, absent exigent circumstances, should be applied retroactively to his case. McFeely's arrest occurred in the early hours of the morning, without a warrant, in a third-party dwelling.

McFeely was arrested at 5:25 a.m. on February 6, 1977 in the home of his brother, after police received information that McFeely had shot and killed decedent. The informant was McFeely's co-actor. After McFeely was taken to the police station, he was told that police had the suspected murder weapon in their possession and that they had his co-actor in custody. McFeely requested to see both the gun and the co-actor. Both were produced, and McFeely subsequently gave a statement to the police.

According to McFeely's confession, he and the co-actor devised a plan to steal drugs from the decedent, whereby McFeely, posing as a police officer, would gain admittance to decedent's apartment and confiscate decedent's drugs. McFeely, acting pursuant to this plan, carrying a badge and a loaded revolver, knocked at the door of decedent's apartment and was admitted. A struggle for his loaded gun ensued, and decedent was shot. McFeely then took marijuana from the decedent's apartment, ran from the scene, and discarded his gun and the marijuana as he ran. Later McFeely and the co-actor retrieved both the gun and the marijuana. The co-actor took the gun and the pair split the marijuana.

McFeely's first trial for murder, robbery, firearms violations, and criminal conspiracy was begun on September 14, 1977. A mistrial was declared the next day, and subsequently, McFeely's trial counsel withdrew from the case. New counsel filed post-trial motions, which were denied, and on April 8, 1980, McFeely's second trial commenced. A jury sitting in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Criminal Division convicted him of second degree murder and other charges contained in the second information. Second counsel filed post-trial motions, and then a newly retained third counsel filed additional post-trial motions which, for the first time, asserted that McFeely's arrest was illegal. Post-trial motions were denied and McFeely was sentenced to life imprisonment. Superior Court, 328 Pa.Super. 553, 476 A.2d 62, affirmed the judgment of sentence, and present counsel, McFeely's fourth, filed the present Petition for Allowance of Appeal before this Court.

The principal question to be answered on this appeal is whether we are to give retrospective effect to a decision of this Court in Commonwealth v. Williams, 483 Pa. 293, 396 A.2d 1177 (1978), which invalidated warrantless arrests made in the home of the arrestee, absent exigent circumstances. The Williams case relied on the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, not state law, to invalidate such an arrest. Two years later, in Commonwealth v. Miller, 490 Pa. 457, 417 A.2d 128 (1980), we addressed the question of whether the rule in Williams was to be applied retroactively, and we held that the Williams rule was not to be applied to arrests made before November 18, 1978, the date on which Williams was filed. Id. at 473, 417 A.2d at 136. McFeely's arrest occurred on February 6, 1977.

Although Miller would seem to settle the question of whether the Williams rule can be applied to the McFeely case, the question of retroactivity arises now because of two decisions of the United States Supreme Court. Two years after our decision in Williams, the United States Supreme Court, in Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1981), announced a decision on warrantless arrests in the home which mirrored our earlier decision in Williams. Such warrantless arrests are not permitted under the Fourth Amendment, absent exigent circumstances, when they take place in the arrestee's home. In a subsequent case, United States v. Johnson, 457 U.S. 537, 102 S.Ct. 2579, 73 L.Ed.2d 202 (1982), a sharply divided Court held that its decision in Payton was to be given retroactive effect. This holding, of course, contradicts our holding in Miller, and gives rise to the question in this case as to whether we are bound by the decision in Johnson to reverse our earlier decision in Miller.

As a threshold matter, we observe that the rule of the United States Supreme Court in Johnson that their Payton case is to be given retroactive effect does not compel a reversal in Commonwealth v. Miller. It is axiomatic that this Court is bound by the United States Supreme Court's interpretation of minimum standards required by the Constitution of the United States. However, the Johnson Court itself, citing its own prior decisions, states: " '[T]he federal constitution has no voice upon the subject' of retrospectivity." 457 U.S. at 542, 102 S.Ct. at 2582, 73 L.Ed.2d at 208. This Court has also observed: " '[T]he Constitution neither prohibits nor requires retrospective effect' for decisions expounding new constitutional rules affecting criminal trials." Commonwealth v. Miller, 490 Pa. at 472, 417 A.2d at 136. (Citations omitted.)

Moreover, the decision in United States v. Johnson, which gives retroactive effect to Payton, is endorsed by what Mr. Chief Justice Nix has referred to as "[a] tenuous majority" of the United States Supreme Court. Commonwealth v. Geschwendt, 500 Pa. 120, 130, 454 A.2d 991, 996 (1982). This Court, of course, accords deference to the Opinions of the United States Supreme Court, but in a case such as this, in which we are not bound by that Court's majority view, we are constrained to agree with the dissenters in Johnson that the majority's decision in that case not only undermines a heretofore consistent body of law, but also that it does so under the guise of a reasoned analysis which is actually no more than "an exercise in line drawing." 457 U.S. at 568, 102 S.Ct. at 2597, 73 L.Ed.2d at 226. (Dissenting Op. of Mr. Justice White). Our rationale in Commonwealth v. Miller, which supported a quite different view of retroactivity, was based on Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199 (1967), in which a majority of the United States Supreme Court agreed on the factors which control a decision on retroactivity:

The criteria guiding resolution of the question implicate (a) the purpose to be served by the new standards, (b) the extent of the reliance by law enforcement authorities on the old standards, and (c) the effect on the administration of justice.

We then went on to discuss the applicability of these concerns to cases involving the exclusionary rule:

The purpose to be served by the new rule should receive primary consideration. "Where the major purpose of new constitutional doctrine is to overcome an aspect of the criminal trial that substantially impairs its truth-finding function and so raises serious questions about the accuracy of guilty verdicts in past trials, the new rule has been given complete retroactive effect." Williams v. United States, 401 U.S. 646, 653, 91 S.Ct. 1148, 1152, 28 L.Ed.2d 388 (1971) (plurality opinion). Conversely, the same standard "strongly supports prospectivity for a decision amplifying the evidentiary exclusionary rule," Desist [v. United States ] supra 394 U.S. at 249, 89 S.Ct. [1030] at 1033 , the primary purpose of which is to deter unlawful police conduct.

490 Pa. at 472-73, 417 A.2d at 136. We continue to believe that the considerations set out in Miller provide a sound basis for deciding when a rule of law is to be given retroactive effect, and thus, we decline to adopt the view of the United States Supreme Court in United States v. Johnson.

However, even if we were to favor retroactive application of the Williams-Payton law of warrantless arrest, McFeely's confession would not be automatically suppressed. The basic law of the suppressibility of evidence which is obtained as a result of an illegal arrest was articulated in Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963), where the United States Supreme Court held that certain evidence seized as a result of an illegal arrest must be suppressed. However, as this Court stated in Commonwealth v. Bishop, "It does not necessarily follow that all confessions or admissions secured from an illegally arrested person are per se inadmissible as trial evidence." 425 Pa. 175, 182, 228 A.2d 661, 665 (1967). Whether particular evidence is admissible will be determined by the facts of each case. In Commonwealth v. Bogan, 482 Pa. 151, 393 A.2d 424 (1978), we set out factors which are to be considered in making this determination:

The United States Supreme Court in Brown v. Illinois, supra, noted several factors to be considered in scrutinizing an individual case: (1) whether Miranda warnings were given; (2) the "temporal proximity of the arrest and the confession"; (3) "the presence of intervening circumstances"; and, (4) "the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct". The voluntariness of the statement is, of course, a threshold requirement, Brown v. Illinois, supra 422...