# Commonwealth v. Carter

> Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · October 17, 2007 · 593 Pa. 562

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9637069

## Case

- **Full name:** COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellant v. Alfonso F. CARTER, Appellee
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
- **Decided:** October 17, 2007
- **Citations:** 593 Pa. 562; 932 A.2d 1261; 2007 Pa. LEXIS 2174
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Saylor
- **Judges:** Gappy, Cappy, Castille, Newman, Saylor, Eakin, Baer, Baldwin, Former
- **Cited by:** 20 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9637069

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that blood alcohol tests were not testimonial because they were basic, routine, and contained precise calculations
- holding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting a state laboratory report, which indicated the presence of cocaine in materials seized from Carter, pursuant to the business records exception
- stating the “Confrontation Clause [is] not congruent with [the rule against] hearsay[.]” (citation omitted)

## Opinion text

Justice SAYLOR,
concurring.
I join Part II of the majority opinion, and the result thus obtained. However, I am unable to join Part I because, in my view, the laboratory report at issue was prepared by the police in anticipation of litigation, thus taking it outside of the traditional business records exception to the hearsay rule. See generally Echo Acceptance Corp. v. Household Retail Services, 267 F.3d 1068, 1091 (10th Cir.2001) (“It is well-established that one who prepares a document in anticipation of litigation is not acting in the regular course of business.” (citation omitted)); Commonwealth v. Bruce, 207 Pa.Super. 4 , 916 A.2d 657, 668 (2007) (“[T]he trial court erred in applying the business records exception to a laboratory report that was prepared in anticipation of litigation.”). 1
. In dissent, Mr. Chief Justice Cappy expresses that the lab report should not be deemed to be covered by Section 6104, 42 Pa.C.S. § 6104, because, as a general proposition, records prepared in anticipation of litigation fall outside the business records exception to the hearsay rule due to their lack of trustworthiness. See Dissenting Opinion at 1271 (citing Palmer v. Hoffman, 318 U.S. 109 , 63 S.Ct. 477 , 87 L.Ed. 645 (1943)). However, the Supreme Court’s Palmer decision, on which the dissent principally relies, was one of statutory interpretation. While it did note that the "probability of trustworthiness" of ordinary business records "because they were routine reflections of the day to day operations of a business” was tire basis of the rule adopted by Congress, id. at 113-14 , 63 S.fct. at 480, it did not suggest that every form of document prepared in anticipation of litigation is attended by *577 circumstances indicating an affirmative lack of reliability, as required for exclusion under Section 6104(b). This is not to say that the courts should necessarily attach special trustworthiness to documents created by a police crime lab. It is worth noting, however, that a police forensic lab is not a “business” in the traditional sense, but rather, exists to promote the interests of justice. Thus, like the majority, I am equally unwilling to attach the label of untrustworthiness to crime lab reports merely because of their source. In short, absent some evidentiary support I see no reason to presume that a report issuing from such a lab in the regular course of its activities is likely to be unreliable for purposes of the Section 6104(b) exclusion.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9637069. Public record. Not legal advice.