finding 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 5984 and 5985 unconstitutional because they raise subjective fears of child witness above the rights of a defendant to confront his accuser face to face
How later courts described this case
- finding 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 5984 and 5985 unconstitutional because they raise subjective fears of child witness above the rights of a defendant to confront his accuser face to face
- condemning as unconstitutional Sections 5984 and 5985(a) because neither failed to limit the use of videotape in closed-circuit television to those instances in which a defendant’s right to face-to-face confrontation had been otherwise satisfied
- Child day care providers had no justifiable expectation of privacy once conversations, threats, arguments, and screams became audible in adjoining home, and adjoining homeowners recording of those did not constitute “oral communication” in violation of the Act
- defendants had no justifiable expectation that conversations in their home, which were loud enough to be heard through wall of their home into adjoining home, were not subject to being intercepted
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
FLAHERTY, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I dissent from Part A of the opinion of the court which holds that 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 5984(a) and 5985(a) are unconstitutional under Article I, section 9 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, for the reasons set forth in the dissenting opinion of Mr. Chief Justice Nix, which I joined, and in my dissenting opinion, joined by the chief justice, in Commonwealth v. Ludwig, 527 Pa. 472, 481-92 , 594 A.2d 281, 285-90 (1991). Furthermore, I believe it is improper to review the constitutionality of a statute which was not implicated in the case, viz. 42 Pa.C.S. § 5985(a), inasmuch as no live closed-circuit testimony was presented at trial. Although the logic seems to apply equally to both statutory provisions, it is unnecessary and improper to address the latter statute, and I believe any statement about it is dictum.
I concur with, and join, Part B of the majority opinion which reverses the trial court’s suppression of the tape-recordings made by Ms. Wolfe. I think the Loudens could have no reasonable expectation that their unreasonably loud conversations and obscene language, clearly audible in their neighbors’ home, would be protected from such interception.
NIX, C.J., joins this concurring and dissenting opinion.