disapproving issuance of a warrant by a district justice who was married to the chief officer investigating the case
How later courts described this case
- disapproving issuance of a warrant by a district justice who was married to the chief officer investigating the case
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
SAYLOR, Judge,
concurring.
I join my colleagues in concluding that the search warrant at issue was invalid under the Supreme Court’s holding in Commonwealth v. Edmunds.
I also agree with Judge Popovich that the issuing magistrate should have disqualified herself in this proceeding because of her relationship with the sheriff who supervised the investigation and supplied information in connection with the application for the search warrant. However, I am unwilling to impute any actual bias to the magistrate by virtue of the fact that she issued a search warrant on the basis of an affidavit which was technically deficient. Rather I believe, as did Justice McDermott, dissenting in Edmunds, that “[A]ll concerned acted in good faith.”