In an interesting turn of events, a Maine man posed for a mug shot while wearing a shirt featuring a picture of his last mug shot. Robert Burt was arrested for DUI and driving without a license, and ordered to spend 48 hours in jail. When he showed up to serve his jail sentence on […]
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Supreme Court Ties Again, Leaves Superior Court Decision on Warrantless Videorecordings in the Home Intact
In Commonwealth v. Dunnavant, 2014 Pa. LEXIS 3457, a 3-3 tie (due to the resignation of former Justice McCaffery) resulted in the per curiam affirmance of the Superior Court’s opinion that a videotape recorded by a confidential informant wearing a covert digital camera during a staged drug-buy within the defendant’s home must be suppressed as […]
3-3 Tie in PA Supreme Court Tightens Admissibility of Electronic Messages
In a split decision, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Commonwealth v. Koch, 2014 Pa. LEXIS 3491, affirmed the lower court’s decision that text messages discovered during a drug investigation were inadmissible hearsay. Believe it or not, in 2015, Pennsylvania (like many other states) still does not have a coherent legal rule for the authentication and […]
New Superior Court 4th Amendment Case
Just before Christmas, a Superior Court panel consisting of Judges Wecht, Panella, and Ott released a new opinion, Commonwealth v. Perel, 2014 WL 7331025, exploring the confines of the 4th Amendment and Pennsylvania’s counterpart in Article 1, § 9 of the Commonwealth’s Constitution. Judge Wecht wrote the majority opinion in the 2-1 decision. Judge Ott dissented. […]
PA Supreme Court: No Problem with HGN
In a decision that is certain to have significant ramifications for the DUI defense bar, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently affirmed without elaboration the Superior Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Weaver, 76 A.3d 562, on the question of whether horizontal gaze nystagmus (HGN) tests “are [in]admissible at a suppression hearing for lack of probable cause […]
