Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

The issue presented for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's review in this case was whether a person subject to a bench warrant was a “fugitive from justice” such that he was a “person not to possess, use, control, sell, transfer or manufacture” a firearm pursuant to Section 6105 of the Pennsylvania Uniform Firearms Act of 1995. Upon review of the facts of this case, the Court concluded the active bench warrant for appellant Brahim Smith rendered him a fugitive from justice prohibited from possessing a firearm, and he was properly convicted under that statute. View "Pennsylvania v. Smith" on Justia Law

While driving a vehicle in December 2014, Appellant Kaitlyn Wolfel struck two pedestrians, killing one and injuring the other. She was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, and police transported her to a local health center for blood testing. Prior to the blood draw, police advised Appellant that, if she refused to submit to the test, she would be subject to enhanced criminal penalties pursuant to the Implied Consent Law. Appellant consented to the procedure, and the test yielded a blood alcohol content of .178 percent. Appellant was charged with numerous criminal offenses, including homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence. In 2016, while the case remained at the pretrial stage, the federal Supreme Court issued its decision in Birchfield v. North Dakota, 136 S. Ct. 2160 (2016). Birchfield held, among other things, that consent to a warrantless blood draw was vitiated when such assent follows the administration by police of a warning of enhanced criminal penalties upon refusal of the testing. Appellant then lodged a motion contending, in very general terms, that Birchfield required suppression of the blood evidence. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court determined the Commonwealth waived its challenge to Appellant’s failure to raise a claim under Pa. Const. Article I, Section 8, by failing to challenge the suppression court’s explicit invocation of that provision before the superior court. The superior court order was reversed and the matter remanded for further proceedings. View "Pennsylvania v. Wolfel" on Justia Law

In 2016, Appellant James Hamlett, Jr. was convicted of numerous crimes deriving from a sexual assault upon a minor, and lengthy concurrent terms of incarceration were imposed at sentencing. On appeal, the superior court found that the trial court had erred in admitting a video of a forensic interview of the victim into evidence. Nevertheless, the intermediate court invoked the harmless-error doctrine to deny Appellant’s request for a new trial, reasoning that the video was merely cumulative of properly-admitted evidence in the form of the victim's testimony. The Commonwealth hadn't argued harmlessness. Nonetheless, the superior court invoked the precept that an appellate court could affirm a valid verdict based on any reason appearing in the record, regardless of whether the rationale was raised by the appellee. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted review to determine whether it should prohibit Pennsylvania appellate courts from exercising their discretion to apply the harmless-error doctrine when deemed warranted, in criminal cases where advocacy from the Commonwealth on the subject was lacking. Appellant's core position on appeal was that the practice of appellate courts exercising their discretion like this should have been disapproved and discarded: that application of the right-for-any-reason doctrine to support sua sponte harmless-error review inappropriately relieved the government from meeting its burden of proof of harmlessness, upon an appellate court's discernment of trial error. To this, the Supreme Court disagreed, affirming the superior court judgment. View "Pennsylvania v. Hamlett" on Justia Law

In Pennsylvania ex rel. Buchanan v. Verbonitz, 581 A.2d 172 (Pa. 1990), a five-Justice majority of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held hearsay evidence alone was insufficient to establish a prima facie case at a preliminary hearing. In this case, a divided superior court recognized the Verbonitz holding, but did not follow it, despite acknowledging “the facts of Verbonitz are virtually indistinguishable from the case sub judice.” The Superior Court articulated five reasons for its departure from Verbonitz: (1) the Verbonitz Court did not agree on a single rationale to support its holding; (2) the Superior Court, in Pennsylvania v. Ricker, 120 A.3d 349 (Pa. Super. 2015) (“Ricker I”), appeal dismissed as improvidently granted, 170 A.3d 494 (Pa. 2017) (per curiam) (“Ricker II”), rejected the position of the three-Justice Verbonitz plurality, opining hearsay violated confrontation rights; (3) the Verbonitz minority relied on a substantive due process analysis contradicted by Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S. 266 (1994); (4) Verbonitz was decided before the 2013 amendments to Pa.R.Crim.P. 542(E); and (5) there was no procedural due process violation here. Upon careful review, the Supreme Court held the superior court erred to the extent it concluded hearsay evidence alone was sufficient to establish a prima facie case at a preliminary hearing. Accordingly, the Supreme Court reversed the superior court’s decision in this matter and disapproved that court's prior decision in Ricker I, which similarly concluded hearsay evidence alone was sufficient to establish a prima facie case at a preliminary hearing. View "Pennsylvania v. McClelland" on Justia Law

On March 6, 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf issued a Proclamation of Disaster Emergency (“Proclamation”) pursuant to 35 Pa.C.S. 7301(c), a provision of the Emergency Management Services Code. This Proclamation activated many emergency resources. Days later, the Governor issued an order closing businesses that were not considered life-sustaining. Four Pennsylvania businesses and one individual challenged the Governor's Order, alleging that it violated the Emergency Management Services Code and various constitutional provisions. On April 13, 2020, in an exercise of its King’s Bench jurisdiction, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the Governor’s order complied with both the statute and Commonwealth Constitution. On June 3, 2020, the Governor renewed the Proclamation for an additional ninety days. June 9, 2020, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives adopted a concurrent resolution to order the Governor to terminate the disaster emergency. The matter reached a loggerhead and went again before the Supreme Court. The Court issued an opinion stating "we find it necessary to make clear what this Court is, and is not, deciding in this case. We express no opinion as to whether the Governor’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic constitutes wise or sound policy. Similarly, we do not opine as to whether the General Assembly, in seeking to limit or terminate the Governor’s exercise of emergency authority, presents a superior approach for advancing the welfare of our Commonwealth’s residents." Instead, the Court decided here a narrow legal question: whether the Pennsylvania Constitution and the Emergency Services Management Code permitted the General Assembly to terminate the Governor’s Proclamation of Disaster Emergency by passing a concurrent resolution, without presenting that resolution to the Governor for his approval or veto. To this, the Supreme Court responded "no": "because the General Assembly intended that H.R. 836 terminate the Governor’s declaration of disaster emergency without the necessity of presenting that resolution to the Governor for his approval or veto, we hold, pursuant to our power under the Declaratory Judgments Act, that H.R. 836 is a legal nullity." View "Wolf v. Scarnati" on Justia Law

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted discretionary review to consider whether the Commonwealth Court erred in determining a school bus surveillance video sought in a request for public records pursuant to the Right-to-Know Law (RTKL) was not exempt from disclosure under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), 20 U.S.C. 1232g. Rudy Miller, on behalf of The Express Times (collectively, Requester), submitted a RTKL request to the District. Therein, Requester sought information in connection with an incident involving an elementary school teacher who, according to Requester, had roughly physically disciplined a child on a school bus outside of the school. Although its rationale departed from the analysis of the Commonwealth Court, the Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s order, with instructions to redact students’ images from the video prior to disclosure. View "Easton Area Sch. Dist. v. Miller" on Justia Law

On April 1, 2020, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued a per curiam order reversing the judgment of sentence of Appellant Jerome McIntyre who had been convicted for failing to register as a convicted sex offender. Appellant’s challenge to his sentence was raised in proceedings under the Post Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”). Because the Supreme Court found his challenge to be meritorious, but because his prison sentence expired on April 7, 2020, thus terminating the Court's jurisdiction to grant relief as of that date, the Court took the unusual action of issuing its April 1, 2020 order, with an opinion to follow. The Court set forth its reasons in support of that order. Appellant argued that, after the Court’s decision in "Neiman," the registration statute, Section 4915, became null and void dating back to its inception, and, thus, it was as if this statute never existed. Consequently, he maintained it would violate due process to uphold his conviction and to permit his incarceration thereunder. Appellant highlighted that the Court recognized the principle that a statute which was stricken for constitutional infirmity had to be regarded as void ab initio and treated as if it never existed. To this, the Supreme Court concurred and held Appellant was entitled to reversal of his sentence and discharge from his conviction. View "Pennsylvania v. McIntyre" on Justia Law

Appellee James Williams, a Pennsylvania state inmate, filed a petition for mandamus relief in the Commonwealth Court’s original jurisdiction. He alleged he was subjected to a search upon leaving his employment post in the prison kitchen, and an officer discovered several pounds of sugar concealed in his boots. The petition further asserted that, after a unit manager conducted a support team hearing at his cell door, Appellee was removed from his position of employment in the kitchen. Appellee claimed the Department’s failure to follow procedures pertaining to misconducts set forth in its prison regulations resulted in a denial of due process. The Commonwealth Court granted summary declaratory and injunctive relief and directed the Department of Corrections to comply with the regulations’ procedural requirements. The dissent to the Commonwealth Court's decision opined the majority's decision went against the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's decision in Bronson v. Central Office Review Committee, 721 A.2d 357 (1998), which held that the Commonwealth Court lacked original jurisdiction to entertain a prisoner’s due process challenge to the actions of prison officials, where the inmate failed to assert a constitutionally-protected liberty or property interest. The dissent maintained inmates had no constitutionally-protected interest in maintaining prison employment. The Supreme Court found Appellee has never advanced a colorable defense on the merits: he repeatedly confirmed he tried to leave the kitchen with half pounds of sugar secreted in his boots. As such, the Supreme Court revered the Commonwealth Court, and remanded for dismissal of Appellee's petition for review. View "Williams v. Wetzel" on Justia Law

On July 3, 2017, a jury convicted Appellee George Torsilieri of one count each of aggravated indecent assault, and indecent assault. The trial court deferred sentencing until completion of a presentence investigative report and a sexually violent predator assessment by the Sexual Offenders Assessment Board (“SOAB”). While sentencing was pending, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decided Commonwealth v. Muniz, 164 A.3d 1189 (Pa. 2017), holding that the registration and notification provisions of the then-applicable SORNA were punitive. A majority of the Court consequently concluded that the punitive provisions violated the constitutional protections of Pennsylvania’s ex post facto clause when applied retroactively to sexual offenders who were convicted prior to December 20, 2012, the effective date of SORNA. In September 2017, the SOAB concluded that Appellee did not meet the criteria for designation as a sexually violent predator (“SVP”). Between the SOAB’s determination and Appellee’s sentencing, the Superior Court declared a different aspect of SORNA unconstitutional. After review, the Supreme Court vacated that portion of the trial court's order declaring the registration requirements of SORNA unconstitutional, and remanded for further proceedings: "Unfortunately, the procedural posture of this case prevents tidy resolution of the matter by this Court. While Appellee presented a colorable argument that the General Assembly’s factual presumptions have been undermined by recent scientific studies, we are unable to affirm the trial court’s several conclusions finding Revised Subchapter H unconstitutional." View "Pennsylvania v. Torsilieri" on Justia Law

In March of 2017, the American Civil Liberties Union (“ACLU”) filed a Right-to-Know Law (“RTKL”) request with the Pennsylvania State Police (“PSP”) seeking disclosure of PSP’s “complete, un-redacted AR 6-9 regulation, which established policies and procedures for PSP personnel when using social media monitoring software.” The PSP provided the ACLU with “a heavily-redacted nine-page document entitled ‘AR 6-9 Real-Time Open-Source-Based Investigation and Research’” (hereinafter, “the Policy”). On April 3, 2017, ACLU filed an appeal and brief with the Office of Open Records ("OOR"), asserting that PSP had not provided a sufficient basis for its invocation of the public safety exception. After an in camera review, OOR characterized the Policy as “describ[ing] best practices, authorization procedures, purposes and limitations for PSP Troopers when using internet resources— including, but not limited to, sites commonly described as ‘social media’ sites—in a professional capacity.” OOR characterized PSP as contending that “the disclosure of the record would be reasonably likely to threaten public safety because knowledge of the restrictions and techniques under which PSP Troopers work could permit third parties to more easily evade PSP’s online efforts and hinder PSP’s attempts to investigate criminal matters or perform background checks.” The Commonwealth Court overturned OOR's "reasoned decision", but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed the Commonwealth Court, holding only that the lower court did not conduct an "equally careful inquiry" as OOR: "The Commonwealth Court unnecessarily denied itself the opportunity to conduct the fact-finding that the RTKL asks of it. But because the Commonwealth Court is the ultimate finder of fact under the RTKL, it would be inappropriate for us to step into its place. On remand, the court at a minimum should compare the Affidavit to the provisions of the unredacted Policy that the Affidavit describes. In keeping with its authority under the RTKL, the court also retains discretion to further develop the record." Judgment was vacated and the matter remanded to the Commonwealth Court for further proceedings. View "ACLU of PA v. PA State Police" on Justia Law