948
Stevens, J., dissenting
The nature of the Pennsylvania court's reliance on federal law in these cases, therefore, is quite different from that which spurred the Court to conclude in Michigan v. Long that the judgment of the Michigan Supreme Court had not relied on adequate and independent state grounds. There, as the Court noted, the decision below "referred twice to the State Constitution in its opinion, but otherwise relied exclusively on federal law." 463 U. S., at 1037 (emphasis
but whether we wish to follow the United States Supreme Court and sharply curtail a privacy interest long recognized by this Court." Commonwealth v. White, 543 Pa., at 62, 669 A. 2d, at 905.
To this end, I find it particularly interesting that only two Pennsylvania courts have cited the decision in California v. Carney, 471 U. S. 386 (1985), upon which the per curiam decision relies as modern support for its interpretation of federal constitutional law. See Commonwealth v. Rosenfelt, 443 Pa. Super. 616, 632-634, 662 A. 2d 1131, 1139 (1995); Commonwealth v. Camacho, 425 Pa. Super. 567, 625 A. 2d 1242 (1995). Each of those decisions expressly noted the presence of conflict between federal and state law on this issue.
In Camacho, the Superior Court noted "the discrepancy between some of the Commonwealth's past cases and federal cases which speak to automobile searches" in cases like those at issue here. Id., at 576, n. 2, 625 A. 2d, at 1247, n. 2. After reviewing the holding in Carney, the court noted that the state cases concluding that there was no per se " 'automobile exception' " were "simply dated and not in keeping with the tenor of current law." 425 Pa. Super., at 577, n. 2, 625 A. 2d, at 1247, n. 2.
The court in Rosenfelt reached an alternative explanation for the conflict—and a result identical to that reached in the cases reversed by the Court today. There, the defendant agreed that the search of the vehicle was not illegal under federal law. Citing Carney, the court noted that the federal "automobile exception" had "jettison[ed]" the requirement of exigency, essentially converting the exception into a per se rule allowing a search once probable cause exists. See 443 Pa. Super., at 633, 644-645, 662 A. 2d, at 1139, 1145. Noting that the State Constitution could extend greater protections to Pennsylvania citizens than did the Federal Constitution, but that its Supreme Court had not yet decided whether that was the case, the Superior Court went on to review the issue on its own and found a state constitutional violation. Ibid. After it decided the cases at issue here, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied the Commonwealth's appeal. See 544 Pa. 605, 674 A. 2d 1070 (1996) (table).
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