Pennsylvania Spousal Privilege Against Testifying Applies Even to a “Collusive Marriage”

A jury convicted Appellant Lewis of tampering with public records or information, 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 4911. Ms. Lewis had worked as a Probation Officer for the Lebanon County Office of Adult Probation. In August 2007, Appellant started supervising the probation of Jeffrey Gardner, who was on electronic monitoring. In December 2007, while Appellant was supervising Mr. Gardneŕs probation, they began an intimate relationship and made plans to travel together to Atlantic City during the weekend of February 17, 2008. On February 12, 2008, Appellant released Mr. Gardner from electronic monitoring, eleven days ahead of schedule of his six-month period of court-ordered electronic monitoring. Part of Appellant́s duties required her to maintain case files on the probationers she was supervising and to make notations of their progress, plans, and whereabouts. Shortly before their planned trip to Atlantic City, Appellant wrote a note in Mr. Gardneŕs file stating he was visiting Atlantic City with his family, as the Appellant did not want anyone to know that she and Mr. Gardner were actually traveling together. Appellant left her job with the Lebanon County Office of Adult Probation and Parole on February 25, 2008.

Probation Officer Fertenbaugh then took over the supervision of Mr. Gardner. In March 2008, Ms. Fertenbaugh learned about the romantic relationship between Appellant and Mr. Gardner. Mr. Gardner came to the probation office where he admitted his relationship with Appellant. When asked, Appellant confirmed the truth of Mr. Garneŕs statements.

On March 28, 2008, the Commonwealth charged Appellant with tampering with public records or information and obstructing administration of law or other governmental function. Appellant and Mr. Gardner were married on June 17, 2008. Appellant filed an omnibus pre-trial motion to preclude the Commonwealth from calling Mr. Gardner to testify at trial, based on the Section 5913 spousal testimony privilege. The Commonwealth argued the Section 5913 spousal testimony privilege should not apply in this case because Appellant and Mr. Gardner married so Mr. Gardner would not have to testify as a witness against Appellant.

The trial court judge concluded that Section 5913 was unavailable to Mr. Gardner if he had married Appellant to avoid testifying against her. The trial court reasoned that a marriage timed even partly to prevent testimony was “collusive” under Pennsylvania law. Thus, the court barred Mr. Gardner from asserting the Section 5913 spousal testimony privilege at Appellant́s trial. The jury found the Appellant guilty of tampering with public records or information but not guilty of obstructing administration of law or other governmental function.

On appeal, the Appellant successfully argued that the trial court́s interpretation of Section 5913 ignored the unambiguous language of the statute and was inconsistent with the Pennsylvania rules of statutory construction. Notably, neither the statute nor the exceptions eliminate or limit the privilege for collusive marriages or pre-marriage events or actions. The statutory text of Section 5913 is clear in this instance, and any public policy concepts arguably implied in the statute are irrelevant. Thus, the Court refused to adopt the trial court́s rationale for creating an exception to the spousal testimony privilege for a “collusive” marriage on policy grounds and also rejected the trial court́s conclusions regarding the applicability of Section 5913 under the circumstances of this case.

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