Editor’s Note: This is the first in a two-part series.
Leonard Deutchman
In Commonwealth v. Mason, No. 1091 M.D.A. 2018 (Super. Ct. 3/7/19), a nonprecedential decision, the Pennsylvania Superior Court ruled that a criminal defendant’s videotaped actions as a nanny in her employer’s home were not subject to the Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Control Act (the Wiretap Act), 18 Pa.C.S.A. Sections 5701-5782, but that her oral communications, as well as sounds, which the court describes as “purported sounds of the defendant shoving or hitting a child,” were protected by the Wiretap Act. A concurring and dissenting opinion agreed with the Superior Court’s ruling as it pertained to videotaped actions but disagreed that any of the oral communications or sounds were protected by the Wiretap Act. On Sept. 10, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted allocator to consider two issues, as stated by the prosecutors: “Whether a babysitter has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the bedroom of a child she is caring for? Whether the sounds resulting from a child being forcibly thrown into a crib and being beaten by the defendant constitute ‘oral communications’ or ‘evidence derived therefrom’ under the Pennsylvania wiretap statute?”
