Com. v. Acosta

815 A.2d 1078

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellant, v. Miqueas ACOSTA, Appellee.

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued June 27, 2002.

Filed January 15, 2003.

John S. Benson, Asst. Dist. Atty., Doylestown, for Com., appellant.

Michael K. Parlow, Bensalem, for appellee.

Before: DEL SOLE., P.J., FORD ELLIOTT, JOYCE, STEVENS, MUSMANNO, ORIE MELVIN, LALLY-GREEN, KLEIN and BENDER, JJ.

OPINION BY MUSMANNO, J.:

¶ 1 The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania appeals from the Order of the trial court, which granted the suppression Motion filed on behalf of defendant Miqueas Acosta ("Acosta"). We affirm.

¶ 2 In its Opinion dated February 15, 2001, the suppression court set forth its factual findings as follows:

On June 16, 2000, Officer John Monaghan was on duty in Bensalem Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Officer Monaghan was driving southbound on U.S. Route 1 in a marked police vehicle when he saw a red, 1992 Ford minivan driven by [Acosta]. As Officer Monaghan began to pass the minivan, he noticed that [Acosta] changed the manner in which he was driving by straightening up, putting both hands on the steering wheel and refusing to look at the officer.

After Officer Monaghan passed [Acosta], he radioed the New York tag of the minivan into police headquarters in order to determine whether the tag was valid. Police headquarters informed him that the license plate for [Acosta's] vehicle had been suspended. Officer Monaghan then activated his car's overhead lights and pulled [Acosta] over to the right-hand side of the road.

Officer Monaghan approached the minivan and asked the sole occupant for his driver's license, registration and insurance information. [Acosta] gave the officer a valid registration and insurance card and responded that he did not have his driver's license. When asked for any form of identification, [Acosta] presented a BJ's Wholesale Club card, displaying his picture and name.

When the officer informed [Acosta] that the name on the ID did not match the name on the registration and insurance card, [Acosta] stated that his brother owned the vehicle. [Acosta] also orally provided the officer with two conflicting dates of birth, and could not produce any identification reflecting his date of birth. When Officer Monaghan asked him whether he was licensed, [Acosta] said he had a Minnesota driver's license.

Officer Monaghan went back to his patrol car and called in the information regarding [Acosta's] name and the two dates of birth. The officer was unable to obtain any licensing information for [Acosta]. However, he did ascertain that a subject with a different first name and the same last name was wanted in Wisconsin for writing bad checks.[FN] The information Officer Monaghan received also included a general physical description of the wanted subject, which was fairly similar to that of [Acosta].

[FN] Further investigation revealed that [Acosta] was not the subject wanted in Wisconsin.

Upon receiving this information, Officer Monaghan radioed for assistance. He then approached the minivan and ordered [Acosta] to leave his vehicle. [Acosta] complied without incident. Officer Monaghan led [Acosta] to the rear of the minivan along the curb line of the highway. He repeated the questions he had asked previously regarding licensure and ownership of the vehicle. Officer Monaghan also asked additional questions which revealed that [Acosta] was traveling from New York to take the minivan to someone in Philadelphia. At some point during his conversation, Officer Dennis Hart arrived on the scene in full uniform and in a marked patrol car.

Officer Monaghan then informed [Acosta] that the police were having trouble with drug trafficking on that highway. He asked [Acosta] whether he had any weapons or narcotics in the vehicle. When [Acosta] said "no," Officer Monaghan asked [Acosta] whether he would allow him to search the vehicle.

Although [Acosta] acquiesced in the officer's request, that request was made while the officer retained the registration, insurance card, and the ID card. The officer never indicated in any way that [Acosta] was free to leave before he requested consent. The officer acknowledged that he was not certain whether he would have permitted [Acosta] to leave the scene had he attempted to do so. Furthermore, the entire conversation was in English.

When the consent was requested, [Acosta] was standing in front of one of three police vehicles on the scene with their overhead lights activated. Additionally, three officers—Officer Monaghan and Officer Hart and Officer Derek Goldstein—stood next to each other in close proximity to [Acosta] when consent was requested. [Acosta] was not provided with any consent forms advising him that he had a right not to consent and he did not give a written consent. In short, he was never advised in any way that he was free not to consent to the search.

Officer Monaghan and Officer Goldstein searched [Acosta's] vehicle while Officer Hart stood directly next to [Acosta] and watched him. During this initial search, the officers did not discover any drugs.

Shortly thereafter, Officer Christine Kelliher arrived on the scene with a drug-sniffing dog named Cosmo. Up until this point in time, [Acosta] was still standing with Officer Hart along the curbside near the passenger's side of the patrol vehicle. But when the dog arrived, [Acosta] was placed in the back seat of Officer Monaghan's patrol car. Officer Monaghan stated that [Acosta] was moved for "safety reasons," although the officer testified that Cosmo was not a vicious dog, albeit it was "playful in nature" and would jump up. However, at all times, the dog was leashed and under the control of Officer Kelliher.

While [Acosta] was in the back seat of the patrol vehicle, Officer Monaghan, Officer Goldstein, Cosmo and narcotics Officer Gross searched the minivan for a second time. As a result of the second search, narcotics were found in a steel compartment built into the rear bench of the vehicle. [Acosta] was then handcuffed and advised he was under arrest. At this point, forty-five minutes had elapsed since the initial stop.

Although [Acosta] was Hispanic and later in the investigation Officer Monaghan felt the need to request that Officer Nieves advise [Acosta] of his Miranda rights in Spanish, nonetheless all conversations with [Acosta] at the scene were conducted in English. [Acosta] told Officer Nieves that he "knew English a little bit" but was more comfortable speaking in Spanish.

Trial Court Opinion, 2/15/01, at 1-5 (citations omitted).

¶ 3 Acosta filed a Motion to suppress the evidence seized during the search, claiming that the search violated his rights under the United States and Pennsylvania Constitutions. After a hearing, the suppression court determined that the encounter preceding the search was a valid detention based upon a violation of the Vehicle Code. Id. at 6. The suppression court explained that "there was a continuous investigative detention throughout the entire time Officer Monaghan and [Acosta] were together." Id. On this basis, the suppression court concluded that Acosta was "seized" at the time that he gave police officers his consent to search the vehicle, and held that "the consent was not the product of an essentially free and unconstrained choice and was thus involuntary." Id. Accordingly, the suppression court granted Acosta's Motion to suppress the narcotics seized during the search. Thereafter, the Commonwealth filed the instant appeal pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 311(d).¹

¶ 4 On appeal, the Commonwealth claims that "[Acosta] provided [the] police [officers with] a lawful consent to search the vehicle," and on this basis, the warrantless search of the vehicle was justified. See Appellant's Brief on Reargument at 10. We disagree.

¶ 5 When reviewing a ruling by a suppression court, our role is to determine whether the record as a whole supports the suppression court's factual findings, and whether the legal conclusions drawn from such findings are free of error. Commonwealth v. Zhahir, 561 Pa. 545, 751 A.2d 1153 (2000). Where, as here, the Commonwealth appeals from the ruling of the suppression court, we are constrained to consider only the evidence presented by the defense and so much of the evidence for the prosecution that remains uncontradicted when read in the context of the record as a whole.² Commonwealth v. Torres, 564 Pa. 86, 95, 764 A.2d 532, 536-37 (2001).

¶ 6 Pennsylvania case law recognizes three categories of interaction between police officers and citizens. The first of these is a "mere encounter," or request for information, which need not be supported by any level of suspicion, but which carries no official compulsion to stop or to respond. Commonwealth v. Mack, 568 Pa. 329, 341 n. 1, 796 A.2d 967, 975 n. 1 (2002) (Nigro, J. dissenting) (citing Interest of S.J., 551 Pa. 637, 713 A.2d 45, 47 n. 3 (1998)). The second category, an "investigative detention," must be supported by reasonable suspicion. Id. This interaction "subjects a suspect to a stop and a period of detention, but does not involve such coercive conditions as to constitute the functional equivalent of an arrest." Id. The third category, an arrest or "custodial detention," must be supported by probable cause. Id. "Probable cause exists where the facts and circumstances within the officer's knowledge are sufficient to warrant a person of reasonable caution in the belief that an offense has been or is being committed." Id. (citing Commonwealth v. Gibson, 536 Pa. 123, 638 A.2d 203, 206 (1994)). ¶ 7 The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the right of persons in this country to be secure from "unreasonable searches and seizures." U.S. Const. amend. IV. "Thus, pursuant to the protections of the Fourth Amendment, before a police officer may conduct a search, he must generally obtain a warrant that is supported by probable cause and authorizes the search." Commonwealth v. Reid,...