Commonwealth v. Collins

1

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA Appellant v. MARQUESE COLLINS

No. 1574 EDA 2022

No. J-A21024-23

Superior Court of Pennsylvania

November 30, 2023

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

Appeal from the Order Entered June 7, 2022 In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at No(s) CP-51-CR-0000391-2021

BEFORE: BENDER, P.J.E., DUBOW, J., and NICHOLS, J.

MEMORANDUM

DUBOW J.

The Commonwealth appeals from the June 7, 2022 Order entered in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas that granted Appellee Marquese Collins' motion to suppress evidence seized without a warrant during a traffic stop. After careful review, we affirm.

A.

The relevant factual and procedural history is as follows. On January 24, 2020, at approximately 9:00 PM, Philadelphia Police Officer Anthony Mooney was on patrol with his partner near the 2900 block of 22^nd Street. They observed Appellee driving a Dodge sedan accompanied by a passenger, D'Angelo Ray Thomas. The vehicle had a Pennsylvania registration sticker, but a New Jersey license plate. Officer Mooney ran the license plate and found that it was registered to a Cadillac, not a Dodge. The officers initiated a traffic stop to investigate these registration anomalies.

Upon request, Appellee produced his driver's license but was unable to provide his registration papers, despite looking in several places around the driver's seat.^[1] Officer Mooney, suspecting that the vehicle may have been stolen, asked Appellee to step out of the car and placed him in the back of the police car, leaving Mr. Thomas in the car. Officer Mooney then searched under the driver's seat and in the door pocket, claiming to be searching for evidence of ownership.^[2]

Officer Mooney next stepped out of the vehicle and looked through the rear driver's side window from outside the car with his flashlight. He saw an infant in a car seat and a firearm laying on the floor between the driver's seat and the back seat. Officer Mooney's partner then removed Mr. Thomas from the vehicle. "[W]ithin the next couple of minutes," Officer Mooney recovered a firearm. N.T. Hr'g, 6/7/22, at 13. After calling a detective, the officers arrested Appellee. The infant remained in the vehicle until Appellee's parents arrived and the officers released her and Appellee's vehicle into their care.

On January 25, 2020, the Commonwealth charged Appellee with violations of the Uniform Firearms Act.^[3] On June 7, 2022, prior to the start of his waiver trial, Appellee moved to suppress the firearm. The court immediately proceeded to a suppression hearing.

Officer Mooney was the sole witness at the suppression hearing. He testified that when he spoke with Appellee, Appellee appeared "extremely nervous," but he did not describe any other behavior to support his conclusion that Appellee was nervous. N.T. Hr'g at 10. Officer Mooney further testified on cross-examination that Appellee was cooperative and compliant, and even seemed surprised that officers found a firearm.

The court granted the Motion to Suppress. The Commonwealth filed a timely appeal pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 311(d).^[4] Both the Commonwealth and the suppression court complied with Pa.R.A.P. 1925.

The Commonwealth raises the following issue for our review:

Did the lower court erroneously suppress a gun police seized after observing it in plain view, and exigent circumstances existed?

Commonwealth's Br. at 4.

B.

Our review of a grant of a suppression motion is limited to determining "whether the record supports the trial court's factual findings and whether the legal conclusions drawn from those facts are correct." Commonwealth v. Carmenates, 266 A.3d 1117, 1122-23 (Pa. Super. 2021) (en banc) (citation omitted). We defer to the suppression court's factual findings if they are supported by the record. Commonwealth v. Batista, 219 A.3d 1199, 1206 (Pa. Super. 2019). However, we give no such deference to the suppression court's legal conclusions and, instead, review them de novo. Id. An appellate court can affirm a valid judgment for any reason supported by the record. Commonwealth v. Hamlett, 234 A.3d 486, 488 (Pa. 2020).

"We may only consider evidence presented at the suppression hearing." Carmenates, 266 A.3d at 1123 (citation omitted). Additionally, "[b]ecause the defendant prevailed on this issue before the suppression court, we consider only the defendant's evidence and so much of the Commonwealth's evidence as remains uncontradicted when read in the context of the suppression record as a whole." Id. (citation omitted).

Once a defendant files a motion to suppress, "it is the Commonwealth's burden to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the challenged evidence was not obtained in violation of the defendant's rights." Commonwealth v. Wallace, 42 A.3d 1040, 1047-48 (Pa. 2012) (citing Pa.R.Crim.P. 581(H)).

In his Motion to Suppress, Appellant challenged the search of the vehicle and the legality of his arrest. "Both the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution guarantee individuals freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures." Commonwealth v. Heidelberg, 267 A.3d 492, 502 (Pa. Super. 2021), appeal denied, 279 A.3d 38 (Pa. 2022) (citation omitted). As a general rule, "a warrant stating probable cause is required before a police officer may search for or seize evidence[,]" unless one of "a few clearly delineated exceptions" applies. Id. (citations omitted)

There are two exceptions to the warrant requirement that the Commonwealth raises in its appeal: the plain view exception and, in the alternative, the automobile exception.

"The plain view doctrine allows the admission of evidence seized without a warrant when: (1) an officer views the object from a lawful vantage point; (2) it is immediately apparent to him that the object is incriminating; and (3) the officer has a lawful right of access to the object." Commonwealth v. Davis, 287 A.3d 467, 471 (Pa. Super. 2022) (emphasis omitted). All three prongs must be satisfied to support a warrantless seizure based on the plain view doctrine. Commonwealth v. Miller, 56 A.3d 424, 431 (Pa. Super. 2012)

Here, we confine our review to the second prong: whether it is immediately apparent that the object is incriminating. In determining whether the incriminating nature of an object is immediately apparent to a police officer, courts consider the totality of the circumstances. Commonwealth v. Smith, 285 A.3d 328, 333 (Pa. Super. 2022).

"An officer can never be one hundred percent certain that [an object] in plain view is incriminating, but his belief must be supported by probable cause." Id. (citation omitted). Probable cause, in turn, "requires that the facts available to the officer would warrant a [person] of reasonable caution in the belief[] that certain items may be contraband or stolen property or useful as evidence of a crime." Id. (citation omitted). However, "mere suspicion or conjecture is insufficient" to establish probable cause. Commonwealth v. Mazzochetti, 445 A.2d 1214, 1217 (Pa. Super. 1982).

Absent other indicia of criminality, possession of a firearm is insufficient to establish probable cause that the defendant possesses the firearm illegally. See Commonwealth v. Hicks, 208 A.3d 916, 936 (Pa. 2019) (holding that mere possession of a firearm is insufficient to establish reasonable suspicion). Rather, a properly licensed individual may carry a firearm "in public, openly or concealed, within a vehicle or without, throughout every municipality in Pennsylvania." Id. at 926. Thus, the Commonwealth "cannot simply point to [carrying a firearm,] conduct in which hundreds of thousands of citizens lawfully may engage, then deem that conduct to be presumptively criminal." Id. at 940.

C.

The Commonwealth first argues that the suppression court erroneously granted the Motion to Suppress based on its finding that the firearm was not in plain view. Commonwealth's Br. at 8. Specifically, the Commonwealth maintains that all three prongs of the plain view test were met: (1) Officer Mooney viewed the firearm from a lawful vantage point (from outside the car) after a lawful stop; (2) police had probable cause to believe that Appellee stole the car using the firearm; and (3) when the first and second prongs are met, "the lack of advance notice and opportunity to obtain a warrant provide[d] the officers a lawful right of access to seize the [firearm]." Id. at 10-12 (quoting Commonwealth v. Brown, 23 A.3d 544, 557 (Pa. Super. 2011) (en banc)). As we find it determinative of the issue on appeal, we focus on the Commonwealth's argument regarding the second prong of the plain view test.^[5]The Commonwealth argues that Officer Mooney had probable cause to believe the firearm was contraband because the totality of the circumstances indicated that Appellee had used the firearm to steal the vehicle. Commonwealth's Br. at 11. In support, the Commonwealth notes that (1) Officer Mooney believed the vehicle might have been stolen, (2) Appellee was "extremely nervous," and (3) the firearm was "haphazardly" tossed onto the floor. Id. It posits that these facts, taken together, "support the conclusion that [the firearm] had likely been used to help accomplish the theft of the car[.]" Id.

In addressing this argument, the trial court observed that the officers "had no knowledge or reason to suspect criminal activity due to the presence of a firearm." Trial Ct. Op., at 7. Our review of the record supports the court's conclusion.

First even if Appellee's inability to locate the vehicle's documents gave the officers reason to suspect that the vehicle had been stolen, the officer's mere speculation that the car might have been...