Commonwealth v. Draine

1

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA v. LAMONT DRAINE, JR. Appellant

No. 82 EDA 2022

No. J-S37041-22

Superior Court of Pennsylvania

November 1, 2023

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT OP 65.37

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered November 23, 2021 In the Court of Common Pleas of Delaware County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-23-CR-0007384-2019

BEFORE: BOWES, J., LAZARUS, J., and OLSON, J.

MEMORANDUM

OLSON J.

Appellant Lamont Draine, Jr., appeals from the judgment of sentence entered on November 23, 2021, following a stipulated bench trial conviction for firearms not to be carried without a license, 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 6106(a)(2). We vacate and remand.

The trial court summarized the facts of this case as follows:

Officer Dylan Glenn ("Officer Glenn") and Officer Charles Waters ("Officer Waters") [] are patrolmen with Chester Township Police Department. On November 21, 2019 at 12:46 a.m.[,] the officers were on patrol. Both officers were parked at the intersection of 11^th Street and Engel Street. Officer Glenn was in his marked police vehicle which was parked, facing east. Officer Waters was in his marked police vehicle, which was parked, facing west. The officers were talking to each other.

Officer Glenn testified that, during the span of his then two (2) year employment as a patrolman in Chester Township, he had made approximately fifteen (15) arrests in the general area surrounding the intersection of 11^th Street and Engel Street. He further testified that he was familiar with other officers making arrests in this area and believed, based upon his experience, that more crimes are committed in this general area than other areas within Chester Township. Officer Glenn testified further that more calls for police occur during the nighttime hours than the daytime hours.

While the officers were talking to each other, they observed two men, later identified as Appellant [] and Mr. Lawrence Cook ("Cook"), walking east on 11^th Street in the middle of the roadway. The two men continued to walk in the middle of the roadway as they approached the intersection and did not make any effort to walk on the sidewalk or the shoulder of the road, even though there was a sidewalk and shoulder available. By walking in the middle of the roadway, the two men were in violation of a Motor Vehicle Code provision which prohibits pedestrian travel on a roadway when a sidewalk is available. See [] 75 Pa.C.S.A. § 3544(a) (relating to mandatory use of a sidewalk).

Officer Glenn and Officer Waters made contact with [Appellant] and Cook, as they approached the intersection of 11^th Street and Townsend Street. The officers identified themselves as [] police officers, asked the men for identification, and informed them as to why they were detained. The men responded by identifying themselves and informing the officers that they did not understand the reason for the detention.

The officers informed them that they were being detained because they were walking in the middle of the street when a sidewalk was available for use. The men responded by arguing with the officers and insisting that there was no sidewalk available for them. The officers indicated to the available sidewalk and told them that even if there is no sidewalk available, they were still required to travel on the shoulder of the road and not in the middle of the road, in order to be compliant with the law.

Officer Waters asked [Appellant] if he had any objects on his person that could potentially hurt Officer Waters. [Appellant] responded by informing the officers that he had a firearm. The [o]fficers then asked [Appellant] for the specific location of the firearm and [Appellant] responded that it was in his backpack.

The officers then patted down both men and recovered the firearm from [Appellant's] backpack. After recovering the firearm, Officer Glenn returned to his vehicle and ran the information [obtained] from both men "through multiple databases … to find their correct identity [and to check for] warrants … and to locate a valid permit to carry [a firearm] for [Appellant]." After checking various databases, [Officer Glenn] determined that [Appellant] did not have a valid license to carry a concealed weapon.

Trial Court Opinion, 2/3/2022, at *2-4 (unpaginated).

Procedurally, the case progressed as follows:

On November 21, 2019, [Appellant] was arrested and charged with (1) Count I - violation of 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 6106(a)(2), [f]irearms not to be carried without a license; (2) Count II - violation of 75 Pa.C.S.A. § 3544(a), [m]andatory use of a sidewalk. On August 11, 2020, [Appellant] filed an [o]mnibus [p]retrial [m]otion for [r]elief, which contained a request for suppression of evidence. On September 1, 2020, [the trial c]ourt held a hearing relative to [Appellant's] request for suppression of the evidence. On November 12, 2020, [the trial c]ourt entered an [o]rder which denied [Appellant's] request for suppression. On September 7, 2021, a stipulated non-jury trial was held after which [Appellant] was found guilty of the [firearm] charge[.^[1] On November 23, 2021, [Appellant] was sentenced to 72 hours to [six] months of incarceration with [one] year of concurrent probation.

Id. at *1-2 (unpaginated). This timely appeal resulted.^[2]

On appeal, Appellant presents the following issues for our review:

Whether [Appellant] was lawfully stopped by the police officers?

Whether the officer's conduct, subsequent to the stop, in questioning [Appellant] and seizing the firearm inside his backpack, constituted an unreasonable search and seizure in violation of his constitutional rights?

Whether [] the firearm and Appellant's statements should have been suppressed as fruits of the poisonous tree where the police illegally prolonged a routine traffic stop without reasonable suspicion to conduct an[] unrelated investigation into whether Appellant was legally allowed to carry a firearm?

Whether [] the tr[ia]l court erred in finding [Appellant] guilty of carrying a firearm without a license, when the Commonwealth [] dismissed the underlying traffic [] violation, [] 75 [Pa.C.S.A. § 3544(a),] mandatory use of an available sidewalk, prior to trial and finding any requisite probable cause for [a] stop and search[?]

Appellant's Brief at 4 (unnecessary capitalization and suggested answers omitted).

Our Supreme Court previously determined the standard of review governing an order denying a motion to suppress:

Our standard of review in addressing a challenge to the denial of a suppression motion is limited to determining whether the suppression court's factual findings are supported by the record and whether the legal conclusions drawn from those facts are correct. Because the Commonwealth prevailed before the suppression court, we may consider only the evidence of the Commonwealth and so much of the evidence for the defense as remains uncontradicted when read in the context of the record as a whole. Where the suppression court's factual findings are supported by the record, we are bound by these findings and may reverse only if the court's legal conclusions are erroneous. Where [ ] the appeal of the determination of the suppression court turns on allegations of legal error, the suppression court's legal conclusions are not binding on an appellate court, whose duty it is to determine if the suppression court properly applied the law to the facts. Thus, the conclusions of law of the [trial] court [] below are subject to our plenary review.

Commonwealth v. Jones, 988 A.2d 649, 654 (Pa. 2010) (internal citations and quotations omitted).

Regarding police searches and seizures, this Court has opined:

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution guarantee the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and possessions from unreasonable searches and seizures. To secure the right of citizens to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, courts in Pennsylvania require law enforcement officers to demonstrate ascending levels of suspicion to justify their interactions with citizens to the extent those interactions compromise individual liberty. Because interactions between law enforcement and the general citizenry are widely varied, search and seizure law looks at how the interaction is classified and if a detention has occurred.

The law recognizes three distinct levels of interaction between police officers and citizens: (1) a mere encounter; (2) an investigative detention, often described as a Terry stop, see Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968); and (3) a custodial detention.

A mere encounter can be any formal or informal interaction between an officer and a citizen, but will normally be an inquiry by the officer of a citizen. The hallmark of this interaction is that it carries no official compulsion to stop or respond and therefore need not be justified by any level of police suspicion.

In contrast, an investigative detention carries an official compulsion to stop and respond. Since this interaction has elements of official compulsion it requires reasonable suspicion of unlawful activity.^[3]

Finally, a custodial detention occurs when the nature, duration and conditions of an investigative detention become so coercive as to be, practically speaking, the functional equivalent of an arrest. This level of interaction requires that the police have probable cause to believe that the person so detained has committed or is committing a crime.

Commonwealth v. Muhammad, 289 A.3d 1078, 1086-1087 (Pa. Super. 2023) (some internal citations omitted).

This Court has recognized that "routine constitutional analysis requires courts to utilize facts gathered during each escalating phase of a police investigation in...