Commonwealth v. Hartsfield

1

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA v. CHRISTOPHER HARTSFIELD Appellant

No. 2799 EDA 2023

No. J-S31040-24

Superior Court of Pennsylvania

November 26, 2024

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered October 3, 2023 In the Court of Common Pleas of Delaware County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-23-CR-0003149-2022

BEFORE: BOWES, J., McLAUGHLIN, J., and BECK, J.

MEMORANDUM

BECK J.

Christopher Hartsfield ("Hartsfield") appeals from the judgment of sentence entered by the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas ("trial court") following his convictions of persons not to possess firearms, firearms not to be carried without a license, resisting arrest, and flight to avoid apprehension.^[1] On appeal, Hartsfield challenges the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress a seized firearm and the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain his resisting arrest and flight to avoid apprehension convictions. Upon review, we affirm the order denying the suppression motion and his judgment of sentence as to the resisting arrest conviction but vacate his judgment of sentence as to the flight to avoid apprehension conviction.

The certified record reflects the following factual and procedural background. On April 15, 2022, at about 9:30 p.m while on routine patrol, City of Chester Police Officers Geoffrey Walls and Zachary Litvinenko arrived, along with other police officers, in separate marked police vehicles to the area of a store located at 2105 Edgemont Avenue in the City of Chester. N.T., 1/5/2023, at 8-10, 16 24-25.^[2] They had not been called to the area for any complaints, disturbances, or criminal activity. Id. at 16, 33-35.^[3] As the officers arrived in the area, they observed a group of people on the sidewalk in front of the store, described as "loitering" by Officer Litvinenko, and decided to stop. Id. at 28, 32, 34.

The officers saw an individual, later identified as Hartsfield, in front of the store walking "at a normal pace" on the sidewalk towards their police vehicles. Id. at 11, 13, 18, 26, 28, 32. As the officers parked their vehicles, with overhead lights and sirens off, Hartsfield was facing Officer Walls about twenty to twenty-five feet away. Id. at 12-13, 30, Ex. D-1 (Incident Report, 4/15/2022). When Officer Litvinenko first observed Hartsfield, he was "just standing there"-he did not see, nor did he have any information, that Hartsfield possessed a weapon or was engaged in any kind of criminal activity. Id. at 35-36. While he saw Hartsfield "grab his pants," Officer Litvinenko did not see any object or the silhouette of an object. Id. at 37. Officer Litvinenko approached Hartsfield because of "a city ordinance that he was loitering in the area" and based on his experience involving "drug trafficking" and "shootings" in the area, which he described as a "high-crime, high-drug area." Id. at 36, 46. Officer Walls likewise did not have any information that Hartsfield was involved in any criminal activity; he did not observe him committing any crime; and he could not see what was on his person or inside his clothing when he first encountered him. Id. at 18. Officer Walls did not observe any criminal activity as Hartsfield walked toward his police vehicle. Id. at 18, 21. Upon exiting the vehicle, Officer Walls intended to make contact with Hartsfield to ask "what his intentions were being outside" at 9:30 p.m. that night to see if Officer Walls "could develop reasonable suspicion for a further encounter," and whether there was "crime afoot." Id. at 19-21. As soon as Officer Walls exited his vehicle, Hartsfield turned in the opposite direction, away from the officer. Id. at 13. Officer Walls could not recall if he said anything to Hartfield; he may have said "hey" when he exited his vehicle or may have "yelled stop," but did not tell Hartsfield he was "stopped and not free to go." Id. at 14-15.

Based on Hartsfield's behavior of "immediately turning to the opposite direction" upon seeing police and "walking quickly away" from them, Officer Walls "stepped it up a little bit," at which point Hartsfield "took off" by "flee[ing] on foot" with "his hands in his jacket." Id. at 13-14, 26, 29. Officer Walls chased Hartsfield on foot while Officer Litvinenko pursued him in a police vehicle. Id. at 15, 21, 30. Ultimately, Officer Litvinenko exited his vehicle, pursued Hartsfield on foot, and deployed a taser on him. Id. at 15, 30. After Hartsfield dropped to the ground, "there was some resisting" and the police officers could not "get his hands," but eventually handcuffed him. Id. at 30. Once handcuffed, Officer Litvinenko frisked him and recovered a .9 mm handgun from Hartsfield's left pocket.^[4] Id. at 30-32, 38-43, Exs. D-1 (Incident Report, 4/15/2022), D-2 (N.T. (Preliminary Hearing), 7/11/2022, at 8, 21).

Officer Walls described the area as a "well-known hotspot" for "criminal activity, shots fired, homicides, [and] robberies." Id. at 8-9. He testified that during his four and one-half-year tenure, he made "numerous" arrests in the area and that the section of sidewalk in front of the store is "very well known" for illegal firearms. Id. at 9, 12. Officer Litvinenko testified that he responds to calls in the area during every shift, mostly for "loitering," "groups in the area," "drug trafficking," "fights," and "shots fired." Id. at 25, 33-34, 36. In his career, he has made arrests for drug trafficking in the area and responded to about five shootings there. Id. at 25, 34.

Based on the foregoing, the Commonwealth charged Hartsfield with the aforementioned crimes, as well as receiving stolen property and person not to possess/use firearms-fugitive.^[5] Hartsfield filed a motion to suppress physical evidence and any statements he made to police. The trial court held a suppression hearing on January 5, 2023, at which the Commonwealth presented the testimony of Officers Walls and Litvinenko and a surveillance video; Hartsfield presented the notes of testimony from his preliminary hearing and Officer Litvinenko's incident report. Following the hearing, the trial court directed the parties to file briefs,^[6] and on April 10, 2023, the trial court denied the motion to suppress. Hartsfield filed a motion for reconsideration, which the trial court denied. The matter then proceeded to a bench trial on June 28, 2023. The parties stipulated to the admission of all trial evidence: the notes of testimony of the suppression hearing in lieu of the testimony of Officers Walls and Litvinenko at trial; two surveillance videos on the date at issue; the operability report of the seized firearm in lieu of testimony from the firearms examiner; and that on the date of the incident, Hartsfield was prohibited from possessing a firearm and did not have a permit to possess a concealed firearm. N.T. (Trial), 6/28/2023, Exs. C-1A, C-1B, C-2A, C-3A, C-3B, C-4A, C-4B, C-6.^[7] The trial court granted counsel's motion for a directed verdict of not guilty of receiving stolen property and person not to possess/use firearms-fugitive. N.T. (Trial), 6/28/2023, at 9. The parties presented no argument as to the remaining four charges and the trial court took the stipulated evidence under advisement. See id. On June 30, 2023, the trial court rendered its decision and on October 3, 2023, sentenced him to an aggregate term of two and one-half to ten years in prison, with credit for time served.^[8] This appeal followed.

On appeal, Hartsfield raises the following issues for our review:

1. Whether the trial court erred by denying [Hartsfield's] motion to suppress physical evidence where law enforcement lacked reasonable suspicion to stop [Hartsfield] when he was seized for an investigative detention, in violation of the United States and Pennsylvania Constitutions?

2. Whether the evidence was insufficient to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that [Hartsfield] prevented law enforcement from effectuating a lawful arrest, as required to sustain his conviction for 18 Pa.C.S. § 5104?

3. Whether the evidence was insufficient to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that [Hartsfield] had been charged with a crime at the time of his flight, as required to sustain his conviction for 18 Pa.C.S. § 5126?

Hartsfield's Brief at 5.

In his first issue, Hartsfield challenges the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress.

On appeal from the denial of a motion to suppress evidence, our review is limited to determining whether the factual findings are supported by the record and whether the legal conclusions drawn from those facts are correct. We are bound by the suppression court's factual findings so long as they are supported by the record; our standard of review on questions of law is de novo. Where, as here, the defendant is appealing the ruling of the suppression court, we may consider only the evidence of the Commonwealth and so much of the evidence for the defense as remains uncontradicted. Our scope of review of suppression rulings includes only the suppression hearing record and excludes evidence elicited at trial.

Commonwealth v. Lear, 290 A.3d 709, 715 (Pa. Super. 2023) (citations omitted).

Hartsfield contends that the police officers lacked reasonable suspicion of criminal activity to justify the seizure of his person. Hartsfield's Brief at 10, 12. He argues that the "collective show of authority" by police as three police vehicles pulled up to Hartsfield and Officer Walls exited his vehicle to approach Hartsfield, along with his order to Hartsfield to stop walking away, constituted a seizure of his person in that a reasonable person would not have believed he was free to leave. Id. at 10, 12, 15. Hartsfield argues that at the time of the seizure of his person (before he began to run away), the...