Commonwealth v. Saunders

1

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, Appellee v. OMAR SAUNDERS, Appellant

No. 20 EAP 2023

No. J-5-2024

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

November 20, 2024

ARGUED: March 5, 2024

Appeal from The Judgment of Superior Court entered on 12/13/2022 at No. 2192 EDA 2021 affirming the Judgment of Sentence entered on 9/28/2021 in the Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia County, Criminal Division at No. CP-51-CR-0000208-2021.

TODD C.J., DONOHUE, DOUGHERTY, WECHT, MUNDY, BROBSON, McCAFFERY JJ.

OPINION

DOUGHERTY, JUSTICE

In this discretionary appeal, we consider the legality of a police officer's warrantless seizure of an unsecured gun in plain view in an open car lawfully stopped for traffic violations. As detailed below, we conclude the seizure was constitutional under the plain view doctrine. Accordingly, we affirm the order of the Superior Court upholding the denial of suppression of the firearm.

On the evening of November 18, 2020, Officer Matthew Ibbotson and his partner, Officer Washington, were patrolling in a marked police car in the area of the 2500 block of West Indiana Avenue in Philadelphia. Officer Ibbotson had made approximately fifty to sixty gun-related arrests in the area, about seventy percent of which had resulted from car stops. It is a residential area that is "pretty violent" and has "[a] lot of shootings." See N.T. Suppression Hearing, 5/20/21, at 8-11.

At approximately 6:55 p.m., Officer Ibbotson saw a silver Honda with heavily tinted windows parked illegally. When the officer stopped at a stop sign, the Honda pulled in front of him and then made a right-hand turn without signaling. Officer Ibbotson stopped the car for violations of the Vehicle Code.^[1] He approached the car on the driver's side, and Officer Washington approached the vehicle on the passenger's side. Saunders was driving the car alone. As Saunders sat in the driver's seat with the driver's side window down, Officer Ibbotson asked him for his license, registration, and insurance. Initially, Saunders reached toward his back left pants pocket and said his paperwork was in his back pocket. He then said it was in his inside pocket on his right side and reached in that direction. The officer asked him if he had any weapons, and Saunders said no. Saunders then reached with his right arm toward the right side of the car while simultaneously dropping his left arm down by his feet and moving it "like he was pushing something" under the driver's seat. Id. at 14. Officer Ibbotson looked through the front windshield and saw the handle of a gun under the driver's seat. The officer was "[v]ery" certain he saw a gun. Id. at 15. Concerned for his own safety and that of his partner, Officer Ibbotson used a hand signal to notify Officer Washington about the gun.

Officer Ibbotson had Saunders turn off his car and hand over his keys. The officer ordered Saunders out of the car, placed him in handcuffs, and frisked him. He took Saunders's driver's license from his wallet and asked him if he had a permit for the gun. Saunders replied, "[N]o." Id. at 16. He said the car belonged to his wife, and that she lived right around the corner. Officer Ibbotson then placed Saunders in the back of his police car for the safety of the officers. He returned to the stopped car. Officer Ibbotson told Washington, "He was like playing with the thing down here - trying to push it under. And I looked." Exhibit C-2 (body-worn camera footage from Officer Ibbotson), at 04:10. Officer Washington responded, "I saw his leg moving." Id., at 04:13. At that point, Officer Ibbotson, from outside of the car on the street, reached into the car through the open driver's side door, recovered the gun from under the front of the driver's seat, and immediately disabled the weapon. It was a 40-caliber handgun loaded with fourteen bullets. The gun was stolen.

Saunders filed a motion to suppress the gun under the Pennsylvania and United States Constitutions. At the suppression hearing, the Commonwealth presented the testimony of Officer Ibbotson and body-worn camera footage from both officers. Saunders did not present any evidence. But he explained "the basis of the motion is that" Officer Ibbotson "did not have the legal justification to reach into the car and seize the firearm at the time that he did." N.T. Suppression Hearing, 5/20/21, at 6. In Saunders's view, under this Court's then-recent decision in Commonwealth v. Alexander, 243 A.3d 177, 207 (Pa. 2020), "police officers need a warrant to search . . . and seize anything from a car unless there are exigent circumstances[.]" Id. at 36 (emphasis added); see id. at 37 ("Alexander says that officers need warrants to search and seize items from the car.") (emphasis added).

The suppression court held the motion under advisement and permitted the parties to brief the matter. In his filing, Saunders reiterated his belief that, under Alexander, the "officers were required to obtain a warrant prior to seizing the firearm from the vehicle." Saunders's Letter Brief in Support of Motion to Suppress, 6/14/21, at 3. In reply, the Commonwealth argued the seizure was proper under the plain view doctrine, in part "due to the lack of advance notice and opportunity to obtain a warrant and the inherent danger of traffic stops and guns." Commonwealth's Brief in Opposition to Motion to Suppress, at 3 (undated).

Ultimately, the suppression court denied the motion. In its opinion, the suppression court explained a police search conducted without a warrant is generally unreasonable and therefore unconstitutional unless an established exception to the warrant requirement applies, and one such exception is the automobile exception. The court noted that under the Pennsylvania Constitution, "a warrantless search of a vehicle under the automobile exception is only permissible where there exists 'both probable cause and exigent circumstances.'" Trial Court Op., 4/21/22, at 13, quoting Alexander, 243 A.3d at 207. In addition, the court noted "[t]he plain view doctrine 'permits the warrantless seizure of an object 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.'" Id. at 14, quoting Commonwealth v. Heidelberg, 267 A.3d 492, 504 (Pa. Super. 2021).^[2]

Here, the court opined, there was probable cause and exigent circumstances satisfying the automobile exception to the warrant requirement:

Under the totality of the circumstances, . . . Officer Ibbotson had probable cause to conduct a warrantless search of the vehicle [Saunders] was driving. Officer Ibbotson observed [Saunders] drop his left arm to the side and move it back and forth. This prompted Officer Ibbotson to shine his flashlight through the front windshield of the vehicle, at which point he saw a firearm under the driver's seat. Officer Ibbotson then learned from [Saunders] that he did not have a license to carry a firearm, meaning he had sufficient information to believe that [Saunders] was in illegal possession of the firearm and had therefore violated the Uniform Firearms Act. Officer Ibbotson therefore also had probable cause to arrest [Saunders].

Additionally, under the totality of the circumstances, . . . exigent circumstances also existed to justify the warrantless search. [Saunders] was stopped in a high crime area in a high crime city and was observed making furtive movements with his left hand in an apparent attempt to conceal the firearm that was later seen by Officer Ibbotson under the driver's seat. Officer Ibbotson thus reasonably believed his safety was in danger, which aligned with the general concerns he expressed over conducting car stops at the suppression hearing. There was therefore a compelling need for Officer Ibbotson to take official action and recover the firearm without waiting the significant amount of time it could have taken for a warrant.

Id. at 16-17.

The court also concluded each prong of the plain view doctrine was established:

Officer Ibbotson was at a lawful vantage point when he saw the back handle of the firearm, as he was outside of the vehicle and looking in through the front windshield. Officer[] Ibbotson's prior training and experience with gun-related arrests from car stops allowed him to perceive [Saunders] making furtive movements with his left arm, which led him to shine the flashlight and plainly observe a firearm under the driver's seat. Finally, Officer Ibbotson had lawful access because the traffic stop of [Saunders] was lawful due to [Saunders's] commission of several violations of the . . . Vehicle Code, and, as previously discussed, a warrantless search of the vehicle was permissible under the automobile exception.

Id. at 17-18.

Following the denial of his suppression motion, Saunders proceeded to a bench trial before a different judge. The trial court convicted him of persons not to possess firearms, carrying a firearm without a license, and carrying a firearm on a public street or public property in Philadelphia. See 18 Pa.C.S. §§6105, 6106, and 6108. The court sentenced him to an aggregate term of three and a half to seven years' imprisonment. Saunders appealed.

The Superior Court affirmed the judgment of sentence. Initially the panel held Saunders's claim the gun should have been suppressed as the fruit of an illegal arrest was waived because he did not preserve this claim in the suppression court but rather raised it "for the first time on appeal[.]" Commonwealth v. Saunders, 2022 WL 17588739 at *3 (Pa. Super. 2022) (unpublished memorandum). Alternatively, the panel ruled that when the police ordered Saunders from the car and handcuffed him, he was not placed under arrest but rather subjected to a...