Commonwealth v. Schneider

239 A.3d 161

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania

v.Tod SCHNEIDER, Appellant

No. 830 WDA 2019

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Submitted July 14, 2020

Filed September 09, 2020

Matthew T. Ness, Pittsburgh, for appellant.

Justin S. Fleeger, Assistant District Attorney, Franklin, for Commonwealth, appellee.

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

OPINION BY BENDER, P.J.E.:

Appellant, Tod Schneider, appeals from the judgment of sentence of an aggregate term of five years’ probation, imposed after a jury convicted him of two counts of aggravated assault, 18 Pa.C.S. § 2702(a)(3), two counts of simple assault, 18 Pa.C.S. § 2701(a)(1), one count of resisting arrest, 18 Pa.C.S. § 5104, one count of possessing a controlled substance, 35 P.S. § 780-113(a)(16), and one count of possessing drug paraphernalia, 35 P.S. § 780-113(a)(32). Appellant challenges the court's denial of his pretrial motion to suppress, as well as the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain his resisting arrest conviction. After careful review, we vacate Appellant's judgment of sentence and remand for a new trial.

Briefly, Appellant was arrested and charged with the above-stated offenses after he fought with police officers who had entered his home without a warrant during a mental health check of Appellant. After Appellant was arrested and removed from his home, a police officer reentered the residence and observed marijuana and a pipe in plain view, thus leading to his charges for possessory offenses.

Prior to trial, Appellant filed a motion to suppress the drugs and paraphernalia, as well as officers’ testimony about his assaultive conduct. In support, he contended that the police had illegally entered his residence without a warrant, and the evidence he sought to suppress was the fruit of that unconstitutional action by police. A suppression hearing was conducted on November 22, 2017. The trial court summarized the facts established at that hearing, as follows:

Around 4:00 p.m. on January 24, 2017, Oil City Police Department Lieutenant Jonathan Love was approached by Jake Poindexter, a Protective, Intake, and Crisis Unit ("PICS") worker in Venango County, about accompanying him as a safety precaution in conducting a mental welfare check of an individual. That individual was later identified as [Appellant] in the instant matter, who was located at 19 Colbert Avenue in Oil City, Pennsylvania. Mr. Poindexter shared with Lieutenant Love a written report that documented mental health concerns about [Appellant]. Specifically, the report stated that [Appellant] believed he was "Jesus Christ," "Thor," and "Jim Carrey." Lieutenant Love testified at the November 22, 2017 hearing that the PICS Unit has made countless requests such as this, which they refer to as "standbys," in which police officers go with mental health workers to ensure the scene is safe.

As such, Lieutenant Love, along with [Officer] Regina Deloe, accompanied Mr. Poindexter to the 19 Colbert Avenue address. Once there, Lieutenant Love knocked on the front door and [Appellant] answered. Lieutenant Love, having previously interacted with [Appellant] in an unrelated matter, attempted to introduce Mr. Poindexter to [Appellant]. Both Lieutenant Love and [Officer] Deloe testified that [Appellant] seemed friendly at first, but his demeanor quickly changed. While staring at Mr. Poindexter, [Appellant] stated that Mr. Poindexter's "eyes were fading away and turning black." He then turned to Lieutenant Love and told him to "take off his peashooter," that guns kill people, and that the gun "needs to return to earth from which it came and return to dust." [Appellant] then immediately tried to shut the door. However, Lieutenant Love positioned his foot in between the door and the frame to prevent its closure. Hearing these statements, Lieutenant Love testified that[,] coupled with the allegations he read in the mental health report given to him by Mr. Poindexter, he was concerned that there was a mental health issue with [Appellant] and that they definitely needed to investigate further.

After putting his foot in the doorway, Lieutenant Love proceeded to open the door and stepped inside the living room of the residence. Once there, he attempted to have [Appellant] take a seat in a chair so that he could have a conversation with Mr. Poindexter. While requesting this of [Appellant], Lieutenant Love testified that [Appellant] was chanting incoherent chatter and he was blinking his eyes rapidly. Then, unprovoked, [Appellant] struck Lieutenant Love in the chest with his left hand. Lieutenant Love then proceeded in attempting to physically put [Appellant] in the chair, whereupon a struggle ensued. Lieutenant Love ended up wrestling with [Appellant] for several minutes. During the course of the struggle, [Officer] Deloe used her radio to request another officer to respond. [Appellant] was subsequently tasered twice and pepper sprayed once.

After several minutes, [Appellant] was finally placed in handcuffs and led outside to be placed into a police vehicle. Lieutenant Love testified at the hearing that it was at no time the officers’ intention to place [Appellant] into custody before the events of that day transpired, and that their presence was merely for the protection of Mr. Poindexter. Lieutenant Love further testified that he would not have been comfortable leaving the address after his first interaction with [Appellant] when the officers and Mr. Poindexter were still positioned outside the home, and that it was his belief at that time, given his knowledge of the mental health report and [Appellant's] statements, that [Appellant] was in need of immediate medical treatment. However, on cross-examination, Lieutenant Love testified that in the thirty days preceding the incident of January 24, 2017, he personally had not received any complaints regarding [Appellant's] behavior. Furthermore, Lieutenant Love testified that it was his belief that [Appellant] was a danger to himself or others based upon his interactions with him on that day.

In her testimony given at the November 22, 2017 hearing, [Officer] Deloe corroborated Lieutenant Love's recollection of the events of January 24, 2017[,] and noted that she participates in escorting mental health workers multiple times in a normal week. She further explained that she also believed that [Appellant] was a danger to himself or others. Once [Officer] Deloe left [Appellant's] residence, she realized that one of her gloves that she had been wearing during the struggle with [Appellant] was no longer on her hand. As the residence's door was still ajar from the other officers’ exits, she reentered the residence. Upon reentry, [Officer] Deloe immediately saw her missing glove in the area where the struggle with [Appellant] took place.

[Officer] Deloe additionally testified that once inside the residence, she noticed on the floor where an overturned chair once sat, a sandwich baggy containing a leafy green substance she suspected to be marijuana and a pipe used for smoking marijuana. The items were within inches of each other. As such, [Officer] Deloe seized the suspected contraband.

When questioned about the officers’ motives and decision to arrest [Appellant], [Officer] Deloe testified that they were not at [Appellant's] residence to arrest him, and that the decision to arrest him was only made after everything had occurred inside the residence. After being placed in a squad car, the officers first took [Appellant] to be arraigned in front of Magisterial District Court Judge Andrew Fish, but upon his recommendation, [Appellant] was subsequently taken to UPMC Northwest for a mental health evaluation.

Trial Court Opinion (TCO), 6/15/18, at 1-4.

Based on this evidence, the trial court concluded that Lieutenant Love reasonably believed that Appellant needed mental health assistance and, therefore, the warrantless entry into Appellant's home was justified by the public servant exception of the community caretaking doctrine, discussed in further detail infra . See id. at 9. Accordingly, the court denied Appellant's motion to suppress and his case proceeded to a jury trial on March 21, 2019. At the conclusion thereof, the jury convicted Appellant of the above-stated offenses and, on May 7, 2019, he was sentenced to the aggregate term set forth above.

Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal, and he also complied with the trial court's order to file a Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) concise statement of errors complained of on appeal. The court filed a Rule 1925(a) opinion stating that it had adequately addressed the issues raised in Appellant's Rule 1925(b) statement in its June 15, 2018 opinion denying his motion to suppress. Herein, Appellant states three issues for our review:

I. Did the trial court err in denying the suppression motion when the police failed to comply with the involuntary commitment requirements under the Mental Health Procedures Act [ (MHPA), 50 P.S. §§ 7101 - 7503,] before charging into [Appellant's] home without a warrant?

II. Did the trial court's erroneous ruling on suppression prejudice [Appellant], thereby entitling him to a new trial?

III. Was the evidence insufficient to prove resisting arrest when the Commonwealth failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt [that] a lawful arrest [occurred]?

Appellant's Brief at 10 (capitalization and emphasis omitted).

Appellant's first two issues challenge the court's denial of his pretrial motion to suppress and will be addressed together. Initially, we note:

An appellate court's 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

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