Title: Commonwealth v. Thompson, Aplt (Dissenting Opinion)

State: pennsylvania

Issuer: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Document:

[J-22-2009] IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA EASTERN DISTRICT COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, Appellee v. PERCY THOMPSON, Appellant : : : : : : : : : : : : No. 33 EAP 2008 Appeal from the Judgment of the Superior Court at No. 1521 EDA 2006 entered on 6/19/07 affirming the Judgment of Sentence entered on 4/5/06 in the Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia County, (see j page) ARGUED: April 14, 2009 DISSENTING OPINION MR. JUSTICE SAYLOR DECIDED: December 29, 2009 The United States Supreme Court has observed that “probable cause is a fluid concept -- turning on the assessment of probabilities in particular factual contexts -- not readily, or even usefully, reduced to a neat set of legal rules.” Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 232, 103 S. Ct. 2317, 2329 (1983). Appellate inquiries in particular cases therefore tend to be heavily fact-specific, and they often present close questions. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Banks, 540 Pa. 453, 456, 658 A.2d 752, 753 (1995) (holding that police observation of the exchange of an unidentified item on a public street corner for cash, together with subsequent flight, “fall narrowly short of establishing probable cause”). The present controversy is no exception. Particularly in view of the arresting officer’s testimony that he believed he had witnessed an illegal drug sale due to both the [J-22-2009] - 2 location of the transaction and the fact that he had “seen that [hand-to-hand] exchange done several hundred times,” N.T. Sept. 29, 2005, at 11, the majority’s holding is not without some foundation. Nevertheless, I am unable meaningfully to distinguish the circumstances in this appeal from those underlying our very recent decision in Commonwealth v. Dunlap, 596 Pa. 147, 941 A.2d 671 (2007). As such, I respectfully dissent.