J-A28043-18

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

v.

TASJUAN DELAJIS WASHINGTON 

Appellant

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 853 MDA 2018

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence May 14, 2018

In the Court of Common Pleas of Adams County Criminal Division at 

No(s): CP-01-CR-0000340-2016

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

MEMORANDUM BY LAZARUS, J.: FILED NOVEMBER 16, 2018

Tasjuan Delajis Washington appeals from the judgment of sentence, 

entered in the Court of Common Pleas of Adams County, following his 

conviction for driving under the influence of a controlled substance1 and a 

related offense. Washington claims that the trial court should have 

suppressed statements he made to police during the course of a traffic stop, 

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1 75 Pa.C.S. § 3802(d)(2). Washington was also found guilty of the summary 

offense of “turning movements and required signals,” 75 Pa.C.S. § 3334(a), 

for his failure to use turn signal during the incident. Two other charges, counts 

1 & 2, were withdrawn due to Washington’s blood tests being deemed 

inadmissible under Birchfield v. North Dakota, 136 S.Ct. 2160 (2016) 

(invalidating any criminal sanction assessed for refusing to submit to blood 

test in absence of a warrant; U.S. Supreme Court determined police must 

either seek warrant or show exigent circumstances for such blood tests). 

Washington was also found not guilty of driving on roadways laned for traffic 

because there was no testimony that Washington’s crossing of the center line 

of traffic prior to the stop was unsafe or presentence a danger to motorists or 

property.
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where he had not been given his Miranda warnings before making the 

statements. After careful review, we affirm.

The trial court aptly stated the facts underlying this case as follows:

[O]n March 23, 2018, Gettysburg Borough Officer Shannon 

Hilliard testified that he has undergone special training pertinent 

to detecting and enforcing driving under the influence laws. 

Specifically, Officer Hilliard completed the ARIDE seminar, which 

is primarily geared towards the detection of drug impairment. 

Officer Hilliard testified that he has made approximately 475 DUI 

arrests and that of these 475 DUI arrests, about 30% of them 

involved drug impairment.

On the evening of January 30, 2016, Officer Hilliard was working 

an overnight shift and was in full uniform and was operating a 

marked police vehicle. Around 2:00 A.M. Officer Hilliard testified 

that he witnessed [Washington] fail to utilize a turning signal when 

pulling out of a parallel parking space and the car appeared to 

have dark tinted windows. Officer Hilliard witnessed the driver of 

the vehicle participate in suspicious behavior when he turned off 

of Stratton Street, onto Hazel Alley, which has no main attractions 

other than the S[tate] C[riminal] A[lien] A[ssistance] P[rogram] 

building. Almost immediately thereafter, the vehicle reemerged 

on Stratton Street. Officer Hilliard testified that he began to follow 

the car and witnessed the car cross over the center line dividing 

traffic at least three times. Officer Hilliard testified that he did not 

observe anything on the roadway that would cause the Appellant 

to swerve to avoid hitting something.

Officer Hilliard activated his vehicle’s emergency equipment after 

witnessing the vehicle cross over the center line for the third time. 

When Officer Hilliard approached the vehicle, he noticed that 

[Washington] was driving the vehicle and one passenger was in 

the car. Officer Hilliard testified that he observed that 

[Washington] had bloodshot and glassy eyes and detected a 

strong odor of burnt marijuana. Officer Hilliard obtained 

[Washington’s] driver’s license, registration, and insurance. Upon 

Officer Hilliard approaching the car to return the documents to 

[Washington], he noticed that an overpowering odor of cologne 

was emanating from the car. He testified that this smell was not 

detected when he originally approached the vehicle. At this point, 
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Officer Hilliard asked [Washington] to step out of the car and 

perform field sobriety testing.

[Washington] performed both the Romberg balance test and the 

one-leg stand test. During the Romberg test Officer Hilliard was 

looking for eyelid tremors, swaying, balance, and to see how close 

to thirty seconds [Washington] was able to estimate. In this case, 

Officer Hilliard testified that he observed eyelid tremors, swaying 

back and forth, and completion of the test after 23 seconds. 

Officer Hilliard testified that he was trained that all of these 

observations are indications of impairment. 

During the one[-]leg stand test[,] Officer Hilliard testified [he] was 

looking for raising of the arms to maintain balance, if the individual 

is actually watching the raised foot, if the foot is parallel to the 

ground, if the foot is about six inches off of the ground, if the 

individual is swaying, and if the individual’s counting is aligned 

with the Officer’s timing. Officer Hilliard testified that he observed 

[Washington] swaying back and forth and his hands were raised 

at shoulder height to maintain balance. Officer Hilliard testified 

that these are indications of impairment.

Officer Hilliard testified that the one-leg stand test can be 

indicative of alcohol impairment and drug impairment and the 

Romberg balance test is one of the primary indicators of marijuana 

impairment.

After he made these observations[,] Officer Hilliard asked 

[Washington] if he had consumed marijuana within the past 12 

hours. [Washington] indicated that he had. Officer Hilliard next 

asked [Washington] how recently. [Washington] replied that it 

was within the past four hours. [Washington] was not read his 

Miranda rights before these two questions were asked. At the 

time these two questions were asked, two additional officers were 

five feet away from Officer Hilliard and [Washington]. Officer 

Hilliard testified that to his knowledge, neither of the officers 

interacted with [Washington] in any way during this time. Officer 

Hilliard testified that at the time these questions were asked, he 

was standing with [Washington] in between [Washington’s] 

vehicle and his police cruiser. [Washington] was not handcuffed 

at this time and he was not told that he was not free to leave, and 

he was not told that he was under arrest. Approximately six to 

eight minutes had passed from the time the stop was initiated to 

the time these two questions were asked.
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Officer Hilliard testified that these questions were asked to confirm 

his suspicions that [Washington had] used marijuana.

Trial Court Opinion, 6/25/18, at 1-3.

The trial court concluded that the stop did not evolve into a custodial 

interrogation warranting the administration of Miranda warnings prior to 

Officer Hillard asking Washington if he had been smoking marijuana. 

Accordingly, the court denied Washington’s motion to suppress and proceeded 

to a bench trial, after which Washington was found guilty of the abovementioned offenses.2 On May 14, 2018, Washington was sentenced to 72 

hours to six months of confinement in county prison and ordered to pay fines; 

he was immediately eligible for work release. Washington filed a timely notice 

of appeal and court-ordered Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) concise statement of errors 

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2 We remind the trial court that pursuant to Pa.R.Crim.P. 581(I):

At the conclusion of the [suppression] hearing, the judge shall

enter on the record a statement of the findings of fact and 

conclusions of law as to whether the evidence was obtained in 

violation of the defendant’s rights, or in violation of these rules or 

any statute, and shall make an order granting or denying the relief 

sought.

Pa.R.Crim.P. 581(I) (emphasis added). Here, the trial judge noted, at the 

conclusion of the suppression hearing, “time circumstances don’t allow for an 

on-the-record recitation of findings of fact. We will prepare those later today, 

if necessary, but the bottom line is I reviewed the case law cited by the 

Commonwealth, and based on that, legal precedent would agree with the 

Commonwealth that this was not a custodial interrogation.” N.T. Suppression 

Hearing/Non-Jury Trial, 3/23/18, at 28. We do not believe that the cursory 

on-the-record analysis performed by the trial court supplants the more 

detailed and thoughtful process espoused by Rule 581.
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complained of on appeal. This appeal follows, in which Washington presents 

one issue for our review:

Did the lower court err in failing to suppress [Washington’s] selfincriminating statements where he was stopped by police, had his 

documentation taken from him, was made to exit his vehicle in 

[the] dead of winter to perform field sobriety tests, was not told 

that he was free to leave, and was subjected to interrogation in 

the presence of three uniformed police officers, without being 

given Miranda[3] warnings?

Washington contends that no reasonable person would have believed

that he or she was free to leave at the time Officer Hilldale elicited

incriminating statements from him in the middle of a cold winter night, at 2:00 

AM, on an Adams County roadway. Thus, he contends it was incumbent upon 

Officer Hillard to have given him his Miranda rights prior to interrogating him.

In Commonwealth v. Turner, 772 A.2d 970 (Pa. Super. 2001), our 

Court set forth the relevant standard of review for an appeal of a suppression 

order:

In an appeal from the denial of a motion to suppress, [the]

Pennsylvania [S]uperior [C]ourt’s role is to determine whether the 

record supports the suppression court's factual findings and the 

legitimacy of the inferences and legal conclusions drawn from 

those findings. In making this determination, the court may 

consider only the evidence of the prosecution’s witnesses and so 

much of the defense as, fairly read in the context of the record as 

a whole, remains uncontradicted. When the evidence supports 

the factual findings of the suppression court, the reviewing court 

may reverse only if there is an error in the legal conclusions drawn 

from those factual findings. As a reviewing court, it is, therefore, 

not bound by the legal conclusions of the suppression court and 

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3 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966).
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must reverse that court’s determination if the conclusions are in 

error or the law is misapplied. 

Id. at 972-73. 

There are two requirements that must be met before Miranda will apply 

to a given situation: custody and interrogation. Commonwealth v. 

Whitehead, 629 A.2d 142 (Pa. Super. 1993). Police detentions are 

considered custodial, when “under a totality of the circumstances, the 

conditions and/or duration of the detention become so coercive as to 

constitute the functional equivalent of arrest.” Commonwealth v. Ellis, 549 

A.2d 1323, 1332 (Pa. Super. 1988) (citation omitted). A court uses the 

following factors to determine whether a detention has become so coercive as 

to constitute the functional equivalent of a formal arrest: (1) the basis for the 

detention; (2) the duration of the detention; (3) the location of the detention; 

(4) whether the suspect was transferred against his will, how far, and why; 

(5) whether restraints were used; (6) the show, threat, or use of force; and 

(7) the methods of investigation used to confirm or dispel an officer’s 

suspicions. Commonwealth v. Williams, 941 A.2d 14, 31 (Pa. Super. 2008) 

(citations omitted).

Here, Washington was properly subjected to a traffic stop4 when officer 

Hillard observed him fail to use a turn signal as he pulled out of a parallel 

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4 Although not an issue on appeal, we note that if the alleged basis of a 

vehicular stop is to determine whether there has been compliance with the 

Commonwealth’s Vehicle Code, it is incumbent upon the officer to articulate 

specific facts possessed by him, at the time of the questioned stop, which 
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parking space, Washington’s car appeared to have heavily tinted windows,

and he saw the vehicle cross over the center dividing line of the road several 

times. N.T. Suppression Hearing/Non-Jury Trial, 3/23/18, at 6- 9. At this 

point, the officer activated his emergency equipment and stopped 

Washington’s vehicle on a public roadway. Id. at 10. Officer Hillard

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would provide probable cause to believe that the vehicle or the driver was in 

violation of some provision of the code. Commonwealth v. Spieler, 887 

A.2d 1271 (Pa. Super. 2005). However, if an officer stops a vehicle for the 

purpose of obtaining necessary information to enforce the provisions of the 

Code, the stop need only be based on reasonable suspicion that a violation of 

the Code has occurred. 75 Pa.C.S. § 6308(b).

Instantly, among other things, Officer Hillard stopped Washington’s vehicle 

because he had failed to use his turn signal as he entered the lane of traffic 

from a parking spot. Under section 3334:

(a) General rule. -- Upon a roadway no person shall turn

a vehicle or move from one traffic lane to another or enter 

the traffic stream from a parked position unless and 

until the movement can be made with reasonable safety nor

without giving an appropriate signal in the manner 

provided in this section.

(b) Signals on turning and starting. -- At speeds of less than 

35 miles per hour, an appropriate signal of intention to turn 

right or left shall be given continuously during not less than 

the last 100 feet traveled by the vehicle before turning. The 

signal shall be given during not less than the last 300 feet 

at speeds in excess of 35 miles per hour. The signal shall 

also be given prior to entry of the vehicle into the traffic 

stream from a parked position. 

75 Pa.C.S. § 3334 (emphasis added). Officer Hillard had probable cause to 

stop Washington because he did not need any more information to confirm 

that he reasonably believed Washington had violated section 3334 of the 

Vehicle Code by failing to use his turn signal.
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approached Washington’s vehicle, at which point he noticed that Washington 

had bloodshot, glassy eyes and detected a strong odor of burnt marijuana 

emanating from the open driver’s side window of the vehicle. Id. Officer

Hillard testified that the marijuana odor grew stronger when Washington 

spoke. Id. Officer Hillard retrieved Washington’s license, registration and 

insurance information and ran them through the police data base system. The 

data base information indicated that Washington’s license was valid and his 

vehicle registration active. Id. at 11. Officer Hillard returned to Washington’s 

vehicle,

5 where he detected an “overpowering odor of . . . a body spray or 

cologne” in the vehicle that had not been present when he first approached it. 

Id. Officer Hillard then asked Washington to step out of the car to perform 

field sobriety tests on him. At this point, two more armed, uniformed officers 

arrived on the scene in their marked vehicles. The other officers stood 

approximately five feet away from Officer Hillard and Washington on the 

sidewalk. As Officer Hillard performed the tests, Officer Hillard noticed 

Washington have eye tremors, sway back and forth, and have trouble 

maintaining his balance without raising his arms to shoulder height. Id. at 

15. After noticing these obvious signs of impairment, and without first giving 

him his Miranda rights, Officer Hillard asked Washington if he had consumed 

marijuana in the past twelve hours. Id. at 16. When Washington replied that 

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5 The record is unclear as to whether Officer Hillard returned the documents 

to Washington before he asked him to exit the vehicle and performed the field 

sobriety tests upon him.
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he had used marijuana recently, Officer Hillard asked him how recently he had 

used the drug. Id. Washington told the officer he had smoked marijuana 

within the past four hours. Id. At this point, Officer Hillard placed Washington 

under arrest. Id. at 19.

The fundamental question in this appeal is whether Washington’s 

encounter with police, which began as an investigative detention, rose to the 

level of a custodial interrogation warranting Miranda warnings prior to the 

officer asking Washington any questions. Applying the Williams factors to 

determine whether Washington, based upon a reasonable person standard, 

would think he was in custody at that time, we note the following: (1) the 

officer was detaining Washington to determine whether he was under the 

influence of drugs; (2) the detention lasted between 6-8 minutes in total; (3) 

the stop occurred on a public roadway at 2:00 AM; (4) Washington was not 

transferred anywhere against his will; (5) no restraints were used on 

Washington; (6) no show, threat or use of force occurred; and (7) the officer 

asked for Washington’s license, registration and insurance information, had 

him perform field sobriety tests, and asked him one initial question and one 

follow-up question. Williams, supra. 

While the record reveals that there were two other armed, uniformed 

officers at the scene, standing five feet from Washington when he was 

questioned, Officer Hillard testified that he did not recall these officers 

interacting with Washington at all during the stop and there is no evidence to 

contradict that recollection. Here, Officer Hillard asked Washington questions 
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as part of his “investigative responsibilities to establish what occurred[.]”

Proctor, 657 A.2d 8, 13 (Pa. Super. 1995). Washington’s responses to Officer 

Hillard’s questions were voluntary; he was never told that he could not leave 

the scene or refuse to answer the questions. Moreover, the conditions 

surrounding the stop were not coercive or custodial such that they would have 

led a reasonable person to believe that he or she was under arrest. 

Commonwealth v. Sullivan, 581 A.2d 956 (Pa. Super. 1990) (where 

defendant was not placed under arrest, forced to enter police patrol car, 

subjected to coercion or prolonged questioning during traffic stop, Miranda

warnings not necessary where defendant spontaneously uttered “Oh, I’m 

drunk.”). 

Viewed under a totality of the circumstances, we believe that the record 

supports the trial court’s factual findings and legal conclusion that it was not 

necessary for Officer Hillard to administer Washington his Miranda rights prior 

to posing limited, relevant questions. See Commonwealth v. Toanone, 553 

A.2d 998, 1003 (Pa. Super. 1989) (“police need only give Miranda warnings 

while detaining a suspect by the side of a public highway when the suspect is 

actually placed under arrest or when the questioning of the suspect is so 

prolonged or coercive as to approximate the atmosphere of a station house 

interrogation.”) (citations and footnote omitted); see also Proctor, supra

(typically, officer may ask detainee, during routine traffic stop, moderate 

number of questions to determine identity and obtain information confirming 

or dispelling officer’s suspicion; detainee is not obliged to respond and, if 
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detainee’s answers do not provide officer with probable cause to arrest, 

detainee must be released). We find no error. Turner, supra.

Judgment of sentence affirmed. 

Judge Musmanno joins the Memorandum.

Judge Olson concurs in the result.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 11/16/2018