J-S76028-17

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA IN THE SUPERIOR COURT

OF

PENNSYLVANIA

Appellee

v.

RONALD WASHINGTON

Appellant No. 1196 EDA 2017

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered March 6, 2017

In the Court of Common Pleas of Delaware County

Criminal Division at No: CP-23-CR-0002712-2016

BEFORE: PANELLA, STABILE, and PLATT,* JJ.

MEMORANDUM BY STABILE, J.: FILED FEBRUARY 12, 2018

Appellant, Ronald Washington, appeals from the March 6, 2017 

judgment of sentence imposing two to four years of incarceration followed by 

one year of probation for possession with intent to deliver a controlled 

substance (“PWID”), possession of a controlled substance, and possession of 

drug paraphernalia. We affirm. 

The trial court recited the pertinent facts in its Pa.R.A.P. 1925(a) 

opinion: 

On February 24, 2016, Officer Matthew Donohue, a police 

officer for the City of Chester, in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, 

was on duty and in the Chester Police Station. Officer Donohue 

had been in the Chester Police Department for six (6) years, three 

(3) of which were in the Narcotics Division. Prior thereto, he was 

a police officer in Norwood Borough, Delaware County, PA. In his 

____________________________________________

* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.
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capacity as a narcotics officer he has been involved in 

approximately 250 drug investigations. 

At approximately 2:40 p.m. on that date he received a call 

from a confidential informant (hereinafter referred to as “CI”) 

about a black male in the area of 10th and Upland Streets in 

Chester wearing a black jacket and black pants selling crack 

cocaine. The call was from a paid informant whom the officer has 

used at least 15 times in the past in connection with the 

preparation of search warrants which were approved by a District 

Justice and where the informant was deemed by the witness as 

being reliable in the past. The confidential informant further 

stated to the witness that the person “...wasn’t stashing the 

narcotics. He had the narcotics on him.” 

After receiving that telephone call Officer Donohue and 

Officer Mack, a Chester narcotics officer in training, left the police 

station and drove to the area of 10th and Upland Streets where 

they observed the Appellant fitting the description provided by the 

confidential informant, that being a black male wearing a black 

jacket and black pants. The police officers exited their vehicle and 

walked up to Appellant who immediately with both hands grabbed 

the closed front pouch of his jacket. He then took his hands of 

the pouch and immediately started shaking. Officer Donohue 

patted him down in the area of his waist and the front pouch 

pocket for weapons. Although the officer felt no weapons, based 

on his training and experience what he felt in the front pouch 

pocket appeared to him to be packaged narcotics. The officer then 

unzipped the pocket, reached in and retrieved a clear sandwich 

bag containing 34 smaller bags with suspected crack cocaine 

which filed tested positive and subsequently confirmed as such at 

the state police crime lab. Also seized from the Appellant was 

$124 in U.S. currency and a cell phone. At that point, the 

Appellant was arrested and taken to the Chester police station for 

processing. 

Trial Court Opinion, 7/5/17, at 2-3 (record citations omitted). 

Prior to trial, Appellant filed a motion to suppress the evidence police 

retrieved from him during the stop and frisk. The trial court denied the motion 

by order of October 18, 2016. Appellant proceeded to a February 2, 2017 
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non-jury trial, at the conclusion of which the trial court found Appellant guilty 

of the aforementioned offenses. Appellant filed this timely appeal following 

the imposition of sentence. He presents two questions: 

1. Whether the lower court erred when it refused to suppress 

the fruits of an illegal stop and frisk of Appellant where the stop 

occurred without reasonable suspicion that criminal activity was 

afoot and the frisk was conducted without reasonable suspicion 

that he was armed and dangerous? 

2. Whether the trial court erred in admitting out of court 

statements allegedly made by a confidential informant, through 

the testimony of Officer Donohue, since no exceptions to the 

hearsay rule apply? 

Appellant’s Brief at 5. 

We review a challenge to an order denying suppression of evidence as 

follows: 

Our 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 context of the record as 

a whole. Where the suppression court’s factual findings are 

supported by the record, we are bound by these findings and may 

reverse only if the court’s legal conclusions are erroneous. Where, 

as here, the appeal of the determination of the suppression court 

turns on allegations of legal error, the suppression court’s legal 

conclusions are not binding on an appellate court, whose duty it 

is to determine if the suppression court properly applied the law 

to the facts. Thus, the conclusions of law of the courts below are 

subject to our plenary review. 
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Commonwealth v. Baker, 24 A.3d 1006, 1015 (Pa. Super. 2011) (internal 

citations and quotation marks omitted). Our scope of review is limited to the 

record of the suppression hearing. In re L.J. ,79 A.3d 1073, 1087 (Pa. 2013). 

Appellant argues that police did not have reasonable suspicion for their 

investigative detention of Appellant because the CI’s tip lacked sufficient 

indicia of reliability and because police failed to corroborate it before stopping 

Appellant. Appellant’s Brief at 17-18. Appellant argues the Commonwealth 

failed to establish the CI’s veracity. Appellant also argues that Officer 

Donohue’s frisk of Appellant was unlawful. Appellant bases his arguments on 

a discrepancy between Officer Donohue’s preliminary hearing testimony and 

his testimony at the suppression hearing.1 Specifically, Officer Donohue did 

not state at the preliminary hearing that he had relied on this CI in the past. 

Appellant’s argument ignores the standard of review, which requires us to 

consider the Commonwealth’s evidence and only so much of Appellant’s 

evidence as remains uncontradicted. 

The record supports the trial court’s findings, summarized above, that 

Officer Donohue had relied on this CI on fifteen prior occasions. In Officer 

Donohue’s experience, the CI’s information had proven reliable. N.T. Hearing, 

8/23/16, at 13. The record also supports the trial court’s findings that Officer 

Donohue found Appellant at the specified location (a high-crime area) and 

____________________________________________

1

 The preliminary hearing transcript was introduced as an exhibit during the 

suppression hearing and therefore is appropriately before us under L.J. 
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matching the description provided by the CI. The CI informed police that 

Appellant had contraband on his person, and Appellant reached for his pocket 

and began shaking at the sight of approaching police officers. The trial court 

provided a thorough analysis of its ruling in its order of October 18, 2016 and 

in its opinion of July 5, 2017.2 We agree with the trial court’s conclusion that 

police had reasonable suspicion in support of the stop and frisk and we reject 

Appellant’s argument based on the trial court’s order and opinion. 

In his second argument, Appellant claims the trial court erred in 

permitting Officer Donohue to testify about statements the CI made to him. 

As the trial court correctly notes, Pennsylvania courts permit hearsay accounts 

of a CI tip in order to explain a police officer’s course of conduct in conducting 

their investigation. Commonwealth v. Chmiel, 889 A.2d 510, 532-33 (Pa. 

2005); Commonwealth v. Estep, 17 A.3d 939, 944-46 (Pa. Super. 2011). 

We reject Appellant’s second argument based on the trial court’s July 5, 2017 

opinion. Further, we direct that copies of the trial court’s July 5, 2017 opinion

(with the October 18, 2016 findings of fact and conclusions of law attached as 

an exhibit) be filed along with this memorandum. 

Judgment of sentence affirmed. 

____________________________________________

2

 The trial court attached its October 18, 2016 order, including the findings 

of fact and conclusions of law, as Exhibit A to its July 5, 2017 opinion. 
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Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 2/12/18