J-A01008-16

*Former Justice specially assigned to the Superior Court.

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

PENNSYLVANIA

Appellee

v.

ANWAR WOODS

Appellant No. 2843 EDA 2014

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence September 2, 2014

In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County

Criminal Division at No(s): CP-51-CR-0008421-2013

BEFORE: LAZARUS, J., OTT, J., and STEVENS, P.J.E.*

MEMORANDUM BY STEVENS, P.J.E.: FILED FEBRUARY 18, 2016

In this direct appeal, Appellant Anwar Woods challenges the denial of 

his motion to suppress evidence that he unlawfully possessed a firearm in 

his car. Convicted of Persons Not to Possess Firearms, Possession of a 

Firearm with Altered Manufacturer’s Number, Firearms Not to Be Carried 

without a License, and Carrying Firearms on Public Streets in Philadelphia,1

Appellant was sentenced to an aggregate term of five to ten years’ 

incarceration. He asserts that both documentary and testimonial evidence 

impeached the credibility of investigating officers and, thereby, exposed a 

purely pretextual cover story meant to conceal a racially-based motive for 

the stop and search. Appellant grossly overstates the probative value of his 

____________________________________________

1 18 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 6105, 6110.2, 6106, and 6108, respectively.
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evidence, which failed to reveal an unlawful basis to the investigation. 

Accordingly, discerning no manifest error in the suppression court’s 

credibility determinations, we affirm.

The trial court provides an apt procedural and factual history that we 

adopt for purposes of conducting appellate review:

On July 2, 2014, Appellant unsuccessfully litigated a Motion to 

Suppress Physical Evidence. On September 2, 2014, following a 

stipulated bench trial before [the trial court], Appellant was 

convicted of [the above-referenced charges]. On the same date, 

upon review of the pre-sentence investigation report and 

consideration of all relevant facts and circumstances of this case, 

[the trial court sentenced] Appellant to an aggregate term of five 

(5) to (10) years’ incarceration. Appellant filed a timely PostSentence Motion for Reconsideration, which [the trial court] 

denied on September 4, 2014. Appellant subsequently 

appealed, and [the trial court] ordered him to file a Concise 

Statement of Matters Complained of on Appeal in accord with 

Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b). Counsel for Appellant timely complied.

The sole focus of this appeal concerns the July 2, 2014, 

ruling on Appellant’s Motion to Suppress. At the suppression 

hearing, Appellant contended that police lacked probable cause 

first to stop, and then search, his vehicle. The Commonwealth 

presented the testimony of Philadelphia Police Officer Charles 

Waters. Officer Waters testified that, on June 6, 2013, at 

approximately 7:13 p.m., he was on patrol with his partner, 

Officer Antoinne Wesley, in the vicinity of 1500 North 29th Street 

in Philadelphia. At said time and location, Officer Waters 

observed Appellant driving southbound on 29th Street in a white 

2013 Dodge Charger, and speeding up to a yellow light, which 

changed to red. Officer Waters ran Appellant’s license plate 

through the NCIC database, which came back as belonging to a 

Ford, not a Dodge. He then effected a traffic stop of Appellant’s 

vehicle. [N.T. Suppression, 7/2/14, at 4-6].

Officer Waters testified that he approached Appellant’s 

driver’s side window and asked him to produce his license and 

registration. When Appellant opened the center console to 

retrieve the above items, Officer Waters observed a black and 

silver handgun. He immediately yelled “gun” to his partner, who 
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recovered the weapon. Officer Waters—who had been a police 

officer for 16 years and recovered more than 200 handguns—

testified, “I saw the handle of the gun and the top part of it. . . . 

I knew it was a firearm. I see firearms every day.” Officer 

Waters further testified that Appellant’s driver’s license came 

back as suspended, and while they came to learn the vehicle in 

question was a rental, Appellant could not produce the rental 

paperwork. Accordingly, the officers “Live Stopped”[2]

Appellant’s vehicle. [N.T. at 7-12]fn

fn At the time of the stop, a young child age three (3) or four (4) 

was present in the back seat of Appellant’s car. Prior to being 

taken into custody, Appellant requested the officers to call his 

girlfriend, who was the mother of said child. A few minutes 

later, the child’s mother arrived at the scene and took the child 

into custody. [N.T. at 7, 12-13].

____________________________________________

2 The “live stop” practice for removing a vehicle from a public street when 

the driver is not properly licensed provides, in relevant part, as follows:

Immobilization, towing and storage of vehicle for driving 

without operating privileges or registration

(a) General rule.—Subject to subsection (d), the following shall 

apply:

(1) If a person operates a motor vehicle or combination on a 

highway or trafficway of this Commonwealth while the person's 

operating privilege is suspended, revoked, canceled, recalled or 

disqualified or where the person is unlicensed, as verified by an 

appropriate law enforcement officer in cooperation with the 

department, the law enforcement officer shall immobilize the 

vehicle or combination or, in the interest of public safety, direct 

that the vehicle be towed and stored by the appropriate towing 

and storage agent pursuant to subsection (c), and the 

appropriate judicial authority shall be so notified.

75 Pa.C.S.A. § 6309.2(a)(1).
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The Commonwealth next called Officer Antoinne Wesley to 

the stand. Officer Wesley [corroborated the testimony of Officer 

Waters, adding that the gun was loaded with five rounds and 

bore an obliterated serial number].

Appellant presented the testimony of Gwendolyn Bell, who 

was his girlfriend, and the mother of the child in Appellant’s car. 

Ms. Bell testified that she arrived on the scene as the stop was 

being effected. . . . According to Ms. Bell, the officers took 

Appellant’s information, walked to their patrol car, returned to 

Appellant and said, “Put your fucking hands up.” She testified 

that Appellant then got out of the car and they searched him and 

then the car [for seven or eight minutes before retrieving], the 

gun. [N.T. at 38-48].

Appellant also presented the testimony of Tiara Meadows, 

his wife. Ms. Meadows testified that, 11 days prior to the 

incident, she was driving with Appellant in a Dodge Charger, and 

the same two police officers stopped them on the same basis, 

i.e., that the license plate did not match the vehicle. According 

to Ms. Meadows, the officers had them exit the vehicle, and they 

searched it, but did not find anything, and let them go. N.T. at 

57-60. 

Trial Court Opinion, filed February 17, 2015, at 1-4.

Appellant raises the following issue for our review:

DID THE TRIAL COURT ERR BY DENYING APPELLANT’S 

MOTION TO SUPPRESS PHYSICAL EVIDENCE?

Appellant’s brief at 4.

When reviewing a trial court's order denying a suppression motion, our 

standard of review is well-settled:

In reviewing a suppression ruling, we are bound by the 

suppression court's factual findings, unless they are without 

support in the record. We may reverse the legal conclusions 

reached by the suppression court, however, if they are in error. 

Thus, our standard of review of the legal conclusions reached by 

the suppression court is de novo. Where, as here, the defendant 

is appealing the ruling of the suppression court, we consider only 
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the evidence of the prosecution, and so much of the evidence for 

the defense which remains uncontradicted when fairly read in 

the context of the [suppression] record.

Commonwealth v. Galvin, 603 Pa. 625, 645, 985 A.2d 783, 795 (2009) 

(citations omitted). 

Additionally, “[i]t is within the suppression court's sole province as fact 

finder to pass on the credibility of witnesses and the weight to be given their 

testimony.” Commonwealth v. Clemens, 66 A.3d 373, 378 (Pa.Super. 

2013) (citation omitted). “As we believe that credibility at a suppression 

hearing is an important determination best resolved through the court's 

personal observations, we will not reverse a suppression court's assessment 

of credibility absent clear and manifest error.” Commonwealth v. 

Camacho, 625 A.2d 1242, 1245 (Pa.Super. 1993). With regard to our 

scope of review in the context of an order denying a suppression motion, we 

are limited to reviewing only the evidence that was presented at the 

suppression hearing. See In re L.J., 622 Pa. 131, 142-150, 79 A.3d 1073, 

1083–87 (2013).

The suppression court made findings of fact fully crediting the officers’ 

testimonies that they stopped Appellant for driving through a red light and 

operating a vehicle bearing a license plate registered to another vehicle. 

The NCIC database-check supplying probable cause for the license plate 

violation, the court opined, was a procedure customarily performed by 

investigating officers, and it supported further investigation, particularly 
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when combined with Appellant’s inability to produce papers demonstrating 

either the validity of the plate or his rightful possession of the car. Also 

persuading the court as to the legitimacy of the stop and search were the 

officers’ written reports recording their field observations and reliance on the 

NCIC results without equivocation. In short, there was simply no reason 

brought to the court’s attention, the court concluded, for it to believe the 

officers had invented pretexual explanations in order to disguise a raciallybased motive to stop and search Appellant’s car.

Neither documentary nor testimonial evidence offered by the defense 

reveal manifest error with the trial court’s credibility determination. 

Documentary evidence consisting of the Avis rental agreement, which 

verified Appellant’s rental of the car and the validity of the license plate 

number, and a PennDOT Vehicle Record Abstract, which matched the license 

plate number to Appellant’s rental car, did not, as Appellant contends, belie 

the officers’ testimony about the NCIC results they obtained. The PennDOT 

abstract for the car indicates a “Title Date” of June 6, 2013. Accordingly, the 

earliest date on which the abstract itself theoretically could have been 

created was June 6, 2013—the day of the stop. Appellant supplied no 

evidence as to either the actual date on which the PennDOT generated the 

abstract or, more importantly, the date on which the NCIC database would 

have first reflected the information in the abstract. Appellant cannot meet 

his burden on such an incomplete record. As for the Avis rental agreement, 
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evidence established that the officers were not privy to it or the leasing and 

license plate information it contained, so it, too, was of dubious value to the 

suppression court in assessing credibility.

Ms. Bell and Ms. Meadows testified regarding facts and circumstances 

of the stop, but their testimonies were subject to contradiction during the 

suppression hearing. Specifically, Ms. Bell, Appellant’s girlfriend, described 

witnessing a seven or eight-minute search of the vehicle before officers 

uncovered a handgun, but officers described observing the handgun very

early in the stop when Appellant reached in the console to retrieve his 

license and registration. Nor was Ms. Bell even at the scene, Officer Waters 

testified, when officers discovered the gun. Only after officers placed 

Appellant under arrest and telephoned Ms. Bell on Appellant’s request so 

that she could collect her young child did she arrive. N.T. at 12, 19-20. 

Ms. Meadows, Appellant’s wife, testified she was Appellant’s passenger 

when the same officers stopped him on a prior day for improper tags on a 

different rental car, checked his license and registration, and searched the 

car before releasing them. N.T. at 60, 61, 22. On cross-examination 

conducted prior to Ms. Meadows’ testimony, however, Officer Waters denied 

ever seeing or stopping Appellant before the June 6, 2013, stop.3 In each 

____________________________________________

3 Redirect examination of Officer Waters developed an important 

inconsistency—if not direct contradiction—between Ms. Meadows’ and Officer 

Waters’ respective testimonies regarding the officer’s treatment of a 

(Footnote Continued Next Page)
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instance of conflicting testimony, the suppression court exercised its 

discretion to credit the officers’ accounts over those of Ms. Bell and Ms. 

Meadows. 

As noted above, we may only consider so much of the evidence for the 

defense that remains uncontradicted when fairly read in the context of the 

record, Galvin, supra, and so we may not consider Ms. Bell’s or Ms. 

Meadow’s testimony in assessing whether the trial court committed a clear 

and manifest error in making its credibility determinations. Accordingly, 

Appellant’s challenge must fail.

Judgment of sentence is AFFIRMED.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 2/18/2016

(Footnote Continued) _______________________

suspended license. In describing the events of the alleged stop occurring 

eleven days prior, Ms. Meadows said officers checked Appellant’s driver’s 

license and released him without penalty. N.T. at 60. Just eleven days 

later, it is undisputed that Officer Waters checked Appellant’s driver’s license 

and issued a traffic citation for driving with a suspended license. N.T. at 11-

12, 24-27.