Opinion ID: 2351964
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Custodial Detentions

Text: It is well-settled law in Pennsylvania that police must have probable cause to effect a lawful arrest or custodial detention. Commonwealth v. Rodriquez, 532 Pa. 62, 614 A.2d 1378 (1992); accord Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979). If police do not have the requisite probable cause for such a seizure, evidence seized or discovered as a result of the unlawful seizure will normally be suppressed unless it falls into certain recognized exceptions. The question is therefore, what police conduct constitutes an arrest or a custodial detention? In Commonwealth v. Bosurgi, 411 Pa. 56, 190 A.2d 304, 311 (1963), cert. denied, 375 U.S. 910, 84 S.Ct. 204, 11 L.Ed.2d 149 (1963), this Court grappled with and answered such a question. Initially the Court noted that [o]fficers are not required to make any formal declaration of arrest or use the word `arrest', in order for an arrest to exist. The Court further noted that although an arrest can occur when police seize a person physically, that an arrest may still occur where there is no physical restraint as to be visible to the eye. Id. ( citing McAleer v. Good, 216 Pa. 473, 475, 65 A. 934, 935 (1907)). Where there is no such physical restraint, the Court stated that an arrest occurs by any act that indicates an intention to take [a person] into custody and subjects him to the actual control and will of the person making the arrest ( citing with approval 5 Am.Jur.2d Arrest § 1, p. 695) (emphasis added). See Commonwealth v. Ellis, supra, 541 Pa. at 292-294, 662 A.2d at 1047 (custodial detention is deemed to arise when the conditions or duration of an investigative detention become so coercive that a reasonable person feels that he or she is unable to leave). In Bosurgi, police were notified of a burglary at a jewelry store during which watches and jewelry were stolen. The next day, police received a telephone call from an anonymous source claiming that a man was attempting to sell watches in a certain taproom located near the burglarized store. The caller described the man as having bushy grey hair, needing a shave, short in stature, swarthy in appearance, and wearing tweed pants and a striped shirt. Police investigated the information and went to the taproom but found no one there that matched the description. The detectives then went into the taproom located directly across the street from the burglarized store where they observed Bosurgi, who matched the description, seated at a table. One of the detectives approached Bosurgi and ordered him to stand up. When Bosurgi complied, the detective turned him around and patted him down, at which time he felt the watches in Bosurgi's trousers pockets. The detective removed eight watches from Bosurgi's pockets which were identified as part of the stolen merchandise. The detective also found bits of glass in Bosurgi's pockets, which were later found to have matched the glass of the burglarized store. The trial court granted Bosurgi's motion to suppress the evidence seized from him holding that the evidence was obtained as a result of an unlawful search and seizure under the United States and Pennsylvania Constitutions. The Superior Court reversed the trial court's suppression ruling. Upon appeal to this Court, this Court held that Bosurgi's submission to the detectives' show of authority in the taproom did amount to an arrest. However, the Supreme Court affirmed the Superior Court because it found that the search was nevertheless lawful because the detectives had probable cause for the arrest. [2] Under Bosurgi, therefore, like Hodari D., an arrest occurs when the suspect is under the actual physical control of a police officer or when the suspect, feeling that he is not free to leave, submits to a police officer's show of force or authority. In the matters at issue here, appellants were neither under the police officers' actual physical control, nor did they submit to any exercise of force or authority by the officers. [3] Rather, appellants simply ran, of their own volition and in any direction that they chose, upon merely seeing a police officer approach them. Clearly, appellants were not under arrest, nor were they subjected to a custodial detention pursuant to Bosurgi. [4]