Opinion ID: 1927470
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: suppression of detective magazines and books

Text: Appellant next argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress the eighty-one (81) magazines and books found during the search of appellant's residence. Appellant contends that these items should have been suppressed since they were seized by authority of an invalid search warrant issued in another county and that the items never should have been transferred to the Montgomery County authorities. As noted above, when reviewing the denial of a suppression motion, we consider only the evidence of the prosecution 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 record supports the findings of the suppression court, we are bound by those facts and may reverse only if the legal conclusions drawn therefrom are in error. Cortez, 507 Pa. at 532, 491 A.2d at 112. Moreover, when reviewing the validity of a warrant, this Court has stated that: The task of the issuing magistrate is simply to make a practical, common sense decision whether, given all of the circumstances set forth in the affidavit before him . . . there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place. And the duty of the reviewing court is simply to ensure that the magistrate had a substantial basis for concluding that probable cause existed. Commonwealth v. Weidenmoyer, 518 Pa. 2, 8, 539 A.2d 1291, 1294 (1988). Here, a search warrant was issued in Delaware County authorizing the search of appellant's residence in Philadelphia in connection with the suspected murder of Dawn Mazio. The facts in the affidavit presented to obtain the search warrant show that Dawn Mazio disappeared after leaving work on May 22, 1989. Unlike her other absences from work, Dawn Mazio did not inform her supervisors that she was going to miss work that next day. The Radnor Township Police, as part of their investigation, interviewed appellant on June 1 and June 11, 1989, because they found appellant's name in Mazio's address book. During the interviews, appellant informed the police that he had not seen Mazio in almost two months, that he was previously convicted for a gang related murder of another woman, that Mazio told appellant that she could help him get a janitorial position at the hospital, and that Mazio was angry at him for failing to appear at an interview she scheduled for him and for his failure to meet her at a bus after she finished work on May 12, 1989. All of these statements subsequently proved to be false. [11] Additionally, a witness stated that she saw Mazio and a man who closely resembled appellant on the day of Mazio's disappearance. Based on the totality of the circumstances presented, we find that the issuing magistrate had a proper basis for concluding that probable cause existed for suspecting that appellant was involved in the possible murder of Dawn Mazio. Thus, the search warrant that resulted in the seizure of the magazines and books from appellant's residence was lawful in that the items had some relevance to the possible murder of Mazio and they were properly seized (See discussions infra at Section XIII for a discussion of appellant's claim concerning sending this material to the jury room). Moreover, the fact that Delaware County subsequently transferred these magazines and books to Montgomery County does not provide grounds for suppressing these items. See Commonwealth v. Mason, 327 Pa.Super. 520, 540, 476 A.2d 389, 399 (1984) (items lawfully seized by police in Northumberland County as evidence of crime in that county which were subsequently turned over to police in Montgomery County for an unrelated crime were not subject to suppression by court in Montgomery County). Therefore, we conclude that the trial court correctly denied appellant's motion to suppress the detective magazines and books. Accordingly, this claim must fail.