Court Opinion

ID: 9631061
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:28:07.60534+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:48.126291
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, Judge,
dissenting:
As a rule, constitutional cases try to steer a course between conflicting demands, and that is true of Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), and Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972). We want the police to be able to do what they need to do to catch criminals; but we also want them to treat people with respect. The police won’t be able to meet these demands if they must choose between, arrest or release; wanting to do their job, they’ll choose arrest, and never mind if that means driving off to the station house someone *507who has done nothing wrong. Therefore, the police should have a third choice: they should be able to detain a person long enough to ask a few questions, the answers to which will help them decide whether to arrest or release.
Here, the police did not take their third choice; they simply made an arrest, and I agree with Judge HOFFMAN that they did not know enough to do that.
There was no need for the police to act as they did. They could have said, “But the stereo has a needle in it,” and seen how appellant resolved that contradiction. Or they could have asked, “Which pawnshop?”, and if appellant named one, called the pawn broker. Or they could have said, “Someone saw you run out of a house with this stereo,” and awaited appellant’s explanation. Or they could have radioed headquarters to learn whether a burglary had been reported. In other words, the police were only a few questions and a few minutes away from learning enough to be able to decide, either to release appellant because he had explained his conduct, or to arrest him because the questions asked him had elicited a story “bizarre and totally incredible . under all the facts and circumstances.” Commonwealth v. Mackie, 456 Pa. 372, 376, 320 A.2d 842, 844 (1974).* Instead of taking that little trouble, the police drove appellant off to the station house—just the response that Terry and Adams make unnecessary, and preclude.
The judgment of sentence should be vacated and the case remanded for new trial.
CERCONE, J., joins in this opinion.

 I recognize that at some point during such an encounter the preliminary inquiries may stop and a “focused” investigation may begin that will require the warnings set out in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966).