Court Opinion

ID: 9728446
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:08:06.601507+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:47.811268
License: Public Domain

NIGRO, Justice,
Concurring and Dissenting.
I agree with the opinion announcing the judgment of the court (“opinion of judgment”) that the search of the basement exceeded the scope of the warrant for the G Service Conve*160nience Store. Unlike the opinion of judgment, however, I do not believe that the search of the basement was justified as a legitimate protective sweep and therefore, I must also respectfully dissent.
The government bears a heavy burden of proving that a warrantless search was constitutional. United States v. Jeffers, 342 U.S. 48, 51, 72 S.Ct. 93, 96 L.Ed. 59 (1951); United States v. Brightwell, 563 F.2d 569, 574 (3rd Cir.1977). As the opinion of judgment notes, in Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325, 110 S.Ct. 1093, 108 L.Ed.2d 276 (1990), the United States Supreme Court held that an arresting officer may only conduct a warrantless protective sweep of areas beyond the immediate scene of an arrest if the officer possesses a reasonable belief based on specific and articulable facts which, taken together with the rational inferences from those facts, reasonably justify the officer in believing that the areas harbor an individual posing a danger to the officer or others. Id. at 327, 110 S.Ct. 1093.1 “[Wjhile officers need not have probable cause to believe a dangerous third person is present, the mere possibility of such a presence is not enough [to justify a protective sweep]. Instead, police must have specific and articulable grounds sufficient to support a reasonable belief that a person posing a danger is present.” Hayes v. Nevada, 106 Nev. 543, 551, 797 P.2d 962, 967-69 (1990). Blanket sweep searches of premises following the arrest of someone inside the premises are patently unconstitutional. Thus, courts reviewing suppression motions must carefully review the reasons given by police officers for conducting protective sweeps so that officers do not engage in warrantless sweep searches as a pretext for substantive searches. See id., 797 P.2d at 967-69; United States v. Colbert, 76 F.3d 773, 778 (6th Cir.1996) (allowing police to conduct a protective sweep because they do not know whether or not another person may be in the home not only creates an incentive for police to remain ignorant of who is in the home in order to be able to conduct a protective sweep, but also is contrary to the requirement in Buie that the *161police have an articulable basis to support their reasonable suspicion of danger in the areas to be swept).
In my view, the Commonwealth failed to present specific and articulable facts in the instant case that demonstrate that the police officers reasonably believed that there were individuals in the basement who posed a danger to them.2 I also agree with Judge Olszewski’s concurring opinion that no such reasons are present in the record. See Super. Ct. Op. at 2 (Olszewski, J., concurring) (nothing in suppression court’s findings indicates that following arrest of Gooden, the officers had reasonable fear of a threat to their well-being). The opinion of judgment notes that Officer Adams testified that his first instinct was to go downstairs in order to secure the basement. However, Officer Adams never articulated why he felt the need to secure the basement, much less offered any specific facts as to why he reasonably believed there were persons present in the basement who posed a danger to him or the other officers. Although Officer Adams stated that he saw Taylor and Mahone go into the convenience store prior to the search, he did not further elucidate that he believed that they were in the basement when he entered the convenience store3 or that he had reason to believe that either Taylor or *162Mahone posed a danger to him. Given this testimony, I simply cannot agree with the opinion of judgment that Officer Adams conducted a constitutional protective sweep since the search was based on no more than the mere possibility that dangerous third parties may have been present in the basement. See Hayes, 106 Nev. at 551, 797 P.2d at 967.4
Therefore, since I believe that the Commonwealth failed to present specific and articulable facts necessary to justify a protective sweep, I would reverse the Superior Court’s order denying Appellants’ motions to suppress the evidence obtained by the officers from the basement. See United States v. Akrawi, 920 F.2d 418, 420-21 (6th Cir.1990) (protective sweep of second floor following arrest on first floor was unconstitutional where agents could not articulate a specific basis for fear that second floor harbored dangerous persons and agents encountered no violence or resistance in entering home).5
Chief Justice FLAHERTY and Justice ZAPPALA join in the concurring and dissenting opinion.

. This is the standard for a second level search, as described by the opinion of judgment.

. The opinion of judgment picks out a few isolated statements made by various Commonwealth witnesses and concludes that based on these statements, the officers involved in the search of the convenience store must have feared that dangerous third parties were located in the basement. However, none of the Commonwealth’s witnesses testified that they suspected potentially dangerous third parties in the basement. Rather, the Commonwealth's witnesses explained that they entered the basement simply because it was easily accessible to the convenience store. Moreover, in its argument to this Court, the Commonwealth does not rely on the witnesses’ statements cited by the opinion of judgment but rather, only argues that the search was a legitimate protective sweep due to the possibility that other individuals may have been present in the basement because of its accessibility from the convenience store. Thus, based on my reading of the record and the argument framed by the Commonwealth, I disagree with the opinion of judgment that the Commonwealth presented the specific and articulable facts necessary to satisfy its burden of proving that the warrantless search of the basement was a legitimate protective sweep. See Buie, 494 U.S. at 327, 110 S.Ct. 1093; Jeffers, 342 U.S. at 51, 72 S.Ct. 93.

. According to the record, Officer Adams immediately searched the basement upon entering the convenience store. There is no evidence *162that Officer Adams took note of the people present in the convenience store apd determined that Taylor and Mahone were missing.

. Contrary to the opinion of judgment, I also believe that this case is distinguishable from Commonwealth v. Norris, 498 Pa. 308, 446 A.2d 246 (1982). In Norris, this Court upheld the police officers' sweep of the appellant’s bedroom after the officers arrested appellant in his living room because the officers had “every reason to believe” that a firearm was available to the occupants of the apartment and that one of the usual occupants of the apartment, the appellant’s brother, was unaccounted for. Id. at 315, 446 A.2d at 249; see also, Commonwealth v. Curry, 343 Pa.Super. 400, 494 A.2d 1146 (1985) (police properly conducted a protective sweep of home because a dangerous shooting incident had just occurred and the gun was not yet accounted for). Here, neither Officer Adams nor Constable McIntyre testified that they recognized that Taylor and Mahone were unaccounted for when they entered the convenience store or that they had reason to believe that Taylor and Mahone possessed weapons or otherwise posed a threat to them.

. As I would hold that the officers were not justified in searching the basement, I would also necessarily hold that the officers improperly searched Taylor and the coats hanging in the basement. However, even if I believed that the officers were warranted in conducting a protective sweep of the basement, I disagree with the opinion of judgment that Officer Adams' seizure of the pill bottle from Taylor was constitutional. In my view, although Officer Adams may have had *163reasonable suspicion to frisk Taylor in order to insure that he was not armed, once Officer Adams patted Taylor's pocket and felt a cylinder object of approximately four inches in length and one and three-quarters in diameter, which he determined was neither a gun nor a knife, Officer Adams was not constitutionally justified in further searching Taylor's pocket and seizing the pill bottle. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 27, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968); Commonwealth v. E.M., 558 Pa. 16, 26-28, 735 A.2d 654, 660-61 (1999).
I agree with the opinion of judgment that Conslable McIntyre's search of the coats was not a proper search incident to arrest and thus, the Superior Court’s order suppressing the evidence obtained from the coats should be reversed.