Court Opinion

ID: 9750435
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 14:58:29.791601+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:53.838310
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, Judge,
dissenting:
I am obliged to dissent.' Appellees in their brief contend that the stopping of the motor vehicle was unlawful. I *555agree. I would affirm the orders of the suppression court on a different rationale. An appellate court may affirm a trial court where it is correct on any ground. Gerace v. Holmes Protection of Philadelphia, 357 Pa.Super. 467, 516 A.2d 354 (1986), appeal denied, 515 Pa. 580, 527 A.2d 541 (1987). The task of this Court in reviewing the decision in a suppression hearing is to determine whether the factual findings of the suppression court are supported by the record, for the law is clear that we are bound by such factual findings of the suppression court as are supported by the record. Commonwealth v. Gilbert, 364 Pa.Super. 354, 357, 528 A.2d 195, 196 (1987) (citations omitted). In determining whether the findings of fact are supported by the record, we are to consider only the evidence of the appellees and so much of the evidence of the appellant which, as read in the context of the record as a whole, remains uncontradicted. Commonwealth v. White, 358 Pa. Super. 120, 125, 516 A.2d 1211, 1212 (1986). We are not bound by findings wholly lacking in evidence nor the suppression court’s conclusions of law. Id.
The Motor Vehicle Code provides that a police officer must have “articulable and reasonable” grounds or probable cause to suspect a violation of the code in order to stop a vehicle. 75 Pa.C.S. § 6308(b). At the suppression hearing, Trooper Heckman was unable to name the section of the Motor Vehicle Code of which he suspected appellee Elliott to be in violation. N.T. 10/7/86 at 28. Elliott was ultimately charged with violation of Section 4524(a), which applies to obstructions on the front windshields of motor vehicles. Trooper Heckman concedes this citation to be clearly inapplicable. N.T. 10/7/86 at 29. The officer’s statement that he believed that the air freshener1 hanging from the rear-view mirror might materially obstruct, obscure or impair the driver’s vision or otherwise constitute a safety hazard does not satisfy the requirement that this belief be reasonable. N.T. 10/7/86 at 20-21.
*556A trial court may not simply accept the officer’s bald assertion and then conclude that a reasonable basis for the stop existed. All the circumstances must be examined. Commonwealth v. Edwards, 355 Pa.Super. 311, 513 A.2d 445, (1986). A reasonable suspicion of unlawful activity requires the officer to rely on specific and articulable facts which together with the rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warranted the intrusion. Id. Trooper Heckman’s testimony shows that he stopped the motor vehicle solely because there was an object affixed to the rearview mirror. The Motor Vehicle Code nowhere justifies police officers in stopping every vehicle that has any object affixed to the rearview mirror. Trooper Heckman testified that he believed appellee’s vehicle was in violation of either Section 4523(c) or Section 4524(c) of the Motor Vehicle Code. N.T. 10/7/86 at 18. Section 4523 of the Motor Vehicle Code is titled “Exhaust systems, mufflers and noise control”. 75 Pa.C.S. § 4523. Section 4524(c) of the Motor Vehicle Code provides as follows:
(c) Other obstruction. — No person shall drive a motor vehicle with any object or other material hung from the inside rearview mirror or otherwise hung, placed or attached in such a position as to materially obstruct, obscure or impair the driver’s vision through the front windshield or any manner as to constitute a safety hazard. (Emphasis added).
75 Pa.C.S. § 4524(c).
It is evident that the air freshener could not constitute a violation of Section 4524 of the Motor Vehicle Code. Therefore the intrusion of an investigatory stop was not reasonably warranted. In Commonwealth v. Burrell, 286 Pa.Super. 502, 429 A.2d 434 (1981), the police stopped defendant’s automobile on an allegation that the tail light was defective. This Court stated that, although the police may stop an automobile if they reasonably suspect a violation of the Motor Vehicle Code, “if the Cadillac’s tail light was not defective, they had no reason to suspect such a violation.” *557Id., 286 Pa.Super. at 506, 429 A.2d at 435. As we stated in Edwards:
An individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in an automobile and when a vehicle is stopped by a police officer, a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment has occurred.
[E]xcept in those situations in which there is at least articulable and reasonable suspicion that a motorist is unlicensed or that an automobile is not registered, or that either the vehicle or an occupant is otherwise subject to seizure for violation of law, stopping an automobile and detaining the driver in order to check ... the automobile [is] unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. (Emphasis added, citations omitted).
355 Pa.Super. at 314, 513 A.2d at 446.
I conclude that the seized physical evidence and all statements made by the appellees should be suppressed as the fruit of an illegal stop. Therefore, I would affirm the suppression orders entered by the trial court.
Accordingly, I dissent.

. The air freshener is described as a circular yellow bird with dimensions of either two inches by one inch or two and one-half inches by one and one-half inches.