Court Opinion

ID: 9693724
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:58:19.882243+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:49.764275
License: Public Domain

McDERMOTT, Justice,
dissenting.
Trooper Reichert was not sitting in an arm chair “speculating” he was in a police cruiser on midnight patrol when he observed the facts so cogently summarized by the Superior Court.
[t]he vehicle’s interior lights were on, and the exterior lights were extinguished. When the officers approached, the interior lights were also extinguished, and the car began to move. The troopers also observed a series of furtive movements, leading them to suspect that the passengers were attempting to hide something. The combination of furtive movements, time of night, previous notice from the property owner, potential parking violation, and attempted movement from the scene when the police arrived, sufficiently justified the legality of the stop.
Superior Court Opinion at 8.
These are facts which only ingenious gamesmanship can dismiss as insufficient for an investigative stop. The Majority, cool, speculative, safely distant, can always be wiser, more indulgent in their quiet lucubrations. Their adrenaline is controlled, their hearts ticking away on a soft afternoon. However, police officers who are patrolling the front lines of the battlefield of crime must contend with the realities of their environment, and must be free to read and
*309react to those signs which their experience tells them portends felonious activity. See Commonwealth v. Cortez, 507 Pa. 529, 491 A.2d 111 (1985).
I dissent.