Court Opinion

ID: 9751301
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 16:20:20.449533+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:42.489435
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Hoffman, J.:
Donna Cubler and Bruce A. Ettien, Jr., appellants, appeal from their convictions on charges of possession of narcotics, possession of narcotics with intent to deliver and conspiracy. They contend that certain evidence introduced at trial was unlawfully seized from appellant Cubler’s property and that certain other evidence should have been suppressed as “fruit” of that unlawful search.1
*622The circumstances surrounding appellants’ arrest are not in dispute. On February 21, 1978, Officer Thomas Chubb of the Chester Police Department responded to a complaint that several children had shattered the windshield of a passing car. The motorist pointed out to Officer Chubb a group of children who he claimed were the culprits. As the officer and the motorist approached, the children scattered and ran. The officer and the motorist followed one of the children to his home. At the house, Officer Chubb was joined by Officers Wright and Charleston. Chubb knocked, and the door was answered by appellant Cubler, the mother of the child who allegedly was involved in the rock-throwing incident. Appellant Cubler and the motorist agreed to allow Cubler to pay for the damage. Their business concluded, Chubb and the motorist started to leave when they were approached by Mr. Joseph E. Lewis who lived in a house behind the Cubler residence. Lewis reported to Officer Chubb that, although he did not know if it was significant, he had seen a man step part of the way out of the back door of the Cubler residence and shove a black portable bar case into a dog house in the rear of the Cubler home. Lewis and Officer Chubb walked to the end of the row of houses, up a common walkway to the rear of the row, across several yards and into the Cubler yard. There Chubb saw the black case partially extending out of the dog house. He picked the case up, opened it, and discovered a large quantity of drugs. One officer was stationed at the front of the house; one officer remained at the rear. Officer Chubb summoned the assistance of three additional officers from the narcotics division. The four adult occupants of the house were removed from the rear of the house. Lewis identified appellant Ettien, a visitor at the Cubler residence, as the man he had seen place the black case in the dog house. All of the occupants were arrested and taken to the stationhouse. While two officers staked-out the house, a warrant was then procured for a search of the *623Cubler residence. The subsequent search produced additional quantities of narcotics and marijuana.
At the September 6, 1973 hearing on the motion to suppress, Officer Chubb testified that the search and seizure of the black case rested on the suspicious conduct reported to him by Mr. Lewis and on his personal knowledge that the Cubler residence was under surveillance by the narcotics division. He stated, further, certain unnamed users and dealers had been seen entering and leaving on certain unspecified occasions by certain unspecified persons. The court below denied the motion to suppress based on the following reasoning: “One, that there was probable cause for the arrest of Donna Cubler and Bruce Eittien [sic] on February 21, 1973; and the entry of the officers to the premises, to the extent that they reached into the dog house and secured the black case and opened it, which showed a quantity of suspected narcotics; and that this discovery properly furnished, in part, probable cause for the issuance of the search warrant and substance and support for the complaint for the issuance of the search warrant.” Appellants were tried and convicted on October 17, 1973. On April 5, 1974, after post-trial motions were denied, appellant Ettien was sentenced to two concurrent 3 to 15 year terms of imprisonment for possession with intent to deliver, to pay fines of $3,000 and $1,000 and costs of prosecution on Bills of Indictment 459 and 460 respectively. Sentence on the conspiracy charge, Bill of Indictment 461, was suspended. Appellant Cubler was sentenced to serve a period of 10 years probation, to pay a fine of $500 and costs of prosecution on both Bills of Indictment 459 and 460. Sentence on the conspiracy charge, Bill of Indictment 461, was suspended. This appeal followed.
The Majority and the court below seek to justify the seizure of the bag from the dog house on theories of abandonment and plain view, citing Commonwealth v. Platou, 455 Pa. 258, 312 A.2d 29 (1973) and United States *624v. Martin, 386 F. 2d 213 (3d Cir. 1967).2 It is true that “ [p] ersonal belongings ... retain their constitutional protection until their owner meaningfully abdicates control or responsibility.” Commonwealth v. Platou, supra at 267, 312 A.2d at 34.3 But it is impossible on the facts of this case to say that one who takes an innocuous-looking black case from one structure to another on private property relinquishes his expectation of privacy. Abandonment requires more; it requires that the party surrender control in such a way as to evince or imply an intent to part with that control permanently. See Abel v. United States, 362 U.S. 217 (1960); United States v. Minker, 312 F. 2d 632 (3d Cir. 1963). Resort to the “abandonment exception” to the requirement that there be probable cause prior to the commencement of a search is unavailing under the facts of this case.
*625Similarly, the Majority’s reliance on the “plain view” doctrine is misplaced. The police officer must observe either illegal conduct, evidence of criminal conduct, or contraband from a legitimate vantage point in order that the consequent police conduct, e.g., arrest, search, or seizure, be justified. See Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443 (1971); Commonwealth v. Hernley, 216 Pa. Superior Ct. 177, 263 A. 2d 904 (1970). While it is true that the police officer saw a black bag in plain view, it was not until he had crossed on to appellant Cubler’s property, reached into the closure of the dog house, unlatched the bag, and opened it that contraband came into plain view. If the plain view doctrine is read as expansively as the Majority does, there is literally nothing left to the Fourth Amendment for certainly every house, car, pocketbook, or suitcase is in “plain view”. The doctrine was never meant to extend so far.
Because neither abandonment nor plain view would justify the search, two additional questions must be answered: 1) was the search and seizure supported by probable cause, and if so, 2) were there sufficient “exigent circumstances” to excuse the officers from the requirement of securing a search warrant.
Probable cause exists when “the facts and circumstances within their [the arresting officers’] knowledge and of which they had reasonably trustworthy information [are] sufficient in themselves to warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that” an offense has been or is being committed. Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 162 (1925). In determining whether probable cause exists for the purpose of testing a magistrate’s decision to issue a search warrant, we are commanded to measure the reliability of the information related by an affiant and the probative value of that information. Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410 (1969). In cases involving searches commenced without a warrant, we must apply the same stringent standards in evaluating both the reliability and *626the probative value of the facts known to the officer at the inception of the search. If we were to do otherwise, we leave these critical assessments “only in the discretion of the police." Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 349 (1967).
Assuming that facts in the record are sufficient to establish that the officer conducting the search had sufficient reliable and probative information of criminal conduct, we then move to the second phase of our inquiry: whether or not there existed sufficient “exigent circumstances” to excuse the officers from the requirement of securing a search warrant. “It is well settled under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments that a search conducted without a warrant issued upon probable cause is ‘per se unreasonable ... subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions.’ ” Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 219 (1973) (Citations omitted). The well-established exceptions to the requirement of a warrant include: searches commenced with the consent of the party being searched, see Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, supra; precautionary weapons searches, see Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968); Commonwealth v. Hicks, 434 Pa. 153, 253 A. 2d 276 (1969); searches commenced when officers are motivated by the good faith belief that they or some other person are in peril, i.e., emergency searches, see United States v. Preston, 468 F. 2d 1007 (6th Cir. 1972); United States v. Barone, 330 F. 2d 543 (2d Cir. 1964); seizures of evidence in plain view of officers in hot pursuit, see Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294 (1967); searches of vehicles on the roadway under circumstances suggesting the probability that the vehicle will be moved, compare Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42 (1970), and Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132 (1925), with Coolidge v. New Hampshire, supra; seizure of evanescent evidence in the process of destruction, compare Cupp v. Murphy, 412 U.S. 291 (1973), and Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757 (1966), with *627Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752 (1969). Permitting an endless expansion of these exceptions would allow the exceptions to swallow the rule; the Maj ority is in danger of reading the fragile protections of the Fourth Amendment warrant requirements out of the Constitution. “Exigent circumstances” is the rationale which underpins these narrowly circumscribed exceptions; it is not to be confused with the exceptions themselves. Our courts have never sanctioned warrantless searches of buildings or structures on the land simply because it was inconvenient to secure a warrant. In fact, the decisional law suggests that there is a far greater expectation of privacy in respect to houses and appurtenant structures than that which obtains in respect to other situations and places. See Chambers v. Maroney, supra. Although “it is unnecessary and ill-advised to import into the law surrounding the constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures subtle distinctions, developed and refined by the common law in evolving the body of property law...” Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 266 (1960), it is well-settled that the protections of the Fourth Amendment extend not just to houses but to the curtilage. Wattenburg v. United States, 388 F. 2d 853 (9th Cir. 1968); Care v. United States, 231 F. 2d 22 (10th Cir. 1956). The burden is on the Commonwealth to establish that the search was properly conducted without a warrant and to fit the search within one of the exceptions recognized by our courts. Cf. McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. 451 (1948); McCormick, Evidence, §171 (2d ed. 1972).
Finally, if our examination of the case compels the conclusion that the search at its inception was not supported by probable cause or that the failure to secure a warrant under the facts of this case was not excused, then we must not only direct the suppression of the products of the first search but must void the arrest of appellants and the search of appellant Cubler’s home. Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (1963).
*628In the instant case, the Commonwealth fails to establish that the initial search by Officer Chubb was supported by probable cause. The bald assertion by Chubb that the Cubler residence was “under surveillance” is singularly uninformative. We are not told by whom the officer was advised of this surveillance. Neither are we told what facts supported the surveillance. We do not know if the surveillance was instituted on information supplied by an anonymous tipster, whether there was independent corroboration of the information supplied by the informant, and whether there was any reason to credit the source of the information as reliable. The Commonwealth fails in its burden to show the existence of probable cause when it does not establish.in the record these underlying facts and circumstances by which we, as a reviewing court, may judge the reliability of the information within the possession of the officer at the inception of the search. Without these facts in the record we must find against the Commonwealth on the issue of the existence of probable cause. Had the officer applied for a warrant before entering onto the Cubler property, he most certainly would have had to establish these facts. Simply because a warrant was not obtained does not excuse the Commonwealth from its burden of establishing the reliability of the information upon which the officer acted.
The other information known to the officer at the time that the search was commenced was that at about the time he approached the front of the Cubler residence a man was seen placing a black bag into a dog house in the rear. While we may credit information provided by a disinterested citizen informant as reliable, we can hardly say that it is sufficiently probative in and of itself to establish probable cause. Cf. Commonwealth v. Jeffries, 454 Pa. 320, 311 A. 2d 914 (1973); Commonwealth v. Collins, 440 Pa. 368, 269 A. 2d 882 (1970). Although it may be some evidence of a guilty conscience, it would not “warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief *629that” an offense has been or is being committed. Carroll v. United States, supra at 162. Neither may it be combined with the information that the Cubler residence was under surveillance unless the reliability of that information is established in the record.
Assuming, arguendo, that the initial search of the Cubler property was supported by probable cause, the Commonwealth fails to fulfill its burden of bringing the search of the Cubler property within a recognized exception to the warrant requirement. The evidence seized from the dog house was clearly not within the reach of one of the appellants so that it was in danger of being destroyed or moved. The record establishes that there were initially three and eventually six officers on the scene so it can hardly be argued that a stake-out was impossible. In fact, the officers did stake-out the residence while a warrant for a search of the house was secured. We are not dealing with a highly mobile vehicle, a precautionary search for weapons, a consent search, an emergency, or hot pursuit. In short, even if probable cause could be found, nothing in the record would suggest that the failure to secure a warrant was excused by circumstances heretofore recognized by our courts.
Thus, because the Commonwealth does not' meet its burden of showing that the facts known to the officer at the inception of the initial search established probable cause or its burden of bringing the search within one of the recognized exceptions to the requirement of a warrant, I am compelled to find that the fruits of that unlawful search must be suppressed. The subsequent search of the Cubler residence must also be voided.
I would therefore reverse the judgment of sentence of the lower court and remand for a new trial.

. Appellant Cubler also claims that the evidence was insufficient in respect to her conviction for possession of narcotics with intent to deliver and conspiracy. The record reveals, however, that substantial quantities of narcotics were found within the Cubler residence and that some of this evidence was taken from her purse and coat. Additionally, it was established at trial that she was the sole lessee of the house. These facts would distinguish the instant case from Commonwealth v. Tirpak, 441 Pa. 534, 272 A. 2d 476 (1971), and later cases following Tirpak. Because I would reverse the convictions of both appellants on the basis of their search and seizure claims, I would remand for a new trial rather than discharging appellant Cubler as would be required if her claim of insufficient evidence were sustained.

. The facts of United States v. Martin, supra, distinguish that case from the instant one. In Martin the police had a warrant for the arrest of one Joyce Hammond and for the search of her apartment. While the officers waited to execute the warrant, Martin came to the Hammond residence. He recognized one of the officers and immediately fled. As he ran down the hallway of the apartment house, he tossed several packets of narcotics into an unlighted pantry which opened onto the public hallway. Under the facts and circumstances of this case the Third Circuit had no difficulty finding an abandonment even though the contraband was discarded into a room of the apartment. In the instant case, there were no such circumstances which would suggest an intent to part permanently with control.

. In Commonwealth v. Platou, supra, the law applicable to abandonment is correctly stated but was entirely unnecessary to the resolution of the case. In Platon, the police had a warrant to search the apartment of appellant’s friend. The police were informed of the true owner of two suitcases and were, therefore, on notice that the suitcases did not belong to the occupant of the apartment. All that the Court held in Platou was that the search of a guest’s property is beyond the permissible scope of a warrant which authorizes the search of a given premises. Thus, Platou really contributes nothing to the already established principles of the “abandonment” exception to the requirement of a warrant supported by probable cause.