Court Opinion

ID: 9647116
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:23:34.973125+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:45.562895
License: Public Domain

PAPADAKOS, Justice,
dissenting.
I regret to say that I find the treatment given this case by the majority to be ludicrous. A police officer, sitting in his police vehicle in his primary jurisdiction, sees a car travelling at a more rapid rate of speed than other cars had been travelling past him. Believing that the car is speeding, the police officer takes chase to establish the exact rate of speed and, in doing so, passing into another jurisdiction and returning to his own jurisdiction. During the chase, the police officer clocks the car travelling 10 to 15 miles above the posted speed limit.
Some of the clocking is made in the policeman’s primary jurisdiction and some is made in the adjoining jurisdiction. The entire clocking distance exceeds five tenths 0io) of a mile, some of it in each jurisdiction. The majority finds that since at least three tenths (*So) of a mile was not clocked in the policeman’s jurisdiction, the officer had no probable cause to stop the vehicle and any evidence obtained as a result of the stop must be suppressed. Thus, another drunken driver is set free upon the unsuspecting travelling public.
The majority keys in upon the policeman’s observation that the car was travelling at a higher rate of speed than other vehicles and finds this observation, by a trained police officer, to be insufficient for the police officer to believe that the car is speeding. Thus, the majority finds no evidence to support probable cause. I find this reasoning ludicrous because the alternatives are to allow a drunken speeder to continue unhampered or to equip every police car in Pennsylvania with radar guns or similar devices. Ergo, if you do not have hard *296evidence to arrest, you cannot stop the vehicle which appears to be speeding.
I read the majority to say, first, that because the officer was unable to articulate in hard terms the actual speed of the vehicle, it must follow that probable cause was lacking: “Nothing in the record provides a basis to estimate the speed of appellant’s vehicle.” (Slip op., p. 4). The officer, nevertheless, did testify that the vehicle was travelling faster than any other vehicles and sufficient to raise a suspicion.
The majority, second, then seizes upon the officer’s use of the word “suspicion,” couples it to the absence of evidence of a technical rate of speed, and mystically concludes that there was no probable cause on which to base hot pursuit.
Probable cause has been defined repeatedly in our law as those facts and circumstances existing at the time of arrest which would justify a reasonably prudent person in the belief that a crime has been committed and that the defendant was the probable perpetrator. Commonwealth v. Bailey, 460 Pa. 498, 333 A.2d 883 (1975). Also see, Commonwealth v. Dickerson, 468 Pa. 599, 364 A.2d 677 (1976), and both state and federal cases collected therein. Most importantly for present purposes is our holding that the test for probable cause is not one of certainties but rather one of probabilities with the considerations of everyday life. It is certainly not equivalent to the trial standard of beyond a reasonable doubt. Commonwealth v. Jones, 457 Pa. 423, 322 A.2d 119 (1974).
In Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 69 S.Ct. 1302, 93 L.Ed. 1879 (1949), (as quoted in Dickerson, 468 Pa. at 609, 364 A.2d 677) it was decided that:
The rule of probable is a practical, nontechnical conception affording the best compromise that has been found for accommodating ... often opposing interests. Requiring more would unduly hamper law enforcement. To allow less would be to leave law-abiding citizens at the mercy of the officer’s whim or caprice.
The plain thrust of the majority’s holding today is to stand this law on its head by insisting on a form of probable cause in *297speeding cases that must come to rest on technical certitude approximating a level of proof of beyond a reasonable doubt. There was no concrete evidence of speeding; the officer betrayed some doubt as to what he thought; and, therefore, say the majority, Appellant was not lawfully arrested.
By concentrating exclusively on the need for technical support, the analysis discounts the fact of the officer’s initial observation of relatively higher speed and the necessity of evaluating that precise fact through the intellect of a reasonable person of caution. That is the heart of the matter, and the legal deformity becomes inevitable when this Court, or any court, fails to engage in the task of legal elaboration.
For the foregoing reasons, I dissent.
I also join in the Dissenting Opinion authored by Mr. Justice Castille.
CASTILLE, J., joins this dissenting opinion.