Court Opinion

ID: 9754591
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:06:16.169651+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:55.139750
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING OPINION BY
JOHNSON, J.:
¶ 1 I agree with the result reached by the Majority. As the Majority correctly notes, the Supreme Court of the United States has held that a police officer who lawfully stops a vehicle for a traffic violation may order both the driver and any passengers to exit as a matter of course, without any degree of individualized suspicion. See Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106, 98 S.Ct. 330, 54 L.Ed.2d 331 (1977) (Mimms II) (overruling our Supreme Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Mimms, 471 Pa. 546, 370 A.2d 1157 (1977) (Mimms I) and permitting an officer to order a driver out of a vehicle as a matter of course); Maryland v. Wilson, 519 U.S. 408, 117 S.Ct. 882, 137 L.Ed.2d 41 (1997) (extending Mimms II to allow an officer to order a passenger out of a vehicle as a matter of course). This is because once a vehicle has been lawfully stopped, the public’s interest in officer safety outweighs the “minimal” intrusion upon the driver’s and passenger’s liberty interest; thus, the United States Supreme Court concluded that the officer’s order to exit is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. See Mimms II, 434 U.S. at 109-110, 98 S.Ct. 330; Wilson, 519 U.S. at 414-15, 117 S.Ct. 882. For the reasons stated in the Opinion, I agree with the Majority that under the Fourth Amendment, the Mimms IlfWilson rationale can be extended to “lawfully order a passenger who has exited and/or attempted to walk away from a lawfully stopped vehicle to re-enter and remain in the vehicle until the traffic stop *569is completed!!.]” Majority Opinion at 567. I write separately, however, to express my concerns that this extension of the Minims Il/Wilson rationale on state constitutional grounds may be incompatible with the notions of enhanced privacy embodied in Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. See Majority Opinion at 567 (“[W]e likewise hold that a police officer’s instructions to a passenger of a lawfully stopped vehicle to re-enter and remain in the vehicle do not violate the individual’s rights under Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.”).
¶ 2 The relevant facts of this case are as follows. On August 5, 2004, at approximately 10:05 p.m., police officers Vincent Visco and James Moore observed a white Mazda Millenia traveling on Susquehanna Avenue without an operational right brake light. Notes of Testimony (N.T.), 9/15/05, at 6. The officers activated the patrol car’s sirens and stopped the vehicle in what Officer Visco described as a “high crime” area. N.T., 9/15/05, at 6. Duran Pratt, a front seat passenger in the Mazda, immediately exited the vehicle and began to walk towards a corner deli. N.T., 9/15/05, at 6, 8,12-18. Officer Visco exited the patrol car and ordered Pratt to return to the Mazda, but Pratt continued to walk towards the deli. N.T., 9/15/05, at 6, 16. Officer Visco again commanded Pratt to return to the Mazda, whereupon Pratt turned around, returned to the Mazda, sat in the passenger seat and closed the door. N.T., 9/15/05, at 6, 16-17. During this time, Officer Visco did not observe anything suspicious about Pratt’s behavior and testified that even though Pratt exited the vehicle, “[i]t’s not a crime.” N.T., 9/15/05, at 15.
¶ 3 When Pratt was seated inside the Mazda, Officer Visco shined a flashlight into the passenger seat and noticed that Pratt’s right hand was reaching into the front of his waistband area. N.T., 9/15/05, at 6-7. Believing Pratt to be armed, Officer Visco ordered him out of the car so he could conduct a safety frisk. N.T., 9/15/05, at 7. Pratt exited the vehicle, put his hands on the car, and then decided to flee. N.T., 9/15/05, at 6. As Pratt ran away, he removed a Kel-Tech nine millimeter hand gun from his waistband and discarded it onto the street. N.T., 9/15/05, at 7. The police eventually arrested Pratt, and in a non-jury trial, the trial court convicted him of carrying a firearm without a license and carrying a firearm on a public street in Philadelphia. See 18 Pa.C.S. §§ 6106, 6108 (respectively). On appeal, Pratt contends that the trial court erred in failing to suppress the handgun, because Officer Vis-co unlawfully detained him — in the absence of probable cause or reasonable suspicion — when ordering him to re-enter and remain inside the vehicle. Brief for Appellant at 11-20.
¶ 4 On a variety of occasions, our Supreme Court has held that Article I, Section 8 affords greater protection than the Fourth Amendment. See Jones v. City of Philadelphia, 890 A.2d 1188, 1194-99 (Pa.Cmwlth.2006). In Commonwealth v. Edmunds, 526 Pa. 374, 586 A.2d 887 (1991), our Supreme Court explained that:
here in Pennsylvania, we have stated with increasing frequency that it is both important and necessary that we undertake an independent analysis of the Pennsylvania Constitution each time a provision of that fundamental document is implicated. Although we may accord weight to federal decisions where they are found to be logically persuasive and well reasoned, paying due regard to precedent and the policies underlying specific constitutional guarantees, we are free to reject the conclusions of the United States Supreme Court so long as we remain faithful to the minimum guar*570antees established by the United States Constitution.
586 A.2d at 894-95. The litigants and courts of this Commonwealth are instructed to consider the following four factors when deciding whether the Pennsylvania Constitution affords greater protection than the Federal Constitution:
1) text of the Pennsylvania constitutional provision;
2) history of the provision, including Pennsylvania case-law;
3) related case-law from other states;
4) policy considerations, including unique issues of state and local concern, and applicability within modern Pennsylvania jurisprudence.
Id. at 895. After my review of the Ed-munds factors, I conclude that Article I, Section 8 can be interpreted to compel a police officer to articulate some sort of objective facts that a passenger is involved in criminal activity or poses a threat to the safety of the officer, in order to command that passenger to re-enter and remain inside a vehicle that the passenger voluntarily exited.
¶ 5 When examining the text of Article I, Section 8, our Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that the provision embodies a strong notion of privacy and has held that the section often provides greater protection than the Fourth Amendment, “since the core of its exclusionary rule is grounded in the protection of privacy while the federal exclusionary rule is grounded in deterring police misconduct.” Commonwealth v. Williams, 547 Pa. 577, 692 A.2d 1031, 1038 (1997). In Commonwealth v. Pollard, 450 Pa. 138, 299 A.2d 233 (1973), a case rendered prior to Mimms II and Wilson, our Supreme Court held that a police officer may not order a passenger out of a car in the absence of an articulated belief that criminal activity is afoot or that the passenger posed a danger to someone’s safety. See id. at 235-36. In that case, the police stopped a vehicle that ran through a red light. See id. at 234. While one officer conversed with the driver, the other officer went to the passenger’s side and ordered the passengers in the front and back seat out of the car for his “own protection” and because the vehicle had been stopped in a “high crime area.” See id. at 234-35. As the appellant was alighting from the car, he dropped a white packet that appeared to contain an illegal substance and was subsequently placed under arrest. See id. at 234. In finding the drugs inadmissible as the byproduct of an unlawful seizure, the Court highlighted the privacy rights of the passenger and emphasized the requirement necessary for an investigative detention:
The issue is whether in the case at bar ‘appropriate circumstances’ justify the officer’s actions. Nothing connects the defendant with the defective car except that he was a passenger in it. The officer did not testify that at the time he requested him to get out of the car he had any suspicion that defendant had committed any crime. His ‘curiosity’ in that regard was aroused later. In any event[,] curiosity does not equate with reasonable suspicion. The record discloses nothing to indicate that the officer, when he ordered defendant out of the car, had any reason to believe that there was any danger to anyone’s safety.
Id. at 236 n. 3. The Court, accordingly, found the seizure unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment and suppressed the abandoned drugs. See id. at 236. See also Mimms I, 370 A.2d at 1160 (relying on Pollard, our Supreme Court stated: “We are not unsympathetic to the plight of the police officer who must approach potentially dangerous people in the daily enforcement of our traffic laws. The Fourth Amendment, however, mandates that inva*571sions of the personal liberties of the occupants of motor vehicles be justified by a reasonable appraisal of the objective facts of the given situation”).
¶ 6 In the post-Mimms II and pre-Wii-son era of our jurisprudence, this Court, following in the dictates of Pollard, required a police officer to possess an articu-lable suspicion that his/her safety is in jeopardy or that criminal activity is afoot when commanding a passenger to exit a vehicle. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Baer, 439 Pa.Super. 437, 654 A.2d 1058, 1062 (1994) (“[W]e hold today that after a valid traffic stop, a police officer may order a ... passenger from a vehicle when the officer reasonably believes that criminal activity is afoot or fears for his safety.”); Commonwealth v. Robinson, 399 Pa.Super. 199, 582 A.2d 14, 16 (1990) (distinguishing Pollard factually and reiterating that “where there is a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity or of a passenger’s being armed and dangerous, a police officer may order a passenger to alight from a vehicle that has been stopped for a traffic violation”) (emphasis in original). It wasn’t until our decision in Commonwealth v. Brown, 439 Pa.Super. 516, 654 A.2d 1096 (1995), that this Court departed from previously established case law and concluded that Mimms II permits an officer to order a passenger to exit a lawfully stopped vehicle as a matter of right. See 654 A.2d at 1101. Brown’s holding, however, was confined to the Fourth Amendment and does not represent the fullest extent of the protections available under Article I, Section 8. See id. at 1099 (refusing to address the appellant’s claim under Article I, Section 8 and stating that the decision and analysis “focuses solely on the federal constitution and ... reflects only Fourth Amendment law.”).
¶ 7 My reading of our Supreme Court’s decisions in Pollard and Mimms I (to the limited extent that it echoes Pollard) and this Court’s decision in Baer and Robinson leads me to conclude that they “suggest a distinct standard” should be applied to Article I, Section 8 when analyzing an officer’s command to a passenger to exit a vehicle. See Commonwealth v. Glass, 562 Pa. 187, 754 A.2d 655, 660 (2000). The fact that these cases were either decided on Fourth Amendment principles or involved claims under both the Fourth Amendment and Article I, Section 8 is of no significance when analyzing the protections afforded under our state constitutional provision. In Commonwealth v. Matos, 543 Pa. 449, 672 A.2d 769 (1996), our Supreme Court stated:
We do not find that because these cases were decided to some degree by reliance upon the federal Fourth Amendment that they are not representative of the law of this Commonwealth pertaining to Article I, Section 8. At best, nothing can be discerned from the Court’s failure to note specifically that Pennsylvania Constitutional rights were also being considered. The federal constitution provides a minimum of rights below which the states cannot go. Where our Court ... finds that the police violated the defendant’s federal constitutional rights, there is no reason for the Court to go further and address what additional protections the Pennsylvania Constitution might also provide.
672 A.2d at 774 n. 7. Similarly, in Commonwealth v. White, 543 Pa. 45, 669 A.2d 896, 902 (1995), our Supreme Court rejected subsequent federal precedent that altered its holding in Commonwealth v. Timko, 491 Pa. 32, 417 A.2d 620 (1980). Although Timko was analyzed under the Fourth Amendment, our Supreme Court departed from federal law and observed:
It is axiomatic that [we] may provide more protection for citizens of Pennsyl*572vania under the Pennsylvania Constitution than the federal courts provide under the United States Constitution, and it is our view that the rule of Timko is as valid today as it was fifteen years ago when Timko was decided.
White, 669 A.2d at 902. But see Commonwealth v. Rodriguez, 695 A.2d 864, 870 (Pa.Super.1997) (finding the appellant’s reliance on Pollard in an Edmunds claim unpersuasive because “there was no state constitutional basis presented in that case.”).
¶ 8 Among state supreme/high courts, five have rejected the Mimms 11/Wilson rationale on state constitutional grounds and concluded that an officer cannot direct the physical movement of a driver and/or passenger without articulating some degree of objective suspicion. See State v. Sprague, 175 Vt. 123, 824 A.2d 539, 546 (2003) (concluding that under Chapter I, Article II of the Vermont Constitution, an officer cannot order a driver out of his/her vehicle without providing “an objective circumstance that would cause a reasonable officer to believe it was necessary to protect the officer’s, or another’s safety or to investigate a suspected crime.”); State v. Mendez, 137 Wash.2d 208, 970 P.2d 722, 728 (1999) (“An officer must therefore be able to articulate an objective rationale predicated specifically on safety concerns, for officers, vehicle occupants, or other citizens, for ordering a passenger to stay in the vehicle or to exit the vehicle to satisfy article I, section 7.”); Commonwealth v. Gonsalves, 429 Mass. 658, 711 N.E.2d 108, 112 (1999) (“[W]e conclude that art. 14 requires that a police officer, in a routine traffic stop, must have a reasonable belief that the officer’s safety, or the safety of others, is in danger before ordering a driver out of a motor vehicle. The fact that we do not follow Mimms [II] in this type of case necessarily leads to the conclusion that we shall not follow Wilson either, because Wilson extends Mimms [II] in a manner incompatible with the rights guaranteed Massachusetts citizens under art. 14.”); State v. Smith, 134 N.J. 599, 637 A.2d 158, 166 (1994) (concluding that under Article I, Paragraph 7 of the New Jersey Constitution, an officer must have “some quantum of individualized suspicion” before asking a passenger to step out of a vehicle, because the request, although not a major intrusion, is nevertheless an intrusion); State v. Kim, 68 Haw. 286, 711 P.2d 1291, 1294 (1985) (holding that “under article I, section 7 of the Hawaii Constitution, a police officer must have at least a reasonable basis of specific articulable facts to believe a crime has been committed to order a driver out of a car after a traffic stop.”). In general, these decisions provide broader protection under the state’s constitutional provision because they conclude that the officer’s order to exit and/or remain in a vehicle is not a minimal intrusion upon an individual or that it constitutes a separate and distinct seizure. See, e.g., Sprague, 824 A.2d at 544-45 (recognizing that an order to exit one’s vehicle is a “further seizure within the meaning of Article Eleven.”); Gonsalves, 711 N.E.2d at 112 (stating that an officer’s order to exit is “an intrusion into a driver or a passenger’s privacy [that] is not minimal.”). Accordingly, Pollard, Baer and Robinson are “consistent with the rationale of the state courts that have found broader state constitutional protections.” Matos, 672 A.2d at 775.
¶ 9 Therefore, in light of the above-mentioned state case law and the history of this Commonwealth’s case law, I believe that there is strong evidence to support a broader, privacy-based state constitutional right under Article I, Section 8 — a right that departs from the reasoning of Wilson and requires that an officer provide an objective, articulable basis to order a pas*573senger to exit from a vehicle. If such a state-created right were acknowledged in this Commonwealth, it would explicitly reject the rationale of Wilson and would naturally decline to extend that case’s doctrine to allow an officer to command a passenger to re-enter and remain inside a vehicle throughout the duration of the stop without articulating some degree of suspicion. See Mendez, 970 P.2d at 730 (“We ... hold the officers did not meet the objective rationale test under article I, section 7 ... that would allow them to order Mendez back into the vehicle.”). See also Brendlin v. California, — U.S. -, 127 S.Ct. 2400, 2408 n. 5, 168 L.Ed.2d 132 (2007) (citing Mendez and acknowledging that the Supreme Court of Washington does not consider a passenger to be seized when he/she is stopped as a result of a routine traffic violation). For this reason, I decline to join the portion of the Majority’s Opinion that concludes Pratt’s rights under Article I, Section 8 do not exceed those guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment. See Majority Opinion at 13.
¶ 10 While I conclude that the strong notion of privacy embodied in Article I, Section 8 is implicated in this case, I realize that in Rodriguez, a panel of this Court seemingly abrogated Pollard and concluded that the Pennsylvania Constitution does not provide greater protection for passengers than Wilson. See Rodriguez, 695 A.2d at 870. Particularly, the Rodriguez panel rejected as “meritless” the appellant’s reliance on Pollard because “there was no state constitutional basis presented” in the case and its conclusion “was entirely the result of an application of Fourth Amendment principles as they had been developed to that date.” Rodriguez, 695 A.2d at 870. Although I find that the Rodriguez panel disregarded the mandates of Matos, supra and White, supra, in determining that Pollard is “unpersuasive” on the ground that it involved a Fourth Amendment claim, we are nevertheless bound by that decision. Consequently, without having the authority of Pollard to support a state constitutional claim, I have no choice but to agree with the Majority that the Mimms 11/Wilson rationale can also be extended under Article I, Section 8 to allow a police officer to instruct a passenger to re-enter or remain in a vehicle following a lawful traffic stop. Majority Opinion at 567.
¶ 11 After study, it appears that our Supreme Court never overruled its decision in Pollard, and thus, that case remains “good law” in this Commonwealth. It further appears that our Supreme Court has neither adopted Wilson as a matter of state constitutional law nor determined whether Wilson frustrates the enhanced notions of privacy inherent in Article I, Section 8. Therefore, I respectfully urge our most Honorable Supreme Court to address and resolve these conflicting issues if and when they are properly presented. Accordingly, I concur in the result reached by the Majority, but write separately to express my concerns that the rule of law we announce today could possibly undermine the greater protections of privacy embodied in Article I, Section 8.