Court Opinion

ID: 9758858
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 23:52:40.982749+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:56.861716
License: Public Domain

*328Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Pomeroy:
I agree wholeheartedly with the majority that Officer Rhodes did not have probable cause to make an arrest when he set out in pursuit of defendant Jeffries. Nor do I understand the Commonwealth to argue otherwise. The question here is whether, granted the absence of probable cause, there were nonetheless sufficient facts to justify an investigatory stop under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889 (1968) and Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 92 S. Ct. 1921, 32 L. Ed. 2d 612 (1972). In light of these decisions, I am not persuaded that the officer’s conduct violated the constraints of the Fourth Amendment.
In Terry, the United States Supreme Court recognized that “a police officer may in appropriate circumstances and in an appropriate manner approach a person for purposes of investigating possibly criminal behavior even though there is no probable cause to make an arrest.” 392 U.S. at 22, 20 L. Ed. 2d at 906. Expanding on this theme, the Supreme Court remarked in Adams that “the Fourth Amendment does not require a policeman who lacks the precise level of information necessary for probable cause to arrest to simply shrug Ms shoulders and allow a crime to occur or a criminal to escape. On the contrary, Terry recognizes that it may be the essence of good police work to adopt an intermediate response. ... A brief stop of a suspicious individual, in order to determine his identity or to maintain the status quo momentarily while obtaining more information, may be most reasonable in light of the facts known to the officer at the time.” 407 U.S. at 145, 146, 32 L. Ed. 2d at 616, 617.1
*329In the case at bar, the initial encounter between Officer Rhodes and Jeffries took place in broad daylight on a well-traveled thoroughfare. The parties were well acquainted with each other. Jeffries testified that he had known Rhodes “all his life”, and was “more than aware” of Rhodes’ occupation as a narcotics officer.2 He did not begin to flee until he had recognized Rhodes. Even if the flight did not by itself constitute probable cause for an arrest, it certainly gave Officer Rhodes reasonable grounds for suspecting that some criminal activity was afoot. I believe that the facts shown constituted an “appropriate circumstance” for further police investigation, and that an “appropriate manner” of approaching a fleeing suspect is to give chase. The conduct which induced Jeffries to discard the cigarette pack was not unconstitutional; it was good police work.

 Both Terry and Adams involved “frisks” of defendants on less than probable canse, during the course of which weapons were seized by the police. These intrusions on individual rights were far greater than anything which occurred in the instant case up until the moment when the cigarette pack was examined and Jeffries was *329formally arrested. The extent of the Intrusion is a critical factor in testing the reasonableness of police conduct under Terry, “for there is ‘no ready test for determining reasonableness other than by balancing the need to search [or seize] against the invasion which the search [or seizure] entails.’ Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 534-535, 536-537, 18 L. Ed. 2d 930, 938-940, 87 S. Ct. 1727 (1967).” 302 U.S. at 21, 20 L. Ed. 2d at 905.

 Notes of Testimony, 30a. Rhodes had visited Jeffries’ home two weeks earlier and had told Jeffries that he knew some of his friends were involved in drugs.