Court Opinion

ID: 9760625
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:05:52.472783+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:15.170114
License: Public Domain

Justice EAKIN,
concurring.
Although I do not disagree with the majority’s result in this case, I disagree with its adoption of the Superior Court’s analysis of the “hot pursuit”/“fresh pursuit” provisions of the Municipal Police Jurisdiction Act (MPJA), 42 Pa.C.S. § 8953(a)(2), pursuant to these facts.
*276The officer here responded to a report of a vehicle hitting a telephone pole — the Superior Court held this response constituted an immediate onset of pursuit, see Commonwealth v. Peters, 915 A.2d 1213, 1219 (Pa.Super.2007); the majority-agreed. Majority Op., at 271-74, 965 A.2d at 224-25. Such a notion could only be possible if “pursuit” means pursuing the investigation, not the culprit. According to the Superior Court’s holding, the commencement of any investigation would become a pursuit, as its object is the eventual capture of the perpetrator — this is not what is contemplated by the concept of hot or fresh pursuit, statutory or otherwise. The court further stated the officer “chased” appellant “from one scene to the next.” See Peters, at 1219-20. Clearly, there was no chasing done here — chasing connotes persons in motion, one after the other, whether in sight of one another or not. Police searched for appellant, but did not chase him anywhere. Here, appellant called the police, and other officers already arrived. The arresting officer simply drove to appellant’s home; he did not “chase” appellant anywhere. It is also questionable whether the officer pursued appellant “continuously” and “without interruption”; since the theory is the “chase” started with the radio call, it must be that the half-hour on-scene investigation was not an interruption of the “chase.”
The police did nothing wrong here, but there was no hot, uninterrupted pursuit that began the moment of the report of an accident. Therefore, while I would find the facts support the propriety of the arrest and affirm the conviction, I would not do so on the basis of the Superior Court’s reasoning.