Court Opinion

ID: 9751371
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 16:22:37.220311+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:43.640492
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
Hoffman, J.:
While I agree with the Majority that the lower court erred in granting appellee’s pre-trial suppression motion, I reach this conclusion based on the belief that there was probable cause to arrest and that the search of ap-pellee’s person was a search incident to a valid arrest.
*110It is well-established that a police officer is authorized to arrest without a warrant when he has probable cause to believe that a felony has been committed and that the person to be arrested is the felon. Commonwealth v. Jackson, 450 Pa. 113, 299 A.2d 213 (1973) ; Commonwealth v. Bosurgi, 411 Pa. 56, 190 A.2d 304 (1963). Probable cause exists when an officer is possessed of facts from a trustworthy source which would warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that an offense has been committed or is being committed and that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing the offense. Commonwealth v. Jackson, supra; Commonwealth v. Bosurgi, supra. It is clear that a warrantless search of the person incident to a lawful arrest does not offend the Fourth Amendment. Commonwealth ex rel. Ensor v. Cummings, 416 Pa. 510, 207 A. 2d 230 (1965).
Officer Ralph McDaniel was given information by an informant whose reliability was clearly established by past dealings leading to the arrest and conviction of other drug offenders. The prerequisite reliability of the information rested on personal observation by the informant of criminal activity. The informant supplied McDaniel with a, complete, detailed description of the appellee. McDaniel called for assistance and proceeded to the bar where the informant had said appellee could be found. McDaniel entered the bar with the other officers, identified himself, and immediately proceeded to search the appellee. Thus, the seizure and search of appellee’s person were inextricably bound together. The seizure of the person in order to effect the search and the detention of the person, i.e. the arrest, are one and the same.
There are other types of cases presenting different factual situations in which it will be important to separate analytically the arrest and the search. For example, when the search yields evidence which supplies the elements of probable cause necessary to support the arrest, it may be essential to fix with some precision the moment *111when the arrest is effected. See Commonwealth v. Dorsey, 212 Pa. Superior Ct. 339, 243 A. 2d 176 (1968) ; Commonwealth v. Kloch, 230 Pa. Superior Ct. 563, 327 A.2d 375 (1974). In the instant case, however, in view of the fact that probable cause to arrest was already present, such an analytic distinction is unnecessary.
“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 Majority refers to the destructible or transient nature of the evidence to justify a search, not as a search incident to arrest, but as a search based on “exigent circumstances.” I see no reason to employ the notion of “exigent circumstances” to justify a warrantless search, when the more limited concept of search incident to an arrest will suffice. “Exigent circumstances” is a term with dangerous elastic properties. It is the rationale which underpins certain other circumscribed search warrant exceptions recognized by our courts. The concept as it is employed by the Majority would give law enforcement agencies too great a license to dispense with the constitutional protections of a warrant in a whole host of factual situations not contemplated by the facts of this case.
Jacobs, J., joins in this concurring opinion.