Court Opinion

ID: 9760706
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:09:40.87246+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:16.138394
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION

Justice NIGRO.
As I fully agree with Appellant that the suppression court properly determined that Trooper Banovsky did not have *152reasonable suspicion to detain Appellant or to conduct a canine search of his vehicle, I respectfully dissent.
In support of its conclusion that the police were justified in detaining Appellant beyond the traffic stop here, the majority cites to the fact that Appellant appeared nervous, the fact that Appellant provided out-of-order documents as well as a vague answer to Trooper Banovsky, and the fact that Appellant had laundry supplies in the back seat of his car. According to the majority, these factors, when viewed together, add up to support a finding that Trooper Banovsky had reasonable suspicion that Appellant was carrying drugs in his car. I not only believe that this holding is legally unsound, but find such a holding completely troubling, as it essentially stands for the proposition that an individual can legitimately be detained in this Commonwealth simply on the basis that he appears nervous and happens to be carrying laundry products in his car.
In my view, these factors are completely innocuous and could just as easily be explained by legitimate activity. In the first instance, it is more than clear that laundry supplies are not contraband and have legitimate uses. The majority, however, turns the innocent activity of carrying laundry supplies into a criminally suspicious one by pointing to Trooper Banovksy’s observation that laundry supplies can be used to mask the odor of marijuana. Unlike the majority, I simply do not believe that such an open-ended assertion, which could apply to any number of odor-masking products, lends support to a finding of reasonable suspicion here. See United States v. Villar-Chaparro, 115 F.3d 797, 802 (10th Cir.1997) (scent of a masking agent alone is insufficient to establish reasonable suspicion).1 I realize, of course, that, while the majority cites *153to the laundry products as the “most important” factor in finding the instant detention valid, see Op. at 1190, it does not rely on that factor alone. Instead, the majority places great emphasis, as the Superior Court did, on the fact that Appellant was also “extremely agitated.” I do not believe, however, that the additional fact that Appellant was nervous gives rise to a finding of reasonable suspicion, especially in light of the fact that it is not at all uncommon for a driver to be nervous when stopped by the police. See United States v. Chavez-Valenzuela, 268 F.3d 719, 726 (9th Cir.2001) (as “encounters with police officers are necessarily stressful for law-abiders and criminals alike,” even extreme nervousness during traffic stop does not support a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity); United States v. Salzano, 158 F.3d 1107 (10th Cir. 1998) (it is common for most people to exhibit signs of nervousness when confronted by police whether or not the person has engaged in criminal activity). Indeed, Appellant’s nervousness here could just have easily been explained by the fact that he had just been stopped by the police for speeding. Thus, I simply cannot agree with the majority’s conclusion that a nervous driver, who happens to be carrying laundry products and out-of-order paperwork, is properly subject to an investigative detention.
The majority recognizes that the factors it cites to do not clearly indicate criminal conduct but tries to deflate that fact’s significance with its statement that even a combination of innocent factors, when taken together, may justify an investigative detention. While that may be true in limited circumstances, I simply cannot agree that the innocuous factors here, even when viewed as a whole, support a finding of reasonable suspicion any more than they would if looked at separately. Rather, in the end, Trooper Banovsky at best had a mere hunch that Appellant was carrying drugs in his car, which of course, is insufficient to establish reasonable suspicion under the jurisprudence of this Commonwealth. See Commonwealth *154v. Lopez, 415 Pa.Super. 252, 609 A.2d 177 (1992) (police officer’s intuition does not constitute reasonable grounds to suspect criminal activity); Commonwealth v. Phinn, 761 A.2d 176 (Pa.Super.2000) (trooper did not have reasonable suspicion of criminal activity when trooper observed plastic air freshener on dashboard of car during traffic stop and saw driver make furtive movements).
As I do not believe that Trooper Banovsky had reasonable suspicion to detain Appellant beyond the traffic stop, I obviously also do not believe that the trooper had a sufficient basis to conduct a dog sniff of Appellant’s car. I dissent.

. While the presence of masking agents may be a factor to consider in making a determination of whether reasonable suspicion exists, such agents must be analyzed in context, considering the nature of the items, its potential uses, and whether, in light of its nature and use, the location where it is found is unusual. See People v. Cervantes-Arredondo, 17 P.3d 141 (Colo.2001). For example, in Villa-Chaparro, detergent crystals were scattered around the interior of a pickup truck. 115 F.3d at 802. While there may be an innocent reason for having detergent *153scattered around a vehicle, it is certainly more suspicious than driving a vehicle with a box of laundry detergent in the backseat, as anyone going to the laundromat must do, and as was the case here.