Court Opinion

ID: 9652361
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:22:49.89181+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:50.578979
License: Public Domain

*489MANDERINO, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. The Court today holds that police officers may, on no more than the faintest suspicion, openly confront citizens in order to investigate possible criminal conduct, and absent some overt show of authority, such as a brandished weapon or a command to freeze, the Fourth Amendment is not relevant in assessing the legality of the police activity. Today’s decision not only runs afoul of the United States Supreme Court’s major pronouncements on investigatory stops, but seriously debilitates Fourth Amendment rights heretofore selfishly guarded by this Court.
In Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), the Supreme Court held that on-the-street frisks for weapons by the police must meet Fourth Amendment standards, but that the officer need not have probable cause to arrest before undertaking this carefully circumscribed intrusion into a citizen’s privacy. See Commonwealth v. Pinney, 474 Pa. 210, -, 378 A.2d 293, 296 (1977), and cases cited therein. Terry, however, avoided the question of the constitutionality of the initial stop, assuming that so long as the individual did not resist detention, or the police officer was not forced to exert his authority in any way, the initial stop was not a seizure within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. 392 U.S. at 19, n. 16, 88 S.Ct. 1879, n. 16, 20 L.Ed.2d at 905, n. 16; id. at 32-33, 88 S.Ct. at 1885, 20 L.Ed.2d at 912-13 (Harlan, J., concurring). See The Supreme Court, 1971 Term, 86 Harv.L.Rev. 171-77 (1972).
In Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972), the Supreme Court recognized that any on-the-street investigatory stop by the police is a forcible stop; i. e., a “seizure,” subject to Fourth Amendment limitations. Adams held that police may stop a suspicious individual when the officer reasonably believes that the individual may be engaged in criminal activity and when the exigencies of the situation such as the need to momentarily freeze the situation or ascertain the suspect’s identity, justify the stop.
*490Under Adams, it was illegal for these police officers to forcibly stop appellant. Appellant was merely walking down the street — completely innocent behavior — and could harbor a perfectly legitimate expectation to be let alone. If the Fourth Amendment means anything, it is that our society puts a premium on the sanctity of individual freedom and security in the face of unwarranted government encroachments.
The majority concludes that there was no forcible stop here by straining reality, and by rejecting the trial court’s determination that these officers, in effect, “surrounded” appellant immediately preceding his dropping of the contraband.
These officers made a “U-turn” a mere twenty-five feet beyond where appellant was standing, and immediately double parked their car, “with the intention to confront” appellant and his companions. Even assuming that at this point appellant did not know or suspect that these men were law enforcement officers, the fact that three men pull up in and exit a car “with the intent to confront” three other individuals, and do so in the manner in which the police officers here confronted appellant, would cause a reasonable person in appellant’s position to believe that he should not walk away, but should submit to any forthcoming questions these persons might have. I have no doubt that an innocent citizen would feel that his freedom to walk away was being restrained if these men approached as they did here within ten feet of the individual.
I therefore think it wholly unrealistic to conclude, as does the majority, that these officers were not effectuating a forcible stop of appellant. The officers were doing precisely that, and since they had absolutely no grounds for accosting this individual, the stop was illegal. In this Commonwealth, the primary responsibility and duty of giving force and effect to constitutional liberties lies with this Court. I think we abdicate that responsibility when we allow citizens to be *491stopped and searched at the whim of police officers who have only a slight suspicion of improper conduct.