Court Opinion

ID: 9766458
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:49:25.144492+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:33.400639
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, Judge,
dissenting.
I join, in its entirety, the Dissenting Opinion of my eminent colleague, the Honorable Joseph A. Del Sole. I agree with Judge Del Sole that there is no evidence of any exigencies which would justify the absence of a warrant in this case.
With regard to the Commonwealth’s argument that James Govens lacks standing to challenge police conduct in this case, I believe that this court should not attempt to set forth, as does the Majority, the current state of the law in this area. As the Majority correctly points out, the standing of Govens was assumed at the time of the suppression hearing; the suppression court made no findings on this issue; and the Commonwealth raises this issue for the first time on appeal. The issue is clearly waived.
For a somewhat similar reason, I am concerned that the Majority, in Section V of the Majority Opinion, discusses the authority to make a warrantless arrest in a public place. I agree with the Majority that no attempt was made to arrest Govens in a public place. The Commonwealth has not advanced any argument on that basis. I do not understand, therefore, why this Court, on this appeal, should review the authority to make a warrantless arrest in a public place.
Finally, I must respectfully dissent from Section VII of the Majority Opinion, along with its conclusion that the evidence in this case was sufficient to establish the crime of tampering with physical evidence.
*497The statute, 18 Pa,C.S. § 4910, requires as an element of the crime that a person believe that an official proceeding or investigation is pending or about to be instituted. My colleagues do not inform me as to how a drug bust fits comfortably into a common sense definition of an “official proceeding or investigation.” Nor does the majority persuade this writer as to why running into a bathroom and attempting to flush drugs down a drain constitutes either (a) awareness of an official proceeding or investigation, or (b) an act of destroying or removing the drugs with the specific intent to impair their availability in such proceeding. Both of these elements are required to be proved in order to sustain the charge.
The majority states that:
[t]he trier of fact could reasonably infer that appellant had become aware that his drug dealing was under investigation when he heard the police knock at his door and announce their presence.
Majority Opinion, 429 Pa.Superior Ct. 490, 632 A.2d at 1329. This would attribute more knowledge to the defendant than was possessed by the arresting officers. The knock on the door was not for investigative purposes but limited to the presumed right of the police to arrest the person unlawfully delivering a controlled substance through the door. If the police were entering to complete, or effectuate, an arrest, how can we contend that the occupants of the apartment were aware of some broader investigation?
The Commonwealth has not, and could not, argue that the police could have entered the apartment without a warrant, arrested Govens, and then proceeded — without a warrant — to conduct an exhaustive search of the apartment as part of any investigation or official proceeding. Probable cause for such an investigation was lacking. How then could the defendant be saddled with a belief that an illegal investigation was about to be instituted?
To the extent that the Commonwealth seeks to minimize the importance of the conviction on tampering with evidence on the basis that the sentencing court imposed a sentence of “guilty without further penalty”, I must disagree. The majes*498ty of the Commonwealth should be above what appears to this writer to be nothing more than creative charging in this instance. My fear is that our somewhat casual approval of this tactic will result in placing yet another arrow in the quiver of our drug prosecution arsenal, an additional weapon which, in my judgment, would constitute ineffective overkill in addition to being beyond the clear language of the statute.
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent. I would reverse the conviction for tampering with physical evidence on the basis of insufficient evidence and order Govens discharged as to this count.