Court Opinion

ID: 9784904
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 20:57:22.325002+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:00.945189
License: Public Domain

Justice EAKIN,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s conclusion that the officer illegally stopped appellee’s car. It is true that he did not testify to specifics that allow us to review whether the obstruction was “material.” This lynchpin of the Superior Court’s theory, adopted by my colleagues, is true — it is also irrelevant.
The majority bases its result on the officer’s failure to identify the object hanging from appellee’s rearview mirror, and to describe it such that an appellate court may evaluate whether the object not only impaired the driver’s vision but did so materially. If this case had anything to do with whether the evidence allowed a conviction for violating 75 Pa.C.S. § 4524(c), I would join my colleagues. We, however, are reviewing the Superior Court’s reversal of a suppression order, and that review has nothing to do with proof that a Vehicle Code violation happened.
*20The issue is whether what the officer saw gave him reason to suspect there was such a violation. What the officer finds after the stop does not matter — it is whether he reasonably believes a criminal violation may be afoot that counts. The very reason the record does not concern itself with “materiality” is because appellee’s potential violation of § 4524(c) was never an issue. There was no evidence of this element because he was not being prosecuted for such a violation.1
The officer testified he observed an object hanging from appellee’s rearview mirror so as to obstruct the driver’s vision. Whether it did so “materially” — indeed, whether it actually blocked the driver’s vision at all — is neither here nor there. The purpose of the stop was, in classic Terry language, to investigate further. The officer need not have proof, or even probable cause at this point. Seeing an object hanging there, believing it obstructed vision as the suppression court found, would any reasonable officer suspect there may be a violation? If an officer sees what he reasonably believes to be blocked visibility, an uncontrived safety concern, it can hardly be illegal, as my colleagues find, to investigate whether vision is blocked to the point of comprising a violation. It is the right to stop and investigate, not the results of the investigation, that is at issue.
“In order to demonstrate reasonable suspicion, the police officer must be able to point to specific and articulable facts and reasonable inferences drawn from those facts in light of the officer’s experience.” Commonwealth v. Cook, 558 Pa. 50, 735 A.2d 673, 677 (1999) (citing Commonwealth v. Jackson, 548 Pa. 484, 698 A.2d 571, 573 (1997)). In this case, Assistant Chief Trotta testified he saw objects hanging from the rear-view mirror which obstructed the driver’s view. N.T. Suppression Hearing, 9/4/07, at 4. The sole issue is reasonable suspicion that visibility was materially blocked, and the fact found by the trial court as true was that the officer believed *21visibility was blocked. If this is true, is there not reasonable suspicion that it was materially blocked?
Again, it is not what the officer finds after the stop that determines the issue. If the officer stopped the car in the belief there were drugs in the trunk, when evaluating the stop, it matters not one bit whether drugs are ultimately found in the trunk or not. Likewise, when evaluating this stop, it matters not whether the driver’s vision was materially impaired or not — if there had been nothing hanging from the mirror when the officer arrived, the stop is still valid if supported by reasonable suspicion, not proof, that vision was blocked. Something was blocking- the driver’s vision here, making clear the existence of reasonable suspicion there may be a violation of § 4524(c).
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
Justice McCAFFERY joins this opinion.

. As events after the stop led to more significant violations, it is no wonder the traffic offense fell by the wayside. That it was not prosecuted is of no moment, but it does show us why the record did not dwell on the elements of § 4524(c).