Court Opinion

ID: 9705018
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:54:53.251088+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:07.032030
License: Public Domain

CASTILLE, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority holds that even though the police in this matter had probable cause to believe that illegal drugs were located in appellant’s car, and even though they saw a marijuana cigarette sitting on the console of appellant’s automobile at the time they stopped his vehicle and lawfully removed him from the car pursuant to a valid warrant for appellant’s person, and even though police found an eighth of an ounce of cocaine on appellant’s person when they removed him from the car and lawfully searched him, the cocaine found in his vehicle nevertheless must be suppressed because police could have obtained a warrant for the automobile before entering *69and searching it. Because I believe this holding leads to an absurd result, I must respectfully dissent.
Both the United States Supreme Court and this Court have recognized that the remedy of suppression of evidence seized is not a constitutional requirement. United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 906, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 3411-12, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984). As remarked by Mr. Justice Larsen in Commonwealth v. Corley, 507 Pa. 540, 552, 491 A.2d 829, 835 (1985) (Larsen J., concurring): “Both the United States Supreme Court and this Court have made it clear that the exclusionary rule will not be extended to areas where its application would not tend to achieve its primary purpose of deterring unlawful misconduct.” This Court has stated that:
A rule of exclusion is properly employed where the objection goes to the reliability of the challenged evidence ... or reflects intolerable government conduct which is widespread and cannot otherwise be controlled.
Commonwealth v. Musi, 486 Pa. 102, 115, 404 A.2d 378, 384 (1979) (citations omitted). In the present case, there was no police misconduct that would warrant suppression.
It is not disputed that police inadvertently failed to secure a warrant for appellant’s vehicle at the time they secured the warrant for his person. While police are normally required to obtain warrants for searches where time allows them to do so, I believe that under these circumstances the suppression of the illegal contraband unnecessarily penalized inadvertent conduct by the police and does nothing to deter a perceived misconduct by the police. In short, it prioritizes form over substances and raises technicality to a high art.
Here, upon removing appellant from the vehicle, police saw drugs in the car and found drugs on appellant’s person. These observations and discoveries of illegal contraband provided independent probable cause for the officers to suspect that additional contraband was in the car and which would allow police to lawfully search appellant’s car. See Common*70wealth v. Rosenfelt, 443 Pa.Super. 616, 627-28, 662 A.2d 1131, 1136 (1995) (probable cause to search entire interior and trunk of vehicle where parole officer stopped parolee for parole violation and observed drug paraphernalia in plain view); Commonwealth v. Evans, 443 Pa.Super. 351, 367, 661 A.2d 881, 889 (1995) (probable cause to search where officer observed brick of marijuana in plain view during valid traffic stop); Commonwealth v. Grimes, 436 Pa.Super. 535, 543, 648 A.2d 538, 542 (1994), alloc, denied, 543 Pa. 702, 670 A.2d 642 (1995) (probable cause to search where police officer observed drugs and drug paraphernalia in plain view during valid DUI stop); Commonwealth v. Hoffman, 403 Pa.Super. 530, 544, 589 A.2d 737, 744 (1991), alloc. denied, 530 Pa. 652, 608 A.2d 28 (1992) (where police officers executing search warrant for residence observed drug paraphernalia in plain view in automobile, probable cause existed to search the car and evidence seized was admissible at trial). Accordingly, I believe that the eight ounces of cocaine found in the car should be allowed in a trial against appellant on drug and drug-related charges. See Commonwealth v. Ionata, 518 Pa. 472, 544 A.2d 917 (1988) (McDermott, J., opinion in support of reversal) (where police inadvertently failed to obtain warrant for automobile but did obtain warrants for appellant’s person and home, and police in their zeal searched automobile for which they had probable cause to search prior to search of car, glassine packets, scale, fifteen hypodermic syringes and bags of methamphetamine should be admissible); Commonwealth v. Milyak, 508 Pa. 2, 493 A.2d 1346 (1985) (even though police had over two hours before search to obtain a warrant, warrantless search of a car was permitted where independent probable cause existed to believe that vehicle had been used in furtherance of a felony, or that evidence of a crime was concealed within.)
I further believe that the automobile exception to the warrant requirements of this Commonwealth should be a per se rule regardless of how much time police may have to obtain a warrant. This Court has previously adopted bright line rules where “experience proved it to be difficult for law enforcement *71officials to administer” more flexible rules based on the totality of the circumstances. Commonwealth v. Johnson, 516 Pa. 407, 415, 532 A.2d 796, 800 (1987), citing Commonwealth v. Jenkins, 500 Pa. 144, 149-50, 454 A.2d 1004, 1006-07 (1982) (both setting forth bright line rules concerning station house confessions). The United States Supreme Court, in adopting a bright line rule permitting searches incident to arrest, reasoned that a “police officer’s determination as to how and where to search the person of a suspect whom he has arrested is necessarily a quick ad hoc judgment which the Fourth Amendment does not require to be broken down in each instance into an analysis of each step of the search.” United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 235, 94 S.Ct. 467, 477, 38 L.Ed.2d 427 (1973).
This rationale is equally applicable to the present situation. To require a police officer who has independent probable cause to search a vehicle to first consider whether there was sufficient probable cause based on other factors upon which he could have obtained a warrant prior to stopping the car creates uncertainty and confusion for both the police and the citizen who may be subject to the search. In order to deter what some may consider police misconduct and to afford citizens a clear understanding of what the law is, I would urge the adoption of a bright line rule that would allow warrantless searches of all automobiles for which police have independent probable cause to believe: “that a felony has been committed by the occupants of the vehicle, or that it has been used in the furtherance of the commission of a felony, or the officer must have a basis for believing that evidence of a crime is concealed within the vehicle, or that there are weapons therein which are accessible to the occupants.” Commonwealth v. Lewis, 442 Pa. 98, at 101, 275 A.2d 51, at 52 (1971). Such a bright line rule would prevent police from having to make a Solomon’s choice of whether to either try to obtain a warrant and risk flight of the automobile and its occupants, or to not obtain a warrant and risk suppression of the contraband in the automobile.
*72I must further note that the majority’s statement declining to adopt the bright line rule of New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981), is unnecessary dicta and as such would not be binding authority. The issue in the present case is whether suppression is required where police failed to obtain a warrant even though they had sufficient probable cause to do so before the search, and not the permissible scope of a search once a car is stopped, which is the issue presented in Belton. Indeed, neither party even cited Belton or addressed the Belton issue in their briefs or in oral argument. Because the issue of whether this Commonwealth should adopt Belton was therefore not before this Court, any ruling on that issue is merely dicta. Tulewicz v. SEPTA 529 Pa. 588, 594, 606 A.2d 427, 429 (1992) (Court’s comments on issue not raised or argued by either party before the Court are dicta). As Mr. Justice Flaherty so aptly stated in Commonwealth v. Blouse, while dicta may be instructive in predicting what direction this Court is likely to take on a given issue, it “is not what is meant by precedential authority in our system of jurisprudence.” 531 Pa. 167, 176, 611 A.2d 1177, 1182 (1992) (Justice Flaherty, dissenting). Therefore, the majority’s assertion that Belton does not apply in this Commonwealth does not have the authority of stare decisis.
Furthermore, I agree with Mr. Justice Montemuro that in providing Pennsylvania citizens broader protections under the Pennsylvania Constitution than are provided under analogous provisions of the federal constitution, as the majority purports to do, the four-prong test set forth by this Court in Commonwealth v. Edmunds should be applied. 526 Pa. 374, 390, 586 A.2d 887, 895 (1991) (setting forth “certain factors to be briefed and analyzed by litigants in each case hereafter implicating a provision of the Pennsylvania Constitution”); cf. Commonwealth v. Swinehart, Appeal of DeBlase, 541 Pa. 500, 509 n. 6, 664 A.2d 957, 961 n. 6 (1995) (this Court stated that Edmunds analysis is merely “helpful” and therefore litigants’ failure to brief four-prong test was not fatal; the Court nonetheless applied the Edmunds analysis in determining *73whether to provide broader coverage under Pennsylvania Constitution than is provided under federal constitution).