Court Opinion

ID: 9758970
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 23:57:40.294399+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:00:19.757348
License: Public Domain

*148POPOVICH, Judge,
dissenting:
I must dissent. Today, the majority holds that a fire authorizes warrantless searches and seizures for all times thereafter. See Commonwealth v. Smith, 511 Pa. 36, 48, 511 A.2d 796, 802 (1986) (“We do not hold that a fire authorizes a search for all times thereafter.”)
The majority justifies the seizure of the appellee’s clothes on the basis that these clothes had been seized pursuant to a lawful search incident to a valid arrest. However, the majority overlooks one important factor.
On the state of this record, at the time that appellee was arrested in the alley the police did not know that the fire was incendiary in origin. That is, the police lacked probable cause at the time of appellee’s arrest to believe that a crime had occurred.
The majority states that “[bjecause Cope was found lying semiconscious and singed, his clothes wet with gasoline, in the locked passageway behind his burning residence, police had probable cause, as trained law enforcement officers, to believe that Cope had been involved criminally in the conflagration.” Opinion at 145-146. (Emphasis added).
Apparently, the majority is of that view that the smell of gasoline on the body of an individual lying on the ground near his or her home with singed hair are the indicia of a unique type of fire, an arson. However, what is missing from the majority’s analysis are the facts and circumstances which would warrant a person of reasonable caution, more than a bare suspicion, to believe that criminal activity was afoot. For example, how did the police exclude the possibility that this individual had not been engaged in such innocent activities as cleaning his paintbrushes, changing the sparkplugs in his car, refilling his kerosene heater, or refinishing an antique piece of furniture?
Although at the time of appellee’s arrest there was no information of criminal activity which was provided by a fire marshall, an eyewitness, an informant, or other reliable source, the majority supplies this missing information by *149concluding that the “police had probable cause, as trained law enforcement officers to believe that a crime has occurred.” Id. (Emphasis added).
In this writer’s view, while an officer may be able to identify an illegal substance by smell or by observation, in this case there is no record evidence of the presence of illegal substances. Neither gasoline nor singed hair are illegal substances. Thus, the training and prior experience of the police officers in this case could not qualify them to conclude that an illegality has occurred.
The test to be employed in these cases is not one of hind-sight; rather, we must examine the conduct of the police by focusing on the facts and information which were available to the police at the moment that the arrest was made. In this writer’s view, the record is lacking and supports a conclusion only that the police had sufficient information to investigate their suspicions further.
As a final note, the majority concludes that appellee was not prejudiced by counsel’s failure to move to suppress the appellee’s clothing from the hospital because of the following:
Counsel’s failure simply cannot be said to have affected the outcome of the case. The clothes worn by Cope were wet with gasoline when he was found by police behind the burning building. This evidence, as we have observed, was not subject to suppression. Indeed, appellee has not contended otherwise. The subsequent seizure and testing of his clothing, although serving to confirm the observations of the police, did not provide new information. The trier of the facts already knew that his clothing had been wet with gasoline. The suppression of appellee’s clothing and the results of the tests performed thereon, even if warranted, would not have prevented the fact finder from learning that appellee’s clothing had been wet with gasoline.
To begin with, the appellee’s clothing was taken immediately to a laboratory for examination. As a result, the chemist’s report was produced and was introduced at trial. *150This chemist’s report established that heavy petroleum distillates were extracted from appellee’s clothes. The testimony of the assistant fire marshall also indicated that the 'origin area of the fire contained heavy range distillates.
The evidence also indicated that gasoline was not a heavy range distillage. Thus, the chemist’s report was independently significant in that this evidence established that not gasoline but a “heavy range distillate” was extracted from appellee’s clothing.
Moreover, no eyewitness had seen appellee inside of the house or setting the fire. Under these circumstances, because the chemist’s report had independent significance during the trial which was not cumulative, counsel’s inaction prejudiced the appellee. Commonwealth v. Clem-mons, 505 Pa. 356, 479 A.2d 955 (1984).
Hence, I must dissent from the majority’s attempt to “wink” at the illegal police action and to counsel’s ineffectiveness for failing to raise the issue of the illegal arrest.