Court Opinion

ID: 9715077
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:53:48.794452+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:30.997398
License: Public Domain

BROSKY, J.
¶ 1 There are two questions presented by Appellant, Kevin Williams, in this appeal: 1) whether the search of his vehicle by School District Police Officers was authorized by section 7-778 of the Public School Code, 24 P.S. § 7-778; and 2) whether the search of his vehicle was an unreasonable violation of Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, such that the trial court erred in refusing to suppress the physical evidence seized from the vehicle? Because we conclude that the search of the vehicle and seizure of the weapons from therein was unauthorized by section 7-778 of the Public School Code, we rule that the trial court erred in refusing to suppress the physical evidence seized from the automobile. Accordingly, we vacate judgment of sentence and remand to the trial court for a new trial.
¶ 2 The facts pertinent to our review are that Robert Fadzen, who is the Chief of the School Police for the City of Pittsburgh School District, was called to the general area of Brashear High School, a City of Pittsburgh School, on September 18, 1997 to investigate possible truant activity. On a City of Pittsburgh street adjacent to school property, but off school property, Chief Fadzen found two truant students and directed those students to proceed directly to school. While investigating the truant students, Chief Fadzen had an encounter with a car whose three occupants stopped and looked at him, made a U-turn, gave him the proverbial finger, and left the area. Chief Fadzen located the car parked on a City of Pittsburgh street a block or two away from where the incident occurred, off school property. After locating the parked car, Chief Fadzen confronted the vehicle’s three occupants, who indicated to him that they were late for school because they had missed the bus. He instructed them to proceed directly to school, which they did. Chief Fadzen also notified school personnel and asked that the students be held until the matter could be resolved.
*959¶ 3 This was not the end of the encounter, however. Chief Fadzen returned to the parked vehicle and peered into it. Inside, the chief saw on the back floor, in plain view, a sawed-off shotgun that was partially wrapped in clothing, and a shotgun shell. City of Pittsburgh Police were called to the scene to investigate. However, without waiting for City Police to arrive, other Pittsburgh School Police who had already arrived at the scene joined Chief Fadzen in opening the car. With the driver’s-side door open, the School Police Officers could observe a barrel of a revolver protruding from under the driver’s seat, so they looked under the seat, where they recovered two more revolvers. In total, the School Police Officers recovered from the parked car three loaded revolvers in addition to the loaded sawed-off shotgun, all without a warrant and without awaiting the arrival of City of Pittsburgh Police. The School Police turned the weapons over to City Police, who arrived approximately five minutes later.
¶4 After Appellant was charged with various weapons offenses, the trial court denied his motion to suppress the physical evidence. The trial judge found that Chief Fadzen’s actions, although they occurred outside the school premises, were within the purview of his duties as a School Police Officer and that his observation of the sawed-off shot gun, clearly contraband, was valid under the plain view doctrine. Further, the trial judge found the removal of the guns from the vehicle by School Police Officers was proper. Citing Commonwealth v. Cass, 551 Pa. 25, 709 A.2d 350 (1998), and Commonwealth v. J.B., 719 A.2d 1058 (Pa.Super.1998), the trial court stated that there is a two-step analysis for whether the School Police Officers acted properly in conducting a search. First, Chief Fadzen would have to be justified in conducting the search at its inception, and second, the search conducted by the chief must have been reasonably related in scope to Appellant’s conduct. The trial court concluded that the chiefs search was justified because his plain view observation of the sawed-off shotgun in the back seat of the car from which the three truant students had just emerged gave him reasonable suspicion and actual physical evidence that the students were violating the law. The trial court also reasoned that the search was reasonably related in scope to Appellant’s conduct.
¶ 5 The trial judge stated the following: This Court, like the Superior Court, will not tolerate “the presence of drugs, alcohol or weapons on school property.” This Court is committed, like the Superior Coui-t, to providing all students with a safe learning environment and believes that school officials can and should use reasonable efforts to maintain discipline, order and safety. In the instant case, Officer Fadzen was properly working towards this goal when he removed the guns from the [Appellant’s] car so that they could not be used by the students inside or outside of the school.
Trial Court Opinion, 1/7/99, at 7 (emphasis added).
¶ 6 After a non-jury trial, Appellant was convicted1 of the weapons offenses and sentenced to serve two consecutive prison terms of nine to eighteen months for possession of a firearm by a minor and criminal conspiracy.2 This appeal followed.
¶ 7 Our standard for reviewing the trial court’s ruling on the suppression ruling is as follows:
[W]e must ascertain whether its factual findings are supported by the record and whether the inferences and legal conclusions drawn from those facts are reasonable. Where the defendant chal*960lenges an adverse ruling of the suppression court, we will consider only the evidence for the prosecution and whatever evidence for the defense that remains uncontradicted on the context of the whole record. If there is support on the record, we are bound by the facts as found by the suppression court, and we may reverse that court only if the legal conclusions drawn from these facts are in error.
Commonwealth v. Petroll, 558 Pa. 565, 738 A.2d 993, 998 (1999).
¶ 8 We find the decisions in Cass and J.B. inapposite to the instant scenario because the searches involved in those cases took place on school property. The search involved in Cass was a school-wide search of student lockers for the presence of drugs and/or drug paraphernalia by an Erie Police Officer with a dog. A plurality of our Supreme Court in Cass concluded that the privacy interest of students within the school environment is limited, entitled to no greater protection under Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution than that afforded students under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
¶ 9 Subsequent to the decision in Cass, a panel of this Court in J.B. upheld a School Police Officer’s search of a school student that had occurred in the school building and which was based upon observations of the School Police Officer of the student made in the building. The panel in J.B. held that the School Police Officer’s search did not violate the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, and that the individual search of the student was subject to a reasonable suspicion standard under the Pennsylvania Constitution. Thus, we find that the learned trial judge erred in applying the decisions in Cass and J.B. to this matter.
¶ 10 Further, we find that the trial judge erred in concluding that Chief Fadzen’s actions were within the purview of his duties as a School Police Officer under section 7-778 of the Public School Code, 24 P.S. § 7-778, although they occurred outside the school premises. Chief Fadzen and his fellow School Police Officers were authorized to act under the authority of section 7-778, which provides school districts with the authority to apply for the appointment of School Police Officers by the common pleas court. 24 P.S. § 7-778(a). The common pleas court judge may grant the School Police Officer, so appointed, the power to arrest as provided in section 7-778(c)(2), the authority to issue citations for summary offenses or the authority to detain students until the arrival of local law enforcement, or a combination thereof. 24 P.S. § 7-778(a). In conjunction with the officer’s arrest power, section 7-778(c)(2) provides that, if authorized by the court, the School Police Officer may exercise the same powers that are presently or may thereafter be exercised under authority of law or ordinance by municipal police where the school property is located. There is no evidence in this case that Chief Fadzen or any of his fellows acted pursuant to powers granted under section 7-778(c)(2).
¶ 11 Also, under section 7-778(e)(3), a School Police Officer, if authorized by the court, may issue summary citations or detain individuals until local law enforcement is notified. There is no evidence in this matter that Chief Fadzen or any of his fellows acted pursuant to powers granted under section 7-778(c)(3).
¶ 12 Finally, under section 7-778(c)(1), School Police Officers are empowered: “(1) To enforce good order in school buildings, on school buses and on school grounds in their respective school districts.” This is the section that the Commonwealth urges provided the officers with authority to search the vehicle and seize the weapons from therein. As an intermediate appellate court, we must follow the rule of statutory construction that, when the words of a statute are clear and free from doubt, the letter of it is not to be *961disregarded under the pretext of pursuing its spirit. Commonwealth v. Heberling, 451 Pa.Super. 119, 678 A.2d 794, 795 (1996); 1 Pa.C.S.A. § 1921(b). The statute clearly delineates the places at which the School Police Officers may act: in school buildings, on school buses, and on school grounds. Chief Fadzen and his fellow School Police Officers were not in a school building, on a school bus, or on school grounds when they conducted the search and seizure here. Thus, we find that the trial judge erred in concluding that the officers acted within the purview of their statutory authority.
¶ 13 The Dissent would find that, once the officers saw a gun in plain view, section 7-778 provided authority for Chief Fadzen and his fellow School Police Officers to open the vehicle in question, conduct a further search, and seize the guns from the vehicle without awaiting local law enforcement officers. The Dissent urges that the legislative intent behind section 7-778 of the Public School Code is to keep order on the grounds of the school. So, the Dissent postulates, School Police Officers are inherently authorized to act outside the boundaries of the school to do anything that has an arguable nexus to enforcing good order on school grounds. We disagree for several reasons.
¶ 14 We find the reasoning in previously decided cases involving the powers of special police is applicable here. This Court has held that special police officers, such as university campus police and housing authority police, have circumscribed statutory authority to act and seize evidence only in those areas that are specifically delineated in their authorizing statutes. We have held that university campus police officers are limited in authority by the language of section 2416(h) of the Administrative Code, 71 P.S. § 646, to areas “only on the premises of the State ... related colleges and universities.” See Commonwealth v. Croushore, 703 A.2d 546 (Pa.Super.1997) (reversing judgment of sentence on the holding that a university police officer lacked authority to stop a motorist for running a red light on a street abutting the university campus). See also Commonwealth v. Savage, 403 Pa.Super. 446, 589 A.2d 696, 698 (1991) (holding that a campus police officer lacked authority to make an off-campus arrest for traffic offenses that occurred off campus in the Borough of West Chester, and that seized evidence had to be suppressed).
¶ 15 Moreover, this Court has also held that a housing authority police officer acting pursuant to the Housing Authorities Law, 35 P.S. § 1550(ee), lacked authority to stop an automobile two blocks from the housing authority’s property and arrest the occupant for a violation of the Vehicle Code and drug offenses. Commonwealth v. Brandt, 456 Pa.Super. 717, 691 A.2d 934, 937 (1997). The statute in Brandt provided that the housing authority police had police power authority “with respect to the [housing authority’s] property and enforcing order on and adjacent to the grounds and buildings of the Authority.” We held in Brandt that the housing authority police officer, in acting under the color of state action and seizing the evidence from the appellant, had exceeded his jurisdictional authority and that the evidence turned over to the police had to be suppressed.
¶ 16 The statutory language of section 7-778 of the Public School Code is no less explicit than that in Croushore, Savage, and Brandt. The statute before us juris-. dictionally limits the School Police Officer’s authority to “in school buildings, on school buses and on school grounds.” Unlike the Dissent, we believe that these decisions are applicable in the instant case in that they demonstrate our consistency in interpreting the legislative grants of authority to special police officers to act and seize evidence only in those areas that are expressed in the statutes. This result avoids any overlap in the powers of special police officers with the powers of municipal police and confines the special police to only the types of enforcement activities for which they are appointed.
*962¶ 17 We find it inappropriate to engage in judicial legislation to effectuate a policy of fostering gun-free school zones. A policy of helping to enforce good order in our schools, as propounded by the Dissent, is attractive, especially with regard to the presence of weapons. However, as a court, we may not disregard the letter of the statute in favor of fostering gun-free areas surrounding school grounds, since to do so amounts to an exercise of judicial legislation by reading something into the statute that is not there.3 The position advanced by the Dissent would expand the authority statutorily granted to School Police Officers under section 7-778(c)(l) to encompass the powers of a municipal police officer, as long as there is a nexus to the school.
¶ 18 The “nexus to the school under the totality of the circumstances of the incident” inquiry, put forth by the Dissent to determine whether a School Police Officer is acting within his statutory jurisdiction, is nebulous, and would certainly lead to confusion. This confusion would ensue first in the mind of a School Police Officer in deciding whether he has enough of a nexus to give him statutory authority to act off school grounds, and later in reviewing challenges to acts of School Police Officers for whether a sufficient nexus was present. The effect of such a supposed statutory interpretation would be to foster uncertainty and to mire the trial courts of this Commonwealth and this Court in factual determinations. It is not desirable to create such a burden on School Police Officers and the judicial system, especially where the language of the statute defining School Police Officers’ authority to act is explicit.
¶ 19 To support her theory of statutory authority, Judge Lally-Green offers the premise that a School Police Officer must be authorized to act off the grounds of the school, otherwise, a School Police Officer could not arrest a truant student. Further, the Dissent would find that our interpretation of section 7-778 eviscerates the authority of School Police to act with regard to truant students who are off school premises. The Dissent overlooks the section of the Public School Code set forth at 24 P.S. § 13-1341.
¶ 20 Section 13-1341 provides that school districts may employ attendance officers, or home and school visitors, whose duties shall be to enforce the provisions of the Public School Code regarding compulsory attendance. These “truant officers” have full police power to arrest or apprehend, without a warrant, any child who fails to attend school, or who is disorderly on his way to or from school in addition to the duties imposed on them by the Public School Code. School Police Officers are also granted this authority by section 13-1341(c). This section provides: “State, municipal, port authority, transit authority, housing authority and school police officers shall have the same arrest powers as attendance officers or home and school visitors.” 24 P.S. § 13-1341(c).
¶21 Again, the Dissent overlooks the question of where a School Police Officer is statutorily authorized to act with regard to a student who is truant or disorderly on his way to or from school. As can be inferred from section 13-1341, there are a number of special officers who are authorized to arrest a truant student on his way to or from school, and this duty does not rest exclusively with a School Police Officer. To date, the question of whether a School Police Officer (or any other officer listed in section 13-1341(c)) is statutorily authorized to take action when a truant student is not on school premises or on a school bus has not been addressed by the appellate courts of this Commonwealth. Nevertheless, -we find nothing in the au*963thority granted to a School Police Officer by section 13-1341 that would permit such an officer to conduct a search and seizure of a vehicle that is not currently occupied by truant students and is parked off the premises of the school.
¶ 22 For School Police Officers to have the authority of municipal police officers, they must have been authorized pursuant to section 7-778 of the Public School Code. The School Police Officers in this matter were not so authorized, and this Court may not essentially circumvent the application procedure contemplated by section 7-778. The result reached by the Dissent would have the effect of allowing persons who are not municipal police officers to search and seize a person’s property and turn over the fruits of the search to police for use in prosecution of the defendant. To endorse such a procedure is to allow police to benefit without their having properly obtained a warrant and in the absence of exigent circumstances.4
¶ 23 Although a reading of section 7-778(c)(1) as authorizing School Police Officers to enforce good order on school grounds by acting off school grounds is attractive from a policy standpoint, this Court cannot engage in what would amount to judicial legislation. While the policy espoused by Judge Lally-Green in her Dissenting Opinion is admirable, we are left with the restrictive powers granted School Police Officers by the Legislature in section 7-778 unless and until the Legislature sees fit to expand the statutory grant of authority to them. We are constrained to interpret the statute as written by the Legislature. So doing, we hold that the School Police Officers in this matter acted without authority when they opened the vehicle and searched its interior, seizing the weapons in question and turning them over to City Police. The evidence was inappropriately seized under color of state law here and should have been suppressed, as it was in Savage and Brandt.
¶ 24 Given our conclusion that the search was unauthorized by section 7-778, we need not reach the question of the constitutionality of the search and seizure under Article I, Section 8. The Dissent’s analysis of whether the search was proper under the plain view doctrine is unnecessary. Having failed to raise his argument concerning Article I, Section 8 until the matter reached this Court, Appellant has waived this issue. See Commonwealth v. Rosa, 734 A.2d 412, 420 (Pa.Super.1999). Moreover, although the conclusion of Appellant’s brief mentions the Fourth Amendment, Appellant fails to discuss the validity of the search under the Fourth Amendment. Thus, this issue is also waived. Commonwealth v. Zewe, 444 Pa.Super. 17, 663 A.2d 195, 199 (1995) (finding an issue waived where brief failed to provide a citation to pertinent case law).
¶ 25 Accordingly, this Court must vacate judgment of sentence, and remand to the trial court for a new trial in accordance with this Opinion.
¶ 26 Judgment of sentence vacated; case remanded to the trial court for a new trial in accordance with this Opinion. Jurisdiction relinquished.
¶ 27 LALLY-GREEN, J„ files a Dissenting Opinion.

. We note that Appellant, who was seventeen at the time of the offenses, was tried as an adult.

. Appellant was found guilty of three counts of possession of a firearm by a minor, three counts of carrying a firearm without a license, and criminal conspiracy.

. As Judge Wright of this Court once astutely observed, quoting Lord Bacon, the function of judges is jus dicere (to declare or decide the law), not jus dare (to give or make the law). Rose Township v. Hollobaugh, 179 Pa.Super. 284, 116 A.2d 323 (1955) (Wright, J„ dissenting).

. Although the Commonwealth contends that there were exigent circumstances here, we disagree, as the Commonwealth even concedes that Chief Fadzen had arranged with school personnel for the students who had occupied the vehicle to be held pending a resolution of the matter.