Court Opinion

ID: 9535172
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:46:13.242763+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:11.010222
License: Public Domain

Justice NIGRO,
dissenting.
I dissent. Appellant was detained by the police and given no more than what amounted to a Hobson’s choice — give consent to an immediate search of her bag or refuse to give consent, and have the bag searched anyway. Under these circumstances, where there was no true choice presented, I simply cannot agree with the majority’s conclusion that Appellant’s consent was constitutionally valid.
Under both the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, warrantless searches and seizures are unreasonable, and therefore prohibited, except for a few established exceptions, one of which is consent. Commonwealth v. Williams, 547 Pa. 577, 692 A.2d 1031, 1034-35 (1997). In order for the consent to be valid, the Commonwealth must prove that the consent was the product of an essentially free and unconstrained choice, and not the result of duress or coercion, express or implied, or a will overborne. Commonwealth v. Strickler, 563 Pa. 47, 757 A.2d 884, 901 (2000).
Here, at 7:00 p.m. the Houston Police Department notified the Philadelphia Police Department that a drug-sniffing dog in Houston had detected' drugs in a piece of luggage on Northwest Flight 1086, scheduled to arrive in Philadelphia at 11:04 p.m. Five Philadelphia police officers went to the Philadelphia airport and waited for the airplane. Four hours after the Philadelphia police received the information from the Houston police, Appellant arrived in Philadelphia on Flight 1086 and claimed a bag matching the description given by the Houston police. Philadelphia Police Officer Michael Levins confronted *341Appellant as she attempted to leave the airport, identified himself as an officer, and asked to see her baggage claim ticket. The officer took the claim ticket from her hand, picked up the bag, and asked her to accompany him to the airport security office.
Although the police did not formally arrest Appellant at that point, the record clearly establishes that from the time Appellant was escorted to the airport security office she was not free to leave.1 (N.T., 5/4/95, at 35.) After confining her in the security office with three police officers and two airline employees, the police informed Appellant that she was suspected of carrying drugs in her bag, provided her with Miranda warnings,2 interrogated her, and presented her with a consent to search form. The police told her that she could decide whether to sign the form, but that if she refused, they would simply get a warrant to search the bag. The police detained Appellant in the security office for over ten minutes until she agreed to sign the form.
If, as the Superior Court below concluded, the police had probable cause to arrest Appellant when they first approached her, they would have1 been justified in subjecting her person and her bag to a full search incident to arrest. See Commonwealth v. Shiflet, 543 Pa. 164, 670 A.2d 128, 130 (1995) (scope of search incident to arrest extends into the area within the arrestee’s immediate control). The fact that the police did not *342arrest Appellant, however, can only lead to the conclusion that the officers did not believe they had probable cause prior to searching Appellant’s bag.3 It seems clear that the police believed they needed to obtain the suspected drugs in Appellant’s bag in order to possess the probable cause necessary to arrest her. This presented an interesting dilemma for the police — they believed they needed to search Appellant’s bag to obtain probable cause to arrest her, but in order to search her bag,' they needed either probable cause for a warrant or consent to search. However, rather than following proper procedures to legally obtain access to Appellant’s bag, the police, in my view, circumvented the law by inducing Appellant’s consent to search her bag.4 The police did not have a warrant, had not applied for one, and in fact, based on their conduct, did not even believe they possessed the probable cause necessary to secure one. Yet despite their apparent belief that they lacked probable cause, the police nonetheless told Appellant that, absent her consent to the search, they *343would go ahead and get a warrant.5 In doing so, the police conveyed the message that issuance of the warrant was inevitable and therefore, it was futile to deny permission to search. These circumstances make it abundantly clear that in the end, the police simply did not present Appellant with the true nature of her options, which served to eliminate any real choice Appellant had regarding her consent to the search and in turn, negated her constitutional right to refuse consent.
Furthermore, unlike the majority, I believe that Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U.S. 543, 88 S.Ct. 1788, 20 L.Ed.2d 797 (1968), supports a conclusion that Appellant’s consent was coerced. In Bumper, four police officers approached the owner of a home, the defendant’s grandmother, and announced that they had a warrant to search her house. Although the officers did not produce a warrant, the homeowner allowed them into her home, where the police discovered a rifle believed to be an instrument of crime. The defendant moved to suppress the evidence seized, and the prosecution relied upon the alleged consent of the homeowner to justify the search.6 The United States Supreme Court concluded:
When a law enforcement officer claims authority to search a home under a warrant, he announces in effect that the occupant has no right to resist the search. The situation is instinct with coercion — albeit colorably lawful coer*344cion. Where there is coercion there cannot be consent. We hold that [the homeowner] did not consent to the search,.' and that it was constitutional error to admit the rifle in evidence against the [defendant].
Id. at 550, 88 S.Ct. 1788 (citation omitted).
Like in Bumper, the police in the instant case claimed lawful authority to search Appellant’s bag, thereby communicating to Appellant that she had no right to resist the search. The only difference is that the police in this case claimed they merely had to go get the warrant, at the expense of their time and trouble, whereas in Bumper the police claimed they already had the warrant in their possession. This is, however, simply a difference without distinction. The police in the instant case detained Appellant and told her that if she refused to consent to a search, they would simply go get a warrant. In my view, this is the type of coercive consent that Bumper forbids. Accordingly, I dissent.
Chief Justice ZAPPALA joins in this dissenting opinion.

. Pennsylvania case law recognizes three categories of interaction between police and citizens. See In the Interest of S.J., 551 Pa. 637, 713 A.2d 45, 47 n. 3 (1998). The first of these is a “mere encounter,” or request for information, which need not be supported by any level of suspicion, but carries no official compulsion to stop or to respond. Id. The second, an “investigative detention” must be supported by reasonable suspicion; it subjects a suspect to a stop and a period of detention, but does not involve such coercive conditions as to constitute the functional equivalent of an arrest. Id. Finally, an arrest or “custodial detention” must be supported by probable cause. Id. Probable cause exists where the facts and circumstances within the officer’s knowledge are sufficient to warrant a person of reasonable caution in the belief that an offense has been or is being committed. Commonwealth v. Gibson, 536 Pa. 123, 638 A.2d 203, 206 (1994).

. See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444-45, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966).

. The police obviously suspected that Appellant’s bag contained drugs. Based on the information received from the Houston police, along with the other factors present, there was sufficient reasonable suspicion to justify an investigative detention of Appellant.

. Although I am strongly in favor of the police having at their disposal the' necessary law enforcement techniques and tools to effectuate arrests and protect the public from the scourge of illegal drugs, there are constitutional and procedural rules applicable to those techniques and tools which, if violated, render a search illegal. See, e.g., Pa.R.Crim.P. 200-211 (governing issuance and execution of search warrants); Commonwealth v. Edmunds, 526 Pa. 374, 586 A.2d 887, 895-99 (1991) (tracing unique history of Pennsylvania's constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures); Commonwealth v. DeJohn, 486 Pa. 32, 403 A.2d 1283, 1291 (1979) (right to be free from unreasonable searches under the Pennsylvania Constitution is tied to the implicit right to privacy in this Commonwealth). I do not believe, however, that the guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizures should be curtailed as a means of increasing efficiency in law enforcement. See Commonwealth v. Yastrop, 564 Pa. 338, 768 A.2d 318, 357-61 (2001) (Nigro, J., dissenting) (efficiency of DUI roadblocks does not override the cumulative privacy interests of all motorists). See generally Steven Wisotsky, Crackdown: The Emerging "Drug Exception” to the Bill of Rights, 38 Hastings L.J. 889 (1987) (tracing the retreat from the historic constitutional mission of shielding .citizens from governmental overreaching in the fíame of doing whatever is deemed necessary or .expedient in waging the war on drugs).

. I believe it is significant that the police informed Appellant that if she did not consent to the search they would get a warrant, rather than stating that the police would have to attempt to secure a warrant if she declined consent. (N.T., 5/4/95, at 15, 29, 30-31.) The majority finds that the police advised Appellant that they would apply for a warrant ii she denied them permission to search. Maj. Op., at 970 (emphasis added). However, based on the testimony of record, the police advised Appellant that she could sign the consent to search form or they would get a warrant. (N.T., 5/4/95, at 15, 29, 30-31.)

. The majority states thal the record is unclear as to why the prosecution in Bumper could not rely on the search warrant to justify the search. Maj. Op., at 6 n. 4. However, the prosecution, for unknown reasons, chose not to rely upon the validity of the warrant. Bumper, 391 U.S. at 546, 549-50, 88 S.Ct. 1788. In fact, the Supreme Court explained that no warrant was ever returned, and there is no way of knowing the conditions under which it was issued, or determining whether it was based on probable cause. Id. at 550 n. 15, 88 S.Ct. 1788.