Court Opinion

ID: 9761644
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:48:46.551645+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:24:40.030759
License: Public Domain

CASTILLE, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I agree with the majority that the question of jurisdiction to entertain this matter is controlled by Commonwealth v. Rosario, 538 Pa. 400, 648 A.2d 1172 (1994).1 The prosecution in Rosario began in the Municipal Court of Philadelphia and, thus, the suppression question had a built-in, extra layer of potential judicial review. The Municipal Court granted Rosario’s suppression motion and the Commonwealth, certifying in good faith that the suppression order substantially handicapped its prosecution, appealed the suppression order to the Court of Common Pleas. That court, sitting as an appellate court, reversed the suppression order and remanded the case to the Municipal Court for trial. Rosario then attempted to file an appeal as of right from the unfavorable suppression *123ruling by the Court of Common Pleas to the Superior Court, but that court quashed the appeal as interlocutory.
Upon further discretionary review to this Court, Rosario argued that the Common Pleas Court order was a final order from which he enjoyed an automatic right of appeal to Superi- or Court. This Court affirmed the Superior Court’s quashal order. The plurality opinion authored by this Justice reasoned that the Common Pleas Court’s reversal of suppression was not a final order since it “did not dispose of the matter or effectively terminate the litigation.” 538 Pa. at 404, 648 A.2d at 1174. That holding was consistent with this Court’s longstanding precedent. In Commonwealth v. Bosurgi, 411 Pa. 56, 190 A.2d 304, cert. denied, 375 U.S. 910, 84 S.Ct. 204, 11 L.Ed.2d 149 (1963), which involved “[t]he first ‘search and seizure’ question to reach this Court since the decision in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 [(1961)],” 411 Pa. at 58, 190 A.2d at 306,2 this Court long ago addressed the question of the appealability of pre-trial suppression orders. A suppression order that effectively terminates or substantially handicaps the prosecution is final as to the Commonwealth and must be subject to review because the Commonwealth otheiwise would have no effective avenue of appellate review. Id. at 63-64, 190 A.2d at 308.3 The defendant’s claim of a right of appeal from an adverse suppression ruling, however, “stands upon an entirely different footing:”
The denial of a defendant’s motion for the suppression of evidence does not deprive a defendant of an appellate review- of the validity of that order. At trial, the defendant still has full opportunity to object to the introduction into evidence of the allegedly improper evidence and, in the event of his conviction, he will then have an opportunity to *124secure an appellate evaluation of the propriety and admissibility of such evidence. Therefore, unlike the Commonwealth, an adverse pretrial disposition of a motion to suppress evidence does not deprive the defendant' of his only opportunity for appellate review. Under such circumstances, the element of finality, which is the basis of appeal-ability, is lacking in an order denying suppression and the defendant should have no right of appeal from such order.
Bosurgi at 64, 190 A.2d at 308-09.
In enforcing this settled, bedrock limitation upon a defense attempt to appeal as of right an adverse suppression order, the Rosario plurality opinion also rejected Rosario’s reliance upon language found in a footnote in Commonwealth v. Baker, 518 Pa. 145, 541 A.2d 1381 (1988). The footnote stated that:
We find no merit in the Commonwealth’s contention that an appeal taken from an appellate reversal of a suppression order is interlocutory and that the instant appeal should therefore be quashed. Appeals taken by defendants following appellate reversals of orders suppressing evidence are clearly cognizable by this Court.
Baker, 518 Pa. at 146 n. 1, 541 A.2d at 1382 n. 1. The plurality would have overruled Baker to the extent the quoted language “suggests that appellate reversals of suppression orders are not interlocutory.” The plurality recognized, however, that there may be instances where an appellate court could, in its discretion, entertain a defense challenge to a lower court’s suppression reversal “if such a claim were properly raised before it in a petition for allowance of appeal.” Rosario, 538 Pa. at 405, 648 A.2d at 1174-75. Since Rosario pursued an appeal as of right in the Superior Court, however, his was not such a case.
Justice Montemuro’s Concurring Opinion in Rosario addressed both Baker and the distinction the plurality had noted between appeals as of right and requests for discretionary review. The Concurrence advocated overruling Baker in what it viewed as a “more limited manner” than the plurality. It noted that Baker involved a grant of suppression by the Court *125of Common Pleas; a Commonwealth appeal to Superior Court which resulted in reversal of the suppression order; and a grant of a defense allocatur by this Court to review the suppression issue. Since Baker involved a discretionary appeal to this Court from the Superior Court’s jurisdictionally appropriate review of a Commonwealth suppression appeal, the Concurrence reasoned that the footnote in Baker rejecting the Commonwealth’s quashal argument “did no more than reassert our longstanding authority to review appellate reversals of orders suppressing evidence where they present ‘special’ or ‘important’ reasons for such review.” Id. at 408, 648 A.2d at 1176. The Concurrence thus emphasized that it “[did] not believe that Baker should be overruled so as to suggest that all appellate reversals of suppression orders are interlocutory, thus precluding this Court from its longstanding practice of reviewing such orders where special or important reasons are presented.” Id. Instead, the Concurrence agreed to overrule Baker only to the extent that Baker “suggests that appellate reversals of suppression orders are not interlocutory and [are] appealable as a matter of right to the Superior Court in cases such as [Rosario].” Id. at 409, 648 A.2d at 1176.
The jurisdictional issue raised in this case, of course, does not involve the power of an appellate court to entertain a criminal defendant’s appeal as of right from the pre-trial denial of suppression relief (the scenario in Rosario) but, rather, the Supreme Court’s power to engage in discretionary review of a suppression decision rendered by the Superior Court in a direct appeal by the Commonwealth, that was properly in that court’s jurisdiction (the scenario in Baker). In light of the discussions in the Rosario plurality and in the Concurrence, described above, since this case came to this Court on allocatur, it is clear that this Court has jurisdiction to engage in discretionary review. Thus, 1 agree with the majority that the Commonwealth’s argument that this Court lacks jurisdiction is meritless.
The more difficult question, of course, is whether this Court should grant discretionary review of a particular pre-trial suppression ruling. The considerations that govern our dis*126cretionary docket are well-known. See Pa.R.A.P. 1114 (appeal will be allowed “only where there are special and important reasons therefor”); I.O.P. (Supreme Court) V (outlining considerations governing allocatur). Given this Court’s unique role, and the existence of the Superior Court and Commonwealth Court in our appellate review scheme, this Court generally does not grant discretionary appeals merely to review claims of error.
The unique nature of a pre-trial appeal such as the matter here should generally counsel against the grant of allocatur except in the most extraordinary of circumstances. Unlike most parties aggrieved by an order of the Superior Court or the Commonwealth Court, the appellant in a case such as this is not without further remedy. He still may prevail at trial, which would make moot his suppression complaint. And, even if he does not prevail at trial, he has a right of direct appeal following his conviction. At that point, he may raise all of his claims in one appeal and, although his suppression claim would fail in Superior Court, he presumably could seek review of the claim, along with any other claim, in a single allocatur petition to this Court.
When this matter was before us on an allocatur petition, I saw no special and important reason to grant review. Now that the matter has been fully briefed, it is clear to me that such review was improvidently granted. This case involves the supremely fact-bound question of the lawfulness of a particular traffic stop, which led to drug- and DUI-related charges. It resulted in an unpublished memorandum opinion in the Superior Court of no precedential value. There is no suggestion in the briefs, nor was there any suggestion in the allocatur petition, that there have been a rash of traffic stops in the Commonwealth based upon drivers crossing the “fog line” of the highway, such as to justify this Court’s expense of resources in discretionary review here. These considerations, weighing against review, exist independently of the very real restraint that the pre-trial posture of the case should pose.
I do not dispute that there may be cases involving pre-trial suppression rulings of such cutting-edge importance that pre*127trial review is warranted by this Court. The garden variety claim presented here, however, does not present such a case. Furthermore, the very fact of our review of this type of claim will unduly burden our docket by encouraging further petitions seeking pre-trial error review of suppression rulings. Accordingly, I would dismiss this appeal as having been improvidently granted.4
Nevertheless, since a majority of this Court has determined to hear the appeal, a proper respect for that controlling view obliges me to address the question presented. Were I to reach the question, I would agree with the majority that the Superior Court ruling in this case was erroneous under this Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Whitmyer, 542 Pa. 545, 668 A.2d 1113 (1995). I agree with Judge Gavin in the trial court below where he concluded that there was insufficient evidence presented that appellant created any kind of safety hazard by crossing over the “fog line” two or three times.

. The Opinion Announcing the Judgment of the Court in Rosario was written by this author and joined by then-Justice (now-Chief Justice) Flaherty and Justice Papadakos. Justice Montemuro’s Concurring Opinion was joined by then-Chief Justice Nix and Justices Zappala and Cappy. Justice Cappy also filed a separate Concurring Opinion.

. Mapp for the first time made the Fourth Amendment's exclusionary rule binding upon the states.

. The Rules of Appellate Procedure now explicitly recognize that the Commonwealth may appeal as of right otherwise interlocutory orders where the Commonwealth certifies in the notice of appeal lhat the order will terminate or substantially handicap the prosecution. Pa. R.A.P. 311(d). See Commonwealth v. Torres, 564 Pa. 86, 764 A.2d 532, 536 n. 2 (2001).

. The majority states that the broader issue involved here is whether the Superior Court has “lowered the standard” for what is sufficient to warrant a stop under the Motor Vehicle Code. The fact that a majority of this Court does not agree with a ruling by the Superior Court does not mean that the Superior Court "lowered" the governing standard. This is error review, pure and simple. Moreover, even if some broader issue were implicated, it will still be present for review, if necessary, if and when appellant is tried and convicted.