Com. v. Crouse

• Decision Date: 23 March 1999
• Citation: 729 A.2d 588
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Raymond Lee CROUSE, Appellant.
• Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court

729 A.2d 588

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Raymond Lee CROUSE, Appellant.

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Submitted April 27, 1998.

Filed March 23, 1999.

Anthony E. Miley, Public Defender, Gettysburg, for appellant.

Paul T. Dean, Asst. Dist. Atty., Gettysburg, for Com., appellee.

Before KELLY, BROSKY and MONTEMURO¹, JJ.

KELLY, J.

¶ 1 In this appeal, Appellant, Raymond Lee Crouse, asks us to determine whether a "protective sweep" of a private residence, executed by state police in connection with a valid arrest warrant, violates Article 1, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. We hold that a "protective sweep," as defined in Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325, 110 S.Ct. 1093, 108 L.Ed.2d 276 (1990), in connection with the execution of a valid arrest warrant is permissible under the Constitution of this Commonwealth. Accordingly, we affirm Appellant's judgment of sentence.

¶ 2 The facts and procedural history are as follows. On January 11, 1997, at approximately 8:30 a.m., Pennsylvania State troopers James Borza, James W. Sattazahn and two other officers went to 159 East King Street to serve an arrest warrant on Raymond Crouse, Sr., Appellant's father. When the police arrived, Crouse, Sr. answered the door, turned and walked back into the house. Troopers Borza and Sattazahn followed Crouse, Sr. Trooper Borza advised Crouse, Sr. that he was under arrest. After the remaining officers had entered the residence, they heard a woman, later identified as Crouse Sr.'s wife, upstairs on the second floor, yelling for someone, later identified as Crouse, Jr., Appellant. Trooper Sattazahn and two officers immediately proceeded to the second floor, to secure the residence for the safety of the officers. Trooper Sattazahn found Appellant and a woman together in a bedroom. Trooper Sattazahn scanned the room for any weapons in plain view. During the scan, he observed a marijuana smoking device on a nightstand next to the bed. Shortly after Trooper Sattazahn secured the upstairs, he informed Trooper Borza about the pipe. Trooper Borza then went to the second floor bedroom and saw the pipe on the table. Appellant admitted that he owned the pipe and used it to smoke marijuana. (N.T., Suppression Hearing, 6/26/97, at 5-14).

¶ 3 The police subsequently arrested Appellant. Appellant was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia.² On June 3, 1997, Appellant filed a motion to suppress the smoking pipe. The suppression court denied the motion on August 1, 1997. Regarding Appellant's suppression motion, the trial court entered the following findings of fact and conclusions of law:

FINDINGS OF FACT

1. On January 11, 1997, Pennsylvania State Police went to the residence of Raymond Crouse, Sr., at 159 East King Street, Littlestown, Pennsylvania in the morning hours for the purpose of serving an arrest warrant upon him.

2. Trooper James Borza had made numerous purchases of marijuana from Mr. Crouse at his residence.

3. When Trooper Borza knocked at the door Raymond Crouse, Sr. opened the door and walked away.

4. Trooper Borza and Trooper James W. Sattazahn followed him into the residence.

5. Upon entry into the residence by the officers, Mrs. Crouse [arrestee's spouse] began yelling for her son so Trooper Sattazahn and two other officers went upstairs to secure the residence for safety reasons.

6. In route to the second floor the officers yelled "State police — get down."

7. On the second floor the officers located the partially opened door to the bedroom which was occupied at that time by [Appellant] and a female.

8. The officer made a quick scan of the bedroom for weapons and saw a smoking pipe in plain view on the night stand.

9. The pipe was described as a "marijuana pipe."

10. [Appellant] said the pipe was his and he used it to smoke marijuana.

11. [Appellant] was arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia, 35 P.S. Section 780-113(a)(32).

CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

1. This Court has jurisdiction.

2. The officers lawfully entered [Appellant]'s residence to effectuate the arrest of another person.

3. The officers were lawfully authorized to temporarily go to the second floor to secure the premises and thereby secure the safety of the officers.

4. Under the circumstances the officers were not required to knock and announce before entering the second floor bedroom.

5. The pipe was in plain view.

6. The seizure of the pipe did not violate either the United States or Pennsylvania Constitutions.

(See Trial Court Order, dated August 1, 1997, filed upon consideration of [Appellant]'s Motion to Suppress Evidence filed June 3, 1997.)

¶ 4 Appellant was later convicted of the charge, as an ungraded misdemeanor, following a non-jury trial in the Court of Common Pleas of Adams County, Pennsylvania on October 23, 1997. As a sentence, the court placed Appellant on the Adams County Intermediate Punishment Program for a period of twelve months plus fees, costs, and a $200.00 fine. Appellant timely filed this appeal.

¶ 5 Appellant raises the following issue on appeal:

WHETHER APPELLANT'S RIGHT TO BE FREE FROM UNREASONABLE SEARCHES AND SEIZURE UNDER ARTICLE 1, SECTION 8 OF THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE CONSTITUTION HAS BEEN VIOLATED, WHEN THE STATE POLICE ON JANUARY 11, 1997, ENTERED APPELLANT'S BEDROOM PURSUANT TO A "PROTECTIVE SWEEP" OF APPELLANT'S RESIDENCE WITHOUT A SEARCH WARRANT AND ARRESTED APPELLANT AND HIS GIRLFRIEND WITHOUT AN ARREST WARRANT OR AN APPLICABLE WARRANTLESS ARREST EXCEPTION OR PROBABLE CAUSE TO BELIEVE THAT THE APPELLANT HAD COMMITTED A CRIME.

Appellant's Brief at 3.

¶ 6 Our review of an order denying a motion to suppress is subject to the following principles:

We must first ascertain whether the record supports the factual findings of the suppression court, and then determine the reasonableness of the inferences and legal conclusions drawn therefrom. In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress evidence, "we consider only the evidence of the prosecution's witnesses and so much of the evidence for the defense as, fairly read in the context of the record as a whole, remains uncontradicted." When the evidence supports the suppression court's findings of fact on a motion to suppress, this Court may reverse only when the legal conclusions drawn from those facts are erroneous. However, we are bound by the trial court's findings of fact only to the extent that they are supported by the record.

Commonwealth v. Felty, 443 Pa.Super. 559, 662 A.2d 1102, 1104 (1995) (citations

omitted). See also Commonwealth v. Jackson, 548 Pa. 484, 698 A.2d 571 (1997)

.

A. ANALYSIS UNDER THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION

¶ 7 The United States Supreme Court's decision in Buie, supra, defines a warrantless "protective sweep" as a quick and limited search incident to an arrest and conducted to protect the safety of police officers or others; it is narrowly confined to a cursory visual inspection of those places in which a person may be hiding. Id. at 327, 110 S.Ct. at 1094, 108 L.Ed.2d at 281. Under Buie, the Fourth Amendment allows a protective sweep incident to an arrest if the officer reasonably believes, based on "specific and articulable" facts and rational inferences from those facts, that the area to be swept harbors an individual posing a danger to those on the arrest scene. Id. at 337, 110 S.Ct. at 1099, 108 L.Ed.2d at 287. Thus, a protective sweep is "aimed at protecting the arresting officers, if justified by the circumstances." Id. Nevertheless, it is not a full search of the premises but may extend only to a cursory inspection of those spaces where a person may be found. Id.

¶ 8 Applying the elements of the Terry balance test³, the Buie Court reasoned:

[T]here is an analogous interest of the officers in taking steps to assure themselves that the house in which a suspect is being, or has just been, arrested is not harboring other persons who are dangerous and who could unexpectedly launch an attack. The risk of danger in the context of an arrest in the home is as great as, if not greater than, it is in an on-the-street or roadside investigatory encounter. A Terry ... frisk occurs before a police-citizen confrontation has escalated to the point of arrest. A protective sweep, in contrast, occurs as an adjunct to the serious step of taking a person into custody for the purpose of prosecuting him for a crime. Moreover, unlike an encounter on the street or along a highway, an in-home arrest puts the officer at the disadvantage of being on his adversary's "turf." An ambush in a confined setting of unknown configuration is more to be feared than it is in open, more familiar surroundings.

Id. at 333, 110 S.Ct. at 1098, 108 L.Ed.2d at 285. Buie makes clear that the Fourth Amendment allows arresting officers to take reasonable steps to ensure their safety after, and while making, the arrest. Id. at 333, 110 S.Ct. at 1098, 108 L.Ed.2d at 286. In balance, the safety of the officers sufficiently outweighs the intrusion on individual privacy interests such procedures may entail. Id.

¶ 9 Pennsylvania law would have validated the present search before Buie. As early as 1982, this Court wrote:

[A]rresting officers are permitted to conduct a brief search of the entire building, within which the accused is arrested, for the limited purpose of seeking other people who may threaten the officers' well being, provided, of course, that such officers have reason to believe that other people are present.

Commonwealth v. Henkel, 306 Pa.Super. 346, 452 A.2d 759, 761-62 (1982). In Henkel, the appellant argued that no exigent circumstances occurred after the officers' entry into his home to justify a cursory search of the second floor. The appellant asserted that the police officers' fears were generated by facts known to them for weeks before the arrest. As a result, the appellant maintained that the officers should have obtained a search warrant prior to the arrest.⁴ The Henkel Court rejected this reasoning. Instead, it chose to rely on the holding of

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