Com. v. Freeman

• Citation: 757 A.2d 903,563 Pa. 82
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Diana Ericker FREEMAN, Appellant. (Two Cases).
• Decision Date: 24 August 2000
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

757 A.2d 903

563 Pa. 82

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Diana Ericker FREEMAN, Appellant. (Two Cases).

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued November 17, 1999.

Decided August 24, 2000.

Holly B. Conway, Robert M. Rosenblum, James P. Gregor, Stroudsburg, for Diana Ericker Freeeman.

Mark P. Pazuhanich, Dist. Atty., for Com.

Before FLAHERTY, C.J., and ZAPPALA, CAPPY, CASTILLE, NIGRO, NEWMAN and SAYLOR, JJ.

OPINION

SAYLOR, Justice.

The issue before the Court is whether, under the Fourth Amendment, the trial court erred in failing to suppress evidence seized from a vehicle because the consent to the search by the operator was tainted by an illegal detention.

On September 12, 1995, a Pennsylvania State Police trooper was observing westbound traffic on Interstate 80 in Monroe County when he noticed two vehicles traveling fairly close together, switching lanes and jockeying for position in "cat and mouse" fashion. The trooper proceeded to stop one of the vehicles, which was driven by Appellant Diana Freeman ("Freeman"), while another officer stopped the second vehicle. Also in Freeman's vehicle were two passengers, Jacqueline Lee in the front passenger seat and Sydney Robertson in the rear. When the trooper asked Freeman if she was lost or having a problem with the other driver, she explained that she had entered the wrong lane and had maneuvered to the left lane to continue west on Interstate 80; she also denied traveling with the other vehicle. The trooper requested Freeman's driver's license and registration card and then returned to his patrol car, which was parked behind Freeman's vehicle, to conduct a radio check on the documents. There he learned from the other trooper that the occupants of the other vehicle contradicted Freeman by stating that the two vehicles were traveling together and further explained that they were following Freeman's car because it was having some type of engine problem.

Returning to Freeman's car, the trooper gave Freeman a written warning related to improper lane changes and windshield obstructions, returned her license and registration card, and informed her that she was free to leave. The trooper then went back to his patrol car,¹ and Freeman's vehicle remained parked in its then-present location. While the trooper who had stopped the occupants of the other car continued to question them, the trooper who had stopped Freeman returned to her vehicle and again asked whether Freeman was traveling with the second car. When she replied that she was not, the trooper informed her that the occupants of the second car had said otherwise and asked her to get out of the vehicle. Freeman did so, walking to the rear of the car. At this point, the trooper asked Freeman for consent to search her vehicle, which Freeman granted.

Before beginning the search, the trooper directed the passengers out and to the rear of the vehicle. Freeman opened the trunk of the car and told the trooper to "go ahead and look," to which he responded that he did not want her help. As the trooper began to search the area around the driver's seat, Freeman and Lee approached the vehicle from the passenger side and started to remove bags of clothing and personal items. The trooper told them to move away from the vehicle and not to touch anything because he intended to search one area of the vehicle at a time. As he resumed his search, Lee and Freeman removed additional bags from the car.² Lee carried two of the bags, taken from the car's rear passenger area, to the front of the car and placed them under the front bumper, and once again the trooper instructed Lee and Freeman to move away from the vehicle. Because the occupants of the car were not obeying his instructions, the trooper went to the other vehicle to see if the second trooper or a third officer who had joined him could provide assistance. Returning to Freeman's car, the trooper found, underneath the front of the car, the two plastic shopping bags that had been placed there by Lee. Inside each of those bags were clear Ziploc bags (five in all) containing what appeared and later proved to be marijuana. Upon finding the marijuana, the trooper proceeded to handcuff Freeman, Lee, and Robertson. Freeman informed the officer that the marijuana was hers, and that she was using it to obtain money to pay rent or a mortgage.

Freeman, Robertson, and Lee were charged with possession of a controlled substance and possession with intent to deliver. They filed a motion to suppress the evidence found during the vehicle search, which motion was denied. Following a bench trial, Freeman and Lee were convicted of both offenses, and Robertson was acquitted of both. Freeman was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 3 to 23 months.

The Commonwealth appealed to the Superior Court, challenging the trial court's failure to impose the mandatory minimum sentence. Freeman cross-appealed, arguing, inter alia, that she was entitled to suppression of the marijuana taken from her vehicle because her consent to a search of the vehicle had been tainted by an illegal detention. Relying on Commonwealth v. Hoak, 700 A.2d 1263 (Pa.Super.1997), aff'd by an evenly divided Court, 557 Pa. 496, 734 A.2d 1275 (1999),

the Superior Court reasoned that, after the trooper returned Freeman's license and registration and informed her that she was free to go, any subsequent interaction between them constituted a "mere encounter," not a detention, and the consent to search given during such encounter was valid. The court upheld Freeman's conviction but vacated the judgment of sentence and remanded for imposition of the mandatory sentence. Freeman filed a petition for allowance of appeal, challenging both aspects of the Superior Court's decision. We allowed appeal, limited to the suppression issue.

Freeman does not challenge the legitimacy of the initial traffic stop. She contends, rather, that the initial stop was followed by a further detention that was unsupported by any reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, and was therefore illegal. Although Freeman consented to the search of her vehicle, she maintains that her consent was ineffective because it was tainted by the illegality of her detention, and that the results of the search must therefore be suppressed.³

In the companion case of Commonwealth v. Strickler, ___ Pa. ___, 757 A.2d 884 (2000), we set forth the requirements for a valid consensual search incident to a traffic stop, indicating that the central Fourth Amendment inquiries in consent cases entail assessment of the constitutional validity of the citizen-police encounter giving rise to the consent, and, ultimately, the voluntariness of consent. Where the encounter is a valid one, voluntariness becomes the sole focus; where, however, an illegal seizure precedes the consent search, the Commonwealth must also establish a break in the causal connection between the illegality and the evidence thereby obtained. See id. at ___, 757 A.2d at 888. The determination whether a seizure has been effected in the first instance is made upon an examination of the totality of the circumstances to determine whether a reasonable person would feel free to leave. See id. Factors relevant to such assessment include: the existence and nature of any prior seizure; whether there was a clear and expressed endpoint to any such prior detention; the character of police presence and conduct in the encounter under review (for example— the number of officers, whether they were uniformed, whether police isolated subjects, physically touched them or directed their movement, the content or manner of interrogatories or statements, and "excesses" factors stressed by the United States Supreme Court); geographic, temporal and environmental elements associated with the encounter; and the presence or absence of express advice that the citizen-subject was free to decline the request for consent to search. In general, a full examination must be undertaken of all coercive aspects of the police/citizen interaction. See id. at ___, 757 A.2d at 889.

In the present case, the police/citizen encounter involving Freeman opened with a lawful traffic stop, the existence and nature of which is a pertinent factor in assessing whether a reasonable person would have felt free to leave during the subsequent interaction. Upon examination of the circumstances of the initial lawful detention, however, we find nothing in the record to remove the circumstances from within the boundaries of the typical traffic stop apparently contemplated by the United States Supreme Court in Ohio v. Robinette, 519 U.S. 33, 117 S.Ct. 417, 136 L.Ed.2d 347 (1996). See Strickler, ___ Pa. at ___, 757 A.2d at 891.⁴ The behavior of the troopers was commensurate with their lawful purpose, as, more generally, was the length and character of the detention. Indeed, the arresting trooper articulated a clear endpoint to the lawful detention by advising Freeman that she was free to depart after returning her driver's documentation and issuing an appropriate traffic warning. Therefore, the fact of the prior detention does not, in and of itself, convert the subsequent encounter into a seizure. Id.

The transition to and character of the subsequent interaction, however, supports the conclusion that Freeman was subject to a second seizure. Since the trooper had accomplished the purpose of the stop, as he expressly indicated, Freeman would have been entirely within her rights to drive away at that point. Nevertheless, the trooper's subsequent actions were inconsistent with his statement to Freeman that she was free to leave, as he: returned to Freeman's vehicle; questioned her about the second vehicle; pointed out the inconsistent statements from the vehicle's occupants when she denied traveling with that vehicle; and, ultimately and most significantly, asked her to step out of the vehicle prior to the request for consent. Such directive constituted a greater show...