Com. v. Lockridge

• Decision Date: 20 November 2002
• Citation: 570 Pa. 510,810 A.2d 1191
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee v. Shawn LOCKRIDGE, Appellant.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

810 A.2d 1191

570 Pa. 510

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee v. Shawn LOCKRIDGE, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued May 15, 2002.

Decided November 20, 2002.

Ronald M. Graham, Valley Forge, for appellant, Shawn Lockridge.

John Klingler, Mifflintown, for appellee, Com. of PA.

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

OPINION

Justice CAPPY.

Based on information received from a witness, a deputy sheriff filed a citation charging Appellant Shawn Lockridge with a summary violation of the Vehicle Code, 75 Pa.C.S. § 101 et seq. We granted review to consider Appellant's contention that pursuant to our decision in Commonwealth v. Leet, 537 Pa. 89, 641 A.2d 299 (1994), the charge should have been dismissed because the deputy sheriff did not observe the violation and the violation did not amount to a breach of the peace. We conclude that Leet is inapt; that the Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure are controlling; and that under the Rules, the deputy sheriff was authorized to file the citation charging Appellant with the violation.¹ Thus, for all of the reasons that follow, we affirm the Superior Court's order, albeit on other grounds.

In September 1999, Appellant was charged with driving while under the influence of alcohol or controlled substance ("DUI"), a violation of 75 Pa.C.S. § 3731. As Appellant accepted Accelerated Rehabilitation Disposition ("ARD") for the charge, on January 18, 2000, his license was suspended for a six-month period. 75 Pa.C.S. § 3731(e)(6).

In May of 2000, Appellant was on probation for an unrelated conviction, and under the supervision of Mindy Musser ("Musser"), a probation officer for Juniata County, Pennsylvania. One of the conditions of Appellant's probation was a prohibition against operating a motor vehicle. Musser was aware that Appellant's driver's license was under suspension.

On the evening of May 10, 2000, Musser saw Appellant drive a motor vehicle into a restaurant parking area. The following morning, Musser told Shane Corwell, the Chief Deputy of the Juniata County Sheriff's Department, that she saw Appellant driving a motor vehicle the prior evening. Musser also gave Chief Deputy Corwell the plate number on and a description of the vehicle that she observed Appellant operating.

Chief Deputy Corwell submitted a request for information with the Commonwealth's Bureau of Driver Licensing and verified that Appellant's driver's license was under suspension for the DUI offense. He also verified that the vehicle with the plate number that Musser had given him was registered to Appellant. Based on the information he gathered, Chief Deputy Corwell followed the procedure set out in Pa.R.Crim. 410 and filed a citation (the "Citation") with the District Justice of Mifflintown, Pennsylvania, charging Appellant with driving while his license was suspended as a condition of ARD, a summary offense under 75 Pa.C.S. § 1543(b).² The District Justice issued a summons to Appellant. Appellant responded by pleading not guilty. Following a summary trial, the District Magistrate found Appellant guilty, and entered judgment of sentence on July 11, 2000, imposing a fine of $1,000 and a 90-day period of incarceration upon him.

Appellant appealed to the trial court. In his appeal, Appellant filed a motion to dismiss the charge, citing the Leet decision. Leet, 641 A.2d at 299. Appellant contended that Leet established that a deputy sheriff may enforce a Vehicle Code violation only if the violation was committed in his presence and involved a breach of the peace. Appellant asserted that these conditions from Leet were not met, and that accordingly, Chief Deputy Corwell did not have the authority to issue the Citation and charge him. The Commonwealth responded that Leet and its progeny supported Chief Deputy Corwell's actions.

Following Appellant's summary appeal hearing, the trial court took his motion to dismiss under advisement. On October 11, 2000, the trial court denied the motion, found Appellant guilty of violating 75 Pa. C.S. § 1543(b), and entered judgment of sentence, re-imposing upon him the $1,000 fine and the 90-day period of incarceration.

In its opinion on the motion to dismiss, the trial court initially found that inasmuch as Appellant's case did not involve a stop and arrest scenario, as did Leet, the principles enunciated therein were inapplicable. Rather, Pa.R.Crim.P. 405 (then Pa. R.Crim.P. 55)³, which governs the issuance of a citation, was to determine whether Chief Deputy Corwell was authorized to pursue Appellant's violation. Observing that the Comment to Rule 405 states that a law enforcement officer may issue a citation based upon information from a witness to a summary offense, the trial court concluded that the Citation was in full compliance with Pennsylvania law inasmuch as it "was issued by a law enforcement officer, [Chief] Deputy Corwell, based on information that [Appellant] committed a summary violation received from a very credible witness...." (Trial Court Memorandum Opinion of 10/11/00 at 2.)

Appellant filed a timely appeal with the Superior Court and re-asserted his position that under Leet, Chief Deputy Corwell was unauthorized to take action. Like the trial court, the Superior Court rejected Appellant's argument. Commonwealth v. Lockridge, 781 A.2d 168 (Pa.Super.2001). The Superior Court first noted that "the Leet Court did not address the legal issue of whether the deputy sheriff who issues the ticket must personally observe the violation for which he issues a citation." Id. at 169. The court then determined that "[t]he source for [Chief] Deputy Corwell's authority to issue the citation in question without having observed [A]ppellant driving a motor vehicle may be found in Pa. R.Crim.P. 405, Issuance of citation, and the comments thereto." Id. (footnote omitted). Applying the terms of Pa. R.Crim.P. 405 to the facts, and focusing on that portion of the Comment to the Rule which allows a law enforcement officer to use information received from a witness when issuing a citation, the Superior Court concluded that Chief Deputy Corwell was authorized to issue the Citation based on Musser's reported observations, and notwithstanding the fact that he did not personally witness Appellant's violation. Id. at 170. The court was also unpersuaded by Appellant's argument that Leet requires the commission of a breach of the peace before a citation may issue because such an interpretation of Leet would prohibit a deputy from enforcing the traffic violation of driving without a license, even if violated in his presence. Id. Accordingly, the Superior Court affirmed the trial court's judgment of sentence. Id.

This appeal followed. Appellant claims that the Superior Court erred as a matter of law by not applying Leet to the facts correctly. Alternatively, Appellant claims that the Superior Court's reliance on the Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure was misplaced. The Commonwealth contends just the opposite, arguing that both Leet and the Rules are sources of authority for Chief Deputy Corwell's actions.

We begin our discussion with Leet. The pertinent facts of that case are as follows. Having observed a vehicle pass a line of traffic stopped in a no-passing zone, Deputy Sheriff Kevin Gibbons directed the driver, Marshall Leet, to pull off the road. The Deputy Sheriff saw an open can of beer on the front seat as he approached the vehicle. The Deputy Sheriff administered a field sobriety test on Leet, and detained him, waiting for a radio check on his license status. The license status report revealed that Leet's license was expired. Accordingly, Municipal Police Officer Donald Weber, who had arrived on the scene to give assistance, issued citations to Leet for driving without a valid license, for driving in a no-passing zone, and for consuming an alcoholic beverage while his vehicle was in operation. See 75 Pa.C.S. §§ 1501, 3307, 3715.

The question we considered and answered in the affirmative in Leet was "whether a deputy sheriff has authority in Pennsylvania to make a warrantless arrest for motor vehicle violations committed in his presence." Leet, 641 A.2d at 299. In our discussion, we first recognized that it is the function of the sheriff and his deputies to enforce the law. Id. at 301-02. We then considered whether the sheriff and his deputies have the authority to take the law enforcement action that was at issue—a warrantless arrest for a Vehicle Code violation. We observed that under the common law, the sheriff and his deputies are empowered to make arrests without a warrant for felonies and breaches of the peace committed in their presence. Id. at 302-03. Thus, for purposes of determining whether the warrantless arrest before us was proper, we looked to see whether that common law power has been abrogated by statute, as opposed to looking for a statute that authorized such power. Finding no abrogation, we concluded that the sheriff and his deputies may make warrantless arrests for Vehicle Code violations committed in their presence which amount to breaches of the peace. Id. at 303. We also deemed it necessary that sheriffs and deputies who enforce the Vehicle Code be required to undergo formal training. Id.⁴

In order to resolve Appellant's claim that the principles articulated in Leet lead to the conclusion that Chief Deputy Corwell was not authorized to charge him by citation, the threshold question that we must answer is to what extent Leet's principles apply in this case. While our analysis in Leet establishes that as a general proposition, Chief Deputy Corwell, who was with the Juniata County Sheriff's Department, was authorized to enforce the law, see Leet, 641 A.2d at 301-02,

the principles set out therein for answering the more specific question as to whether Chief Deputy Corwell was authorized to enforce the Vehicle Code by filing the Citation present another matter. This is because...