Com. v. Schatzel

• Decision Date: 04 December 1998
• Citation: 724 A.2d 362
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Terry Lee SCHATZEL, Appellant.
• Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court

724 A.2d 362

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Terry Lee SCHATZEL, Appellant.

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued August 5, 1998.

Filed December 4, 1998.

Reargument Denied February 16, 1999.

Blythe H. Evans, Jr., Wilkes-Barre, for appellant.

Peter Paul Olszewski, Jr., District Atty., and Frank P. Barletta, Asst. Dist. Atty., Wilkes-Barre, for Com., appellee.

Before McEWEN, President Judge, and STEVENS and LALLY-GREEN, JJ.

STEVENS, J.:

This is an appeal from the judgment of sentence entered in the Court of Common Pleas of Luzerne County following Appellant's conviction on the charge of driving while under the influence of alcohol (DUI).¹ Herein, Appellant contends that the lower court erred in failing to suppress the evidence seized incident to his arrest. Specifically, he alleges that he was arrested unlawfully by a wildlife conservation officer and deputy who acted beyond their authority as vested under the Game and Wildlife Code.² We affirm.

In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress, our role is to determine whether the record supports the suppression court's factual findings and the legitimacy of the inferences and legal conclusions drawn from those findings. We may consider only the evidence of the prosecution's witnesses and so much of the defense as, fairly read in the context of the record as a whole, remains uncontradicted. When the evidence supports the factual findings of the suppression court, we may reverse only if there is an error in the legal conclusions drawn from those factual findings. Commonwealth v. Lopez, 415 Pa.Super. 252, 609 A.2d 177 (1992) (citations omitted).

The lower court's factual findings are supported by the record and are as follows. In the evening of September 14, 1995, Joseph Wenzel, a wildlife conservation officer of the Pennsylvania State Game Commission, and Robert Orbin, a deputy Game Commission officer, were driving on a public highway in response to an official call when they encountered Appellant's dump truck parked diagonally across the road, blocking both lanes of traffic. The uniformed officers positioned their marked patrol vehicle alongside Appellant's truck and asked if he needed assistance, but Appellant, who, the officers testified, appeared "glassy-eyed," failed to respond. When a car then approached from around a bend, Officer Wenzel turned on his vehicle's lights and ordered Appellant to move his truck off the road. Instead, Appellant drove away until, nearly veering off the road with the officers in pursuit, he finally stopped a quarter of a mile later.

Once stopped, Appellant complied with the officers' orders by handing over his driver's license, registration, and keys to Deputy Orbin, who noticed that Appellant slurred his speech and smelled of alcohol. Officer Wenzel, meanwhile, promptly contacted the Pennsylvania State Police and asked for assistance. Appellant was allowed to remain in his truck free from any personal restraints during this time, and the officers used no threats of force to keep Appellant at the scene. State Trooper Joseph Wasko arrived shortly thereafter, performed field sobriety tests, and arrested Appellant for DUI.

In a pretrial motion, Appellant moved to suppress all evidence seized incident to his arrest, including the results of his blood alcohol test, which registered .167%. The lower court denied Appellant's motion following a hearing, and the case moved on to a bench-trial, where the court found Appellant guilty on all counts. After the denial of post-sentence motions, Appellant filed this timely direct appeal, questioning the authority of the game officer and his deputy to stop and, in his opinion, arrest him.

The Commonwealth's initial response to Appellant's claim is that the Game Commission officers did not arrest Appellant, but merely detained him during an investigatory stop until the State Police arrived. We agree.

As the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has observed, three categories of interactions between citizens and law enforcement officers vested with police power exist under Fourth Amendment jurisprudence:

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. The second, an "investigative detention" must be supported by a 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. Finally, an arrest or "custodial detention" must be supported by probable cause.

Commonwealth v. Ellis, 541 Pa. 285, 294, 662 A.2d 1043, 1047 (1995) (citations omitted) (footnote omitted). Moreover, this Court has observed that:

Traffic stops, like Terry stops, constitute investigative rather than custodial detentions, unless under the totality of circumstances the conditions and duration of the detention become the functional equivalent of an arrest.... Among the factors generally considered in determining whether a detention is investigative or custodial are: the basis for the detention (the crime suspected and the grounds for suspicion); the duration of the detention; the location of the detention (public or private); whether the suspect was transported against his will (how far, why); the method of detention; the show, threat or use of force; and, the investigative methods used to confirm or dispel suspicions.

Commonwealth v. Gommer, 445 Pa.Super. 571, 665 A.2d 1269, 1274 (1995) (citations omitted), appeal denied, 546 Pa. 676, 686 A.2d 1308 (1996).

In Gommer, this Court ruled that the stop and detention of a DUI suspect by an off-duty police officer, who stopped the suspect's car, took the driver's keys and quickly requested State Police assistance, was an investigative detention and not an arrest. Gommer, supra. The circumstances leading to this Court's conclusion were that the off-duty officer refrained from interrogation, used no threats or force, administered no sobriety tests during the brief detention period, and yielded the case to State Police after apprising them of her observations. Id.; Compare Commonwealth v. Kiner, 697 A.2d 262 (Pa.Super.1997) (holding that an arrest occurred where an off-duty Pennsylvania State Trooper stopped vehicle for suspected DUI, displayed weapon when ordering driver out of car, handcuffed driver and held him by his arm in a threatening way until on-duty troopers arrived at the scene).

The present facts are virtually indistinguishable from the facts in Gommer, and, thus, demand that we find that the game officers' seizure of Appellant was consistent with that of a brief investigative detention. While Appellant was seized within the meaning of both the Fourth Amendment and Article I section 8, since he was clearly not free to leave once stopped, See Commonwealth v. Melendez, 544 Pa. 323, 676 A.2d 226 (1996), Appellant's detention was more analogous to a "Terry Stop" than to a formal arrest. The officers exerted little coercion in briefly detaining Appellant while they observed his condition, checked his identifications, and called the State Police to handle the case. Once the trooper arrived, the game officers briefed him and transferred the case to him. Therefore, we consider the seizure at issue an investigative detention and not an arrest, and proceed to review whether Officer Wenzel and Deputy Orbin acted upon reasonable suspicion and with proper authority.³

This Court has held that a uniformed Game Commission officer may stop any vehicle at any time or place upon reasonable suspicion, provided the officer displays his badge or other identification and states the purpose of the stop. Commonwealth v. Palm, 315 Pa.Super. 377, 462 A.2d 243 (1983). Thus, where specific and articulable facts, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, present a driver engaged in suspicious activity, a Game Commission officer is reasonably warranted to perform a brief investigatory stop as an intermediate response "to maintain the status quo momentarily while obtaining more information." Id. at 247, 462 A.2d 243, quoting Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 145-46, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 1923, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972).

The record reveals that Officer Wenzel and Deputy Orbin were presented with a sufficient factual basis for stopping and detaining Appellant for DUI. The evidence described a glassy-eyed, unresponsive driver whose truck was parked across a winding state route at night, and who drove away when confronted by law enforcement officers. In pursuit, the officers witnessed Appellant's truck scrape against roadside vegetation, and when Appellant's truck finally pulled over, they observed Appellant as he slurred his speech and smelled of alcohol. As such, Appellant represented an ostensible threat to life and property, and Officer Wenzel and Deputy Orbin acted upon reasonable suspicion, as well as in the public interest, in stopping and detaining Appellant.

Appellant raises the objection, however, that, though he may have exhibited conduct which would have reasonably warranted a police officer to stop and investigate, Wenzel and Orbin lacked the authority to stop and detain Appellant for a general traffic violation unrelated to Game and Wildlife law. In recognizing the authority of game officers to stop and even arrest for such a violation, this Court has recently reviewed the Game and Wildlife Code and held:

[D]riving under the influence is clearly one of the offenses for which a wildlife conservation officer is authorized to arrest under subsection 901(a)(17). Moreover, the Game Commission regulations ... specifically enumerate violations of 75 Pa.C.S.A. section 3731 as one category of offenses for which a wildlife conservation officer may arrest. However, it is also clear that a wildlife conservation officer is authorized to arrest for such an offense only "when acting within the scope

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