Com. v. Worthy

• Citation: 957 A.2d 720
• Decision Date: 27 October 2008
• Docket Number: No. 1 WAP 2007.,1 WAP 2007.
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellant v. Mark S. WORTHY, Appellee.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

957 A.2d 720

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellant v. Mark S. WORTHY, Appellee.

No. 1 WAP 2007.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued September 10, 2007.

Resubmitted January 14, 2008.

Decided October 27, 2008.

Michael Wayne Streily, Allegheny County District Attorney's Office, for Com.

Martin W. Sheerer, Sheerer & Associates, Pittsburgh, for Mark S. Worthy.

Before CASTILLE, C.J., SAYLOR, EAKIN, BAER, TODD, McCAFFERY, GREENSPAN, JJ.

OPINION

Justice McCAFFERY.^*

In this matter of first impression, we granted allowance of appeal to consider whether the temporary suspension of a police sobriety checkpoint to relieve traffic congestion, conducted pursuant to the on-site officer's discretion, complied with the dictates of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article 1, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, as explicated by this Court's precedent. We hold that it did and, therefore, reverse the Superior Court and remand to the trial court for further proceedings.

The relevant facts of the instant case are not in dispute. On May 15, 2002, administrative officials of the Monroeville Police Department authorized a sobriety checkpoint for State Route 22 in Monroeville, Allegheny County, also known as the William Penn Highway. This location was chosen because of its high incidence of motor vehicle accidents and arrests for violations of the driving-under-the-influence (DUI) statutes. The memorandum of authorization for the checkpoint provided as follows:

You are hereby authorized to post notice and arrange for officers to work a sobriety checkpoint the night of the 24th of May, 2002. The checkpoint details shall start at 2300 hours, the 24th of May, 2002, and conclude no later than 0400 hours on the 25th of May, 2002. As per our conversation on the 15th of May, 2002[;] our review of the state accident statistics regarding drinking and driving accidents[;] and our department records showing the number of traffic stops resulting in driving under the influence arrests, you are authorized to set up a checkpoint on Route 22 westbound at Roomful Express, 3651 William Penn Highway in Monroeville, Pa. If circumstances would prevent you from using that primary location, you are authorized to move to 2420 Moss Side Boulevard, State Route 48 in Monroeville.

Memorandum of Authorization from Assistant Chief Doug Cole to Sergeant Ronald Harvey, dated 5/15/02 (read into Notes of Testimony Suppression Hearing (N.T.), 4/13/04, at 5-6).

On the night of May 24, 2002, on a long straight-away of Route 22, Sergeant Ronald Harvey and other police officers established the sobriety checkpoint as authorized by the memorandum. The officers posted large orange signs, illuminated with traffic flares and lights, several hundred feet in advance of the checkpoint. The checkpoint was visible to approaching motorists from approximately one-half mile away, and the officers stopped every vehicle. However, on three occasions when the traffic was heavy, resulting in an unreasonable delay, Sergeant Harvey temporarily suspended operation of the checkpoint and let all traffic pass through without stopping. During these pauses, the officers did not stop any cars. When the traffic abated, the officers resumed checkpoint operations and again began to stop every vehicle. N.T. at 7-9 (testimony of Sergeant Harvey).

Appellee Mark S. Worthy was driving one of the vehicles stopped by an officer at the checkpoint. Based on the officer's determination that Appellee exhibited bloodshot eyes and slurred speech and emitted a strong smell of alcohol, the officer administered three field sobriety tests, all of which Appellee failed. Appellee also failed a breath test. The officer arrested Appellee and charged him with two DUI offenses.¹

Appellee filed an omnibus pretrial motion to suppress evidence obtained as a result of the stop at the sobriety checkpoint, contending that his rights under both the United States and Pennsylvania Constitutions to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures were violated because the sobriety checkpoint was not conducted in accordance with the guidelines promulgated by this Court in Commonwealth v. Blouse, 531 Pa. 167, 611 A.2d 1177 (1992), and Commonwealth v. Tarbert, 517 Pa. 277, 535 A.2d 1035 (1987) (plurality) (hereinafter the "Tarbert-Blouse guidelines"). In particular, Appellee argued that because the administrative approval for the checkpoint failed to delineate any fixed criteria as to the circumstances under which the checkpoint could be temporarily suspended and then restarted, it conferred upon the on-site officers unfettered discretion concerning which vehicles to stop, in conflict with the Tarbert-Blouse guidelines.

The trial court conducted a suppression hearing on April 13, 2004, during which the only witness was Sergeant Harvey, the individual who had obtained authority for and then supervised the sobriety checkpoint. Sergeant Harvey testified that on three occasions during the operation of the checkpoint he had made a decision to "open the checkpoint and let traffic flow" in order to "avoid unreasonable delay for the traffic that was in line." N.T. at 9. After reviewing the parties' briefs, the trial court granted Appellee's suppression motion, concluding that, although the officers had the authority to stop every vehicle that came through the checkpoint, they did not have the authority or the discretion to stop and then restart the checkpoint. In the trial court's words, "[t]he authority to conduct the checkpoint [as granted in the Memorandum of Authority] did not include authority to suspend the checkpoint when traffic backed-up." Trial Court Opinion, dated 2/4/05, at 3-4. The trial court further explained its logic as follows: "[T]he sobriety checkpoint did not satisfy the Tarbert-Blouse requirements because the question of which vehicles to stop at the checkpoint and which vehicles to allow to proceed through when traffic backed-up [sic] was left to the unfettered discretion of the police officers at the scene. There was no pre[-]fixed administrative decision with objective criteria of when to suspend the sobriety checkpoint to allow traffic to flow through." Id. at 3.

The Commonwealth appealed, pursuant to Pennsylvania Rule of Appellate Procedure 311(d).² The Superior Court affirmed the ruling of the trial court, concluding that the decision to suspend temporarily and then resume the sobriety checkpoint was controlled by the arbitrary and unfettered discretion of the officers at the scene, rather than by established administrative procedures. Commonwealth v. Worthy, 903 A.2d 576, 580 (Pa.Super.2006). The Superior Court advised that "the very decision of how many cars [must be] backed-up [in order to suspend temporarily the checkpoint] should be reserved for prior administrative approval, thus removing the determination from the discretion of the police officers in the field." Id. In sum, in the Superior Court's view, "the Commonwealth failed to establish that there was a pre[-]fixed, objective standard for suspending and resuming the sobriety checkpoint," and therefore the evidence obtained as a result of Appellee's being stopped at the checkpoint was properly suppressed. Id. at 581.³

We granted the Commonwealth's petition for allowance of appeal to address the following issue:

Did the Superior Court and the suppression court err in concluding that suppression was warranted because the written administrative authority for the sobriety checkpoint did not specify when the checkpoint might be temporarily shut down due to traffic back-up?

Commonwealth's Brief at 4.⁴

When the Commonwealth appeals from a suppression order, we consider only the evidence of the defense and the evidence of the Commonwealth that remains uncontradicted when read in the context of the entire record. Commonwealth v. Gaul, 590 Pa. 175, 912 A.2d 252, 254 (2006), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 43, 169 L.Ed.2d 242 (2007). At the suppression hearing in the instant case, the only evidence presented was the testimony of Sergeant Harvey, who testified for the Commonwealth. Sergeant Harvey's testimony was uncontested and uncontradicted. Thus, no relevant facts are in dispute, and the question presented for this Court is purely one of law. Accordingly, our standard of review is de novo. Commonwealth v. Beaman, 583 Pa. 636, 880 A.2d 578, 581 (2005).

Although the stopping of a motor vehicle at a sobriety checkpoint constitutes a seizure for constitutional purposes, such checkpoint stops are not per se unreasonable, and hence are not per se unconstitutional under either the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution or Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.⁵ See Beaman, supra at 581-85 (summarizing the development of decisional law in this area and citing, inter alia, Michigan Department of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444, 110 S.Ct. 2481, 110 L.Ed.2d 412 (1990), and Blouse, supra). In Sitz, the United States Supreme Court concluded that sobriety checkpoints do not offend the Fourth Amendment because they are a reasonable means of advancing a vital public interest, involving only a modest intrusion on the privacy and liberty of motorists. Sitz, supra at 451-55, 110 S.Ct. 2481 (discussed in Beaman, supra at 583). Similarly, we have held that systematic, non-discriminatory, non-arbitrary checkpoints do not offend the Pennsylvania Constitution.⁶ Blouse, supra at 1180; see also Beaman, supra at 585 (explaining Blouse).

In Blouse, we formally adopted guidelines to ensure that checkpoints are carried out in a constitutionally acceptable manner. See Blouse, supra at 1180 (expressly adopting the guidelines set forth in Tarbert, supra). The guidelines adopted are as follows:

The conduct of the roadblock itself can be such that it requires only a momentary stop to allow the police to make a brief but trained observation of a vehicle's driver, without entailing any physical search of...