Commonwealth v. Gatlos

• Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court
• Writing for the Court: OPINION BY OLSON
• Citation: 76 A.3d 44,2013 PA Super 252
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee v. Danielle Dickson GATLOS, Appellant.
• Decision Date: 10 September 2013

76 A.3d 44
2013 PA Super 252

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee
v.
Danielle Dickson GATLOS, Appellant.

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Submitted Feb. 25, 2013.
Filed Sept. 10, 2013.

[76 A.3d 47]

Coley O. Reynolds, Philadelphia, for appellant.

Nicholas J. Casenta, Jr., Assistant District Attorney, West Chester, for Commonwealth, appellee.

BEFORE: LAZARUS, OLSON AND FITZGERALD,^* JJ.

OPINION BY OLSON, J.:

Appellant, Danielle Dickson Gatlos, appeals from the judgment of sentence entered June 4, 2012, committing her to an aggregate sentence of eight to 23 months' incarceration followed by three years' probation for convictions of driving under the influence (“DUI”) of alcohol or controlled substance, ¹ aggravated assault by vehicle while DUI,² four counts of recklessly endangering another person,³ possession of a

[76 A.3d 48]

small amount of a controlled substance (marijuana),⁴ careless driving, ⁵ and reckless driving.⁶ For the following reasons, we affirm.

The trial court set forth the relevant factual and procedural background of this matter as follows:

On Friday, March 12, 2010, at about 8:30 p.m., twenty-one year old Alejandro Bernard was driving north on Route 1 in Chester County from Oxford toward Kennett Square, Pennsylvania when [Appellant's] car, heading south on Route 1, struck another southbound car, then crossed the median and hit Mr. Bernard's vehicle on the side. [Appellant] and Mr. Bernard were each driving alone. There was a light rain and Mr. Bernard was driving 55 mph. He remained conscious and remembers that “the car ended up to the side to a dirt embankment, and then the medics got there and I got out of the car and I could not breathe.” He got out of his vehicle but he could not walk. Mr. Bernard was taken by ambulance to a hospital in Christiana, Delaware, where he remained for three days. He had two broken ribs, a cut in his spleen and a cut on his arm. He went to therapy for about four months. At the preliminary hearing he was still not back to normal. He still feels pain. Four vehicles were involved in the crash and there were five or six officers at the scene.

Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Katherine Miller of Troop J, Avondale, had been employed by Troop J for four months at the time of the crash. She had to do the crash reports and investigation. Her job that night was to determine the injuries sustained by the people involved and try to figure out what had happened. Because [Appellant] was nonresponsive and was being transported to a hospital, they needed to identify her right away. Trooper Miller and Trooper Martin went into [Appellant's] vehicle looking for her license. They also attempted to find her insurance information. The inside of her vehicle looked destroyed. The air bag had deployed and belongings were throughout the inside of the car. Neither item was in the glove compartment.

Trooper Martin found [Appellant's] purse inside the vehicle. Inside of the purse they found her driver's license. While looking in the purse for the license, they found an empty cigar box and a box of cigars that was missing one cigar. The purse was secured by the troopers to make sure [Appellant's] belongings were safe. They did not go through the other three vehicles because two of the drivers were on scene and able to provide identification and secure their vehicles. Mr. Bernard had called friends who arrived immediately, provided information and secured his vehicle.

Trooper Scott Endey of the Pennsylvania State Police Troop J Avondale Barracks assisted Trooper Miller with the vehicle accident investigation. He was sent by Corporal Steven Ranck to Christiana Medical Center[, in Christiana, Delaware,] to interview two of the operators that were involved in the crash. He arrived at the hospital around 10:30 p.m. and interviewed both Mr. Bernard and [Appellant]. [Appellant] was in a hospital room, lying in bed, wearing a neck brace.

Trooper Endey told [Appellant] that he was a member of the state police and was there to ask her questions about the

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accident. He asked her if she was willing to answer questions. She replied yes, and said she was in the left lane, driving southbound on Route 1. As she passed a large vehicle she thought she was struck on the right side of her vehicle by the other vehicle and then recalled waking up in the hospital bed.

He asked her if she had cigars in the car and she said yes. He asked what she was going to use them for and she said some of her friends smoke and she had them for her friends. She was planning to meet them later in the evening and they were going to smoke the cigars. He asked if the cigars were used for smoking tobacco or smoking marijuana, to which she did not reply. When asked if she had ever smoked marijuana, she replied yes, but it had been approximately three weeks earlier.

The trooper asked [Appellant] if she would voluntarily submit to a blood test. He told her she was not under arrest. At first she agreed and she and her mother looked over the paperwork for the voluntary consent. She then decided that she would not volunteer to a blood draw. Trooper Endey confirmed that [Appellant] would not voluntarily give a blood sample. [Appellant] was 19 or 20 years old. The trooper did not ask the hospital to draw blood for any purpose other than ordinary medical purposes. The hospital personnel told him that they would keep the records for 72 hours.

Brian Chew, owner and operator of Chew Towing in Oxford, Pennsylvania, responded to the crash scene on March 12, 2010. Trooper Miller ordered that [Appellant's] car and the other three vehicles be held at Chew's Towing. It was protocol to hold [Appellant's] vehicle in case it was involved in a fatality, which concerned them because of Mr. Bernard's condition at the scene. He towed the four vehicles involved in the crash to his property in Oxford. The property has two buildings and a barrier around it with a gate. He secured [Appellant's] inoperable 2007 Ford Fusion behind the fenced gate. He said it was being stored there for the insurance company. Trooper Katherine Miller testified that she told him that she would come out to take pictures of all four vehicles and make sure she had all insurance information for all of the investigations.

Trooper Miller first testified that on the Monday after the accident she went to Chew's to take pictures of all vehicles and to get insurance information from all vehicles. She wanted to look for an insurance card in [Appellant's] vehicle. She said another driver had been calling asking for [Appellant's] insurance. She testified at the second hearing date that she was also looking for the registration card. Trooper Miller interviewed [Appellant] by telephone on March 13, or 14, 2010. At the time she did not ask her for her insurance information.⁷ At that time she did not ask for her consent to search her car. She did not have [Appellant's] permission to search the vehicle for the insurance information.

Mr. Chew accompanied Trooper Miller to the vehicle. He testified that she told him she was there to look for an insurance card; she never told him she was there to do an inventory. He opened the door to assist her. It was not until she entered the vehicle and started looking for paperwork that Mr. Chew noticed

[76 A.3d 50]

something brown in shape which appeared to be a cigar on the passenger floor board. He noticed it as he stood outside the passenger door, which he had opened. He could have seen it through the window. When he saw the cigar he pointed it out to Trooper Miller and picked it up for her. Trooper Miller transported it back to the station where a field test tested positive for the presence of marijuana. It was then [sent] to Lima Lab. The lab test reflected, “The cigar butt ... was found to contain marijuana ... net weight of thirty-one hundredths (0.31) of a gram.”

Trooper Miller called the hospital after visiting Chew's, spoke with someone in the lab, and asked if there were blood samples from [Appellant]. They said yes, it was standard. She told them she was attempting to get a search warrant and asked how long samples are held, to which they indicated 72 hours. She asked them to put [Appellant's] blood samples aside for her in order to obtain it through a search warrant. They agreed. She called back every day or so to make sure they still had the blood samples.

Trooper Miller prepared an application for a search warrant and signed it on March 16, 2010. She called the Chester County District Attorney's office and on-call Assistant District Attorney Donna Murphy approved the search warrant application. The search warrant application was never submitted to a magistrate or judge to determine whether probable cause existed.

Trooper Miller then called the Delaware State Police and asked for the protocol to obtain blood and medical records from Christiana Hospital. She was referred to the Attorney General's Office in Delaware. There, she spoke to a few different people and ultimately called the Delaware State Police again. They then gave her the name of Attorney General Karin Volker. She e-mailed Ms. Volker trying to obtain the proper paperwork to get the medical records and blood samples from the hospital. She forwarded to Ms. Volker a copy of the draft search warrant. After several communications with Ms. Volker, Trooper Miller received an e-mail or phone call from Robin Quillen with the Delaware Attorney General's office. Ms. Quillen explained that the paperwork was complete and asked her to meet her at the hospital on a specific day. It was about ten days after the crash. Ms. Quillen and Trooper Miller went to the hospital lab where Ms. Quillen gave the trooper the paperwork that was prepared by the Attorney General's office, which was a subpoena with the trooper's search warrant application attached to it. The paperwork was shown to the hospital personnel and they then turned over the blood samples. Trooper Miller left the hospital with...