Commonwealth v. Wilkerson
| Decision Date | 26 October 2021 |
| Docket Number | 883 EDA 2020,J-S18006-21 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA v. JAQUAN WILKERSON Appellant |
| Court | Pennsylvania Superior Court |
A jury convicted Jaquan Wilkerson of one count of involuntary manslaughter and three counts of recklessly endangering another person arising from the shooting death of Robert Colter, III. In the early stages of the investigation, police interrogated Wilkerson, who was 17 years old at the time, and ultimately let him leave with his father. The trial court suppressed the first seven minutes, 45 seconds of the interrogation, finding that the police had failed to properly advise Wilkerson of his rights. On appeal, Wilkerson argues the court erred, however, in refusing to suppress his later identification of his phone number and consent to search the contents of his mobile phone. Wilkerson also challenges the discretionary aspects of his sentence. We affirm.
In the early evening of February 16, 2016, Robert Colter, III was gunned down while standing outside of his home in Bristol Borough, Pennsylvania. Witnesses described two masked shooters who fired a total of at least six shots at Colter. One of these shots hit Colter in the head, ultimately leading to his death. Witnesses noted that a red car was seen driving quickly away shortly after the shooting.
Less than a month later, Bristol Borough police received a complaint from Colter's family. Three young men were repeatedly driving by their home and holding their hands to resemble guns. The Colters gave a description of the vehicle involved, which led police to a vehicle being driven by Wilkerson on March 9, 2016.
Detective William Davis pulled behind Wilkerson's vehicle and activated his blue warning lights. He parked his police vehicle at an angle that would have prevented Wilkerson from leaving by reversing his vehicle, but did not otherwise block Wilkerson's path.
As he approached the vehicle, Detective Davis drew his firearm, but kept it at his side and not pointed at Wilkerson's vehicle or its occupants. Detective Davis directed the occupants to show their hands to him. After the occupants complied, Detective Davis re-holstered his weapon.
A crowd gathered around Wilkerson's car, and Detective Davis became concerned about safety. He suggested that Wilkerson accompany him to the police station to discuss the Colters' complaint. Wilkerson was driven by police to the station, where his mobile phone was taken from him and placed in a bin at the station. Wilkerson was then placed in an interrogation room. He was left there for at least five hours until Detective David Hanks, who oversaw the investigation of Colter's death, arrived.
Wilkerson's father, Darius Wilkerson, was informed that his son was being questioned and subsequently arrived at the station. However he was not permitted to speak with his son until the interview began.
The interview began at 9:47 p.m. After seven minutes, 45 seconds, Detective Davis informed Wilkerson that he was not under arrest and that he was free to leave if he so desired. Darius Wilkerson replied that he wished to clear his son's name and the interview continued. At approximately 10:28 p.m., Detective Hanks suggested a break in the interview.
The interview resumed at 10:42, with police asking Wilkerson for a DNA sample. Darius Wilkerson refused the sample, explaining that he wished to speak to an attorney before agreeing to doing so. Also, during the interview, Wilkerson provided police with number to his mobile phone. See Trial Court Opinion, 11/6/2020, at 18; see also N.T., 4/22/2019 (A.M.), at 20. The interview concluded at 10:59, and as Wilkerson and his father were leaving the room, the police asked if Wilkerson would consent to a search of his mobile phone. Darius Wilkerson voiced no objection, and Wilkerson signed a consent to the search of his phone.
Eventually, Detective Hanks's investigation led to Rodney Beaty, who told the detective an inculpatory story of the night of the shooting.[1] Beaty admitted that he and his cousin, Dwayne Lynch, had been involved with the shooting. Dwayne lived with his mother in Winder Village.
Beaty eventually revealed that earlier in the day of the shooting, he and Dwayne Lynch were driving around in Lynch's mother's red Chevrolet Sonic, drinking, smoking marijuana, and dealing heroin and cocaine. At some point, Wilkerson contacted Beaty through Facebook Messenger, asking to be picked up at a 7-11 in Croydon, Pennsylvania.
After Beaty and Lynch picked up Wilkerson, Wilkerson indicated that he wanted to rob Derron Thompson, another local drug dealer. When they passed Thompson on the street, Beaty parked the car nearby and waited while Lynch and Wilkerson armed themselves with firearms. Lynch and Wilkerson covered their faces and walked towards where they believed Thompson to be. Beaty heard multiple gunshots, and then Lynch and Wilkerson returned to the car in a panic, yelling at Beaty to leave quickly. As they drove away, Wilkerson said, "I think we dropped one." N.T., 4/25/2019 (A.M.), at 28.
Detective Hanks checked Beaty's story against the historical cell site location data provided by the mobile phone carrier. The location data for Wilkerson's and Lynch's phones on the night of the shooting corresponded closely to the story told by Beaty.[2]
As noted previously, the trial court suppressed the first seven minutes and forty-five seconds of Wilkerson's interrogation. However, it found that Wilkerson's statement acknowledging his phone number, as well as his consent to search his mobile phone, were admissible.
On appeal, Wilkerson contends this was error. Our Court's standard of review for a suppression issue is deferential to the suppression court's findings of fact, but not its conclusions of law:
[We are] limited to determining whether the suppression court's factual findings are supported by the record and whether the legal conclusions drawn from those facts are correct. Because the Commonwealth prevailed before the suppression court, we may consider only the evidence of the Commonwealth and so much of the evidence for the defense as remains uncontradicted when read in the context of the record as a whole. Where the suppression court's factual findings are supported by the record, the appellate court is bound by those findings and may reverse only if the court's legal conclusions are erroneous. Where ... the appeal of the determination of the suppression court turns on allegations of legal error, the suppression court's legal conclusions are not binding on an appellate court, whose duty it is to determine if the suppression court properly applied the law to the facts. Thus, the conclusions of law of the courts below are subject to plenary review.
Commonwealth v. Smith, 164 A.3d 1255, 1257 (Pa. Super. 2017) (internal citations omitted).
Here, Wilkerson identifies two separate suppression issues in his "Statement of Questions Presented." See Appellant's Brief, at 8. However, in his argument section, Wilkerson states both claims "can be combined into a single argument as the resulting search of [Wilkerson]'s phone and cell data naturally flows from the initial [Wilkerson] statement and consent from March 9, 2016." Id., at 19. Accordingly, our analysis will reflect this merged argument.
Wilkerson contends that the court erred in failing to suppress the search of his phone because it was the product of an unlawful seizure. See Appellant's Brief, at 21. Initially, it merits mentioning that Wilkerson repeatedly highlights the fact that the trial court suppressed the first seven minutes and forty-five seconds of his March 9, 2016 statement to police. See id., at 19, 22. This is an underlying tone of his argument - the court suppressed part of his statement and consequently, the search should be invalidated. He specifically takes issue with four findings made by the trial court to support its conclusion: (1) Wilkerson's detention; (2) the validity of his consent; (3) inevitable discovery; and (4) the March 22nd order and the July 11th search warrant. Based on the nature of claims, we address the first two findings together.
As to the detention, Wilkerson asserts that based on the totality of the circumstances, any reasonable person in his position at the time of his detention would have believed that his freedom was restricted.[3] Wilkerson avers that Detective Davis did not possess probable cause or reasonable suspicion when he seized and detained Wilkerson and the detective's actions were "solely" based on a hunch that Wilkerson was involved in the shooting. Id., at 22. Wilkerson further maintains that if the encounter was reasonable, he would not have been patted down with the officer's gun drawn and placed in a police vehicle. Instead, he would have been permitted to drive himself to the police station, and his phone would not have been immediately seized and detained by the police. See id.
As for his consent, Wilkerson argues that his permission to search the phone was not valid where he was detained for over five hours until the police questioned him about the murder. Further, he claims his "phone was never going to be returned until he consented to its search." Id., at 23. Wilkerson also complains that the evidence produced from his consent of the phone ¶owed from the purportedly improper detention, stating that he "lost all of his freedom when Detective Davis parked behind him and activated his warning lights[.]" Id. He maintains...
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