In re R.D.

• Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court
• Writing for the Court: BOWES, J.:
• Docket Number: 1749 MDA 2024,J-A15019-25
• Decision Date: 31 December 2025
• Citation: In re R.D., 1749 MDA 2024, J-A15019-25 (Pa. Super. Ct. Dec 31, 2025)
• Parties: IN THE INTEREST OF: R.D., A MINOR APPEAL OF: R.D., A MINOR

1

IN THE INTEREST OF: R.D., A MINOR APPEAL OF: R.D., A MINOR

No. 1749 MDA 2024

No. J-A15019-25

Superior Court of Pennsylvania

December 31, 2025

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

Appeal from the Dispositional Order Entered October 29, 2024 In the Court of Common Pleas of Dauphin County Juvenile Division at No(s): CP-22-JV-0000445-2024.

Benjamin D. Kohler, Esq.

BEFORE: BOWES, J., STABILE, J., and STEVENS P.J.E.^[*]

MEMORANDUM

BOWES J.:

R.D. appeals from the dispositional order following his adjudication of delinquency for acts that would constitute the crimes of carrying a firearm without a license, possession with intent to deliver, possession of a firearm by a minor, and possession of drug paraphernalia. On appeal, he challenges the denial of his motion to suppress. We affirm.

The juvenile court provided the following summary of the underlying facts:

On June 7, 2024, Probation Officer Daniel Kinsinger [("APO Kinsinger")], working with Dauphin County Probation Services' Harrisburg Street Crimes Unit ("SCU"), was riding in the front passenger's seat of an unmarked police car driven by Corporal Jeremy Crist [("Corporal Crist")] of the Harrisburg City Police Department. [APO] Kinsinger and Corporal Crist were working in the area of 6^th and Woodbine Streets, an area of Harrisburg with a history of narcotics arrests, firearms arrests, homicides, and assaults.

At around 3:00 p.m., [APO] Kinsinger and Corporal Crist were traveling eastbound in the 500-block of Woodbine Street when [APO] Kinsinger recognized Appellant walking eastbound towards the corner of 6^th and Woodbine Streets. [On this warm day, Appellant was wearing shorts, sandals, and a hooded sweatshirt. APO] Kinsinger knew at the time that Appellant was on juvenile probation supervision, and based on conversations with other members of the SCU, [APO] Kinsinger was aware that from March to April of 2024, there had been several calls of service involving Appellant. The first call of service, which occurred in late March, involved an incident where Appellant was the victim of a robbery in an alley close to the area of 6^th and Woodbine Streets. In that incident, Appellant was found to be in the possession of a firearm. [APO] Kinsinger also recalled a second call of service, occurring only several days after the previous one, in which Appellant was found to be in possession of a large knife.

Based on the foregoing, [APO] Kinsinger elected to make contact with Appellant and asked Corporal Crist to let him out of the police vehicle. As Appellant was still walking eastbound on Woodbine Street, [APO] Kinsinger got out of the police car, stood on the north side of the sidewalk about [fifteen] or [twenty] feet from Appellant, and called out to Appellant by his first name. Appellant turned around and looked at [APO] Kinsinger but continued to walk eastbound. [APO] Kinsinger then called out Appellant's name a second time. Appellant again turned around and looked at [APO] Kinsinger but continued walking eastbound. [APO] Kinsinger was wearing gear clearly identifying him as a parole officer,^[1] so he began to become suspicious as to why Appellant was ignoring him and walking away from him. [APO] Kinsinger then jogged up to Appellant and grabbed ahold of Appellant's right arm.

Once [APO] Kinsinger had ahold of Appellant's right arm, he began asking him why he did not stop and explained to Appellant that he was a parole officer stopping to make contact with him on the street. Appellant looked at [APO] Kinsinger with a confused stare. While they were conversing, Appellant stuck his left hand into his left pants pocket. [APO] Kinsinger then asked Appellant to keep his hands out of his pockets, but Appellant proceeded to place his hand into his pocket a second time, which raised another red flag for [APO] Kinsinger. As they kept talking, [APO] Kinsinger observed that Appellant's hands and legs were shaking and that Appellant was visibly nervous. Based on these observations,

[APO] Kinsinger asked Appellant if he had anything illegal on him. In response, Appellant asked "why." [APO] Kinsinger repeated his question, and again, Appellant replied by asking "why." At this time, [APO] Kinsinger was under the impression that Appellant was going to have some form of illegal contraband on his person, and [he] placed Appellant's right hand behind his back.

Observing what was transpiring, Corporal Crist, who had parked his car up the block, arrived on the scene and assisted [APO] Kinsinger in handcuffing Appellant. [APO] Kinsinger then lifted the front of Appellant's hooded sweatshirt and revealed a Smith & Wesson 9-millimeter handgun in Appellant's waistband. [APO] Kinsinger removed the firearm, took a magazine out of it, and ejected a round from the firearm's chamber. [APO] Kinsinger then placed the firearm into Corporal Crist's unmarked police vehicle and turned the matter over to Corporal Crist, as it had turned into a criminal investigation.

Knowing that Appellant was only [seventeen] years of age and that he was not old enough to carry the firearm he was carrying, Corporal Crist advised Appellant he was under arrest and began a search of Appellant's person. The search uncovered a digital scale in Appellant's right shorts pocket and a bag of crack cocaine in his left pants pocket. Lab testing by the Pennsylvania State Police established that the cocaine amounted to 7.7 grams, which, according to Corporal Crist, is a significant amount of crack and is more than one would typically carry around for personal use.

Juvenile Court Opinion, 1/24/25, at 2-5 (cleaned up).

In light of the foregoing, the Commonwealth filed a petition for delinquency. Appellant moved to suppress the physical evidence based upon an allegation that APO Kinsinger lacked reasonable suspicion to subject Appellant to an investigative detention. After hearing testimony from APO Kinsinger and Corporal Crist, watching Corporal Crist's bodycam footage,^[2] and considering the arguments of counsel, the court denied Appellant's motion to suppress. Appellant filed a motion for reconsideration, which the court denied at the beginning of the delinquency hearing. The court adjudicated Appellant delinquent of all charges, and at an October 29, 2024 dispositional hearing, ordered him to serve probation.

This timely appeal followed.^[3] The juvenile court ordered a Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) statement, which Appellant timely filed.^[4] The court authored a responsive Rule 1925(a) opinion. Appellant presents the following issues for our consideration:

I. Whether the [juvenile] court erred when it entered an order on September 12, 2024, denying suppression of physical evidence of a loaded 9mm handgun; 7.7 grams of crack cocaine; and a digital scale. Specifically:

a. Whether APO Kinsinger lacked the requisite reasonable suspicion when he conducted an illegal investigative stop (Terry^[5] stop)?

b. Whether APO Kinsinger lacked the requisite reasonable suspicion when he conducted an illegal warrantless seizure, which occurred the moment he grabbed [Appellant]'s right arm?

c. Whether APO Kinsinger lacked the requisite reasonable suspicion when he conducted an illegal warrantless search of [Appellant], the moment he lifted up [Appellant]'s sweatshirt and touched [Appellant]'s waist, which revealed a firearm concealed in [Appellant]'s waistband?

Appellant's brief at 3 (cleaned up).

In his first two issues, Appellant challenges the court's denial of his motion to suppress based upon an allegation that APO Kinsinger lacked the requisite suspicion to initiate an investigatory detention. As such, we conduct our review pursuant to the following legal principles:

An appellate court's standard of review in addressing a challenge to the denial of a suppression motion is 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.

The reviewing court's scope of review is limited to the record evidence from the suppression hearing.

Commonwealth v. Brinkley, 331 A.3d 85, 90-91 (Pa.Super. 2025) (cleaned up).

As a starting point, our analysis of suppression issues depends upon which of the three levels of police interaction is at play:

The first, a mere encounter, does not require any level of suspicion or carry any official compulsion to stop or respond. The second, an investigative detention, permits the temporary detention of an individual if supported by reasonable suspicion. The third is an arrest or custodial detention, which must be supported by probable cause.

Commonwealth v. Lyles, 97 A.3d 298, 302 (Pa. 2014) (cleaned up). We agree with Appellant's assessment that APO Kinsinger subjected Appellant to an investigative detention when he grabbed Appellant's arm. See Appellant's brief at 22; Commonwealth v. Cost 224 A.3d 641, 650 (Pa. 2020) ("[T]he 'free-to-leave' standard presents the central inquiry of whether, considering the totality of...