Com. v. Benjamin, J.

Superior Court of Pennsylvania·Decided January 17, 2023·No. 1456 WDA 2021·Unpublished

Opinion

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF : PENNSYLVANIA

:

v. :

:

:

JONATHAN JEROME BENJAMIN :

:

Appellant : No. 1456 WDA 2021

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered November 1, 2021 In the Court of Common Pleas of Washington County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-63-CR-0001602-2020

BEFORE: PANELLA, P.J., MURRAY, J., and COLINS, J.* MEMORANDUM BY COLINS, J.: FILED: JANUARY 17, 2023 Appellant, Jonathan Jerome Benjamin, appeals from the judgment of sentence imposed following his conviction of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person.1 We affirm.

On July 9, 2020, Officers Jordan Sweany and Timothy Trump of the Washington County Adult Probation and Parole Office (“Probation and Parole Office”) conducted a regular supervisory visit to Appellant’s residence in Donora, Pennsylvania. At the time Appellant was on probation and was subject to weekly visits by the Probation and Parole Office. When the officers approached the home and knocked on the door, Appellant exited and stepped out onto the porch. The officers detected the smell of alcohol on Appellant

* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court. 1 18 Pa.C.S. § 6105(a)(1).

and also observed at least one other person inside the house from the door that had been left ajar. Appellant initially lied by saying that no one else was present in the residence, but eventually two others exited. Officer Sweany then entered Appellant’s residence to conduct a walk-through of the ground floor and discovered a Smith & Wesson semiautomatic rifle in plain view on the staircase. Officer Sweany checked the rifle and discovered that it was loaded with ammunition, although no bullet was in the firing chamber.

Appellant was taken into custody for violations of probation conditions and local police were notified. Appellant was charged with possession of a firearm by a prohibited person by criminal complaint on July 27, 2020. The charge was held over after a September 9, 2020 preliminary hearing, and a bill of information was filed on September 24, 2020. Appellant filed a suppression motion on November 6, 2020. Hearings were held on the motion on January 5 and 21, 2021. On January 28, 2021, the trial court issued an order denying the suppression motion.

The case proceeded to a jury trial, and on July 21, 2021, the jury found Appellant guilty of the above-stated offense. On October 19, 2021, the trial court sentenced Appellant to 50 to 100 months’ imprisonment on the firearms charge. Appellant filed a timely post-sentence motion in which he, inter alia, requested a new trial on the basis that he was not formally arraigned. On November, 1, 2021, the trial court issued a revised sentencing order altering a sentence at another docket that had been addressed in its prior order but leaving the sentence in this case intact. The court then denied Appellant’s

post-sentence motion on November 4, 2021. Appellant thereafter filed this timely appeal.

Appellant raises the following issues on appeal:

I. Did the trial court err in the denial of the motion to suppress following the hearing on January 2[8], 2012?

[II]. Did the trial court err in denying the Appellant’s post-

sentence motion regarding the due process violation committed due to the Appellant not being formally arraigned?

Appellant’s Brief at 5 (unnecessary capitalization omitted).2 Appellant first argues that the trial court erred in denying his suppression motion as the officers of the Probation and Parole Office lacked any recognized basis to conduct the warrantless search of his residence. Appellant asserts that while statutory authority for a warrantless search of an offender’s property by a county probation and parole officer exists under certain circumstances, see 42 Pa.C.S. § 9912, Officer Sweany’s testimony at the suppression hearing did not raise the inference that he had reasonable suspicion that he would find contraband or evidence of a violation of probationary conditions inside the property. In addition, Appellant posits that a search was not permissible as a protective sweep, the theory that the trial

court relied on its order denying the suppression motion, because Officer

2 Appellant raised a third issue in his statement of questions presented section of his brief and in his Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) concise statement concerning an alleged error in the calculation of his prior record score. However, Appellant acknowledged in his brief that the prior record score was correctly calculated based upon his prior South Carolina robbery conviction and withdrew the issue from our consideration. Appellant’s Brief at 21-22.

Sweany did not articulate any specific facts that would justify a reasonable fear for his safety or the safety of others. Rather, Appellant contends that he was cooperative with the officers’ requests and any exigency was created by the officers’ desire to move Appellant indoors.

Our standard of review of a trial court’s ruling on a suppression motion is “whether the factual findings are supported by the record and whether the legal conclusions drawn from those facts are correct.” Commonwealth v. Rosario, 248 A.3d 599, 607 (Pa. Super. 2021) (citation omitted). We are bound by the facts found by the trial court so long as they are supported by the record, but we review its legal conclusions de novo. Id. at 607-08. The trial court has sole authority to pass on the credibility of witnesses and the weight to be given to their testimony. Id. at 608. “Our scope of review is limited to the record developed at the suppression hearing, considering the evidence presented by the Commonwealth as the prevailing party and any uncontradicted evidence presented by the defendant.” Commonwealth v. Kane, 210 A.3d 324, 329 (Pa. Super. 2019) (citation and brackets omitted).

“The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution guarantee the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and possessions from unreasonable searches and seizures.” Commonwealth v. Thomas, 273 A.3d 1190, 1195 (Pa. Super. 2022). “Absent the application of one of a few clearly delineated exceptions, a warrantless search or seizure is presumptively

unreasonable.” Commonwealth v. Whitlock, 69 A.3d 635, 637 (Pa. Super. 2013).

With respect to the rights of probationers, this Court has explained:

The aim of probation and parole is to rehabilitate and reintegrate a lawbreaker into society as a law-abiding citizen. The institution of probation and parole assumes a probationer or parolee is more likely than the ordinary citizen to violate the law. Consequently, probationers and parolees have limited Fourth Amendment rights because of a diminished expectation of privacy.

Commonwealth v. Parker, 152 A.3d 309, 316 (Pa. Super. 2016) (citations omitted). Nevertheless, while probationers and parolees have “a more narrowly protected privacy interest than that afforded a free individual . . . the government’s interest in enforcing the terms of parole and probation cannot entirely displace a [probationer’s] protected privacy rights.” Commonwealth v. Arter, 151 A.3d 149, 167 (Pa. 2016) (citation omitted).

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