Com. v. Shareef, H.

CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedJuly 23, 2020
Docket815 WDA 2019
StatusUnpublished

This text of Com. v. Shareef, H. (Com. v. Shareef, H.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Com. v. Shareef, H., (Pa. Ct. App. 2020).

Opinion

J-A12011-20

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF : PENNSYLVANIA : v. : : : HASAN SHAREEF : : Appellant : No. 815 WDA 2019

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered December 20, 2018 In the Court of Common Pleas of Butler County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-10-CR-0001714-2016

BEFORE: KUNSELMAN, J., KING, J., and COLINS, J.*

MEMORANDUM BY COLINS, J.: FILED JULY 23, 2020

Appellant, Hasan Shareef, appeals from the judgment of sentence

following his conviction of possession with intent to deliver a controlled

substance (“PWID”) and persons not to possess a firearm.1 We affirm.

On May 27, 2016, Trooper Brian Palko of the Pennsylvania State Police

executed a search warrant at a three-story residential duplex on East Jefferson

Street in Butler, Pennsylvania, related to Trooper Palko’s investigation of a

burglary of a boat rental business. When Trooper Palko knocked on the door

of the residence to announce the presence of the officers, the unlatched front

door swung open. Trooper Palko and the troopers who accompanied him then

____________________________________________

* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court. 1 35 P.S. § 780-113(a)(30); 18 Pa.C.S. § 6105(a)(1). J-A12011-20

conducted a protective sweep of the first floor of the residence but did not find

anyone present.

While clearing the first floor, Trooper Palko heard glass breaking from

the upper floors of the residence and requested that the individual who was

responsible for the noise come downstairs. When no one came down, Trooper

Palko ascended the steps to the third floor and found Appellant emerging from

a cubby hole with bloody hands from the broken glass. While sweeping the

upstairs area, Trooper Palko observed a handgun in plain view on a ledge,

another handgun sticking out of an open black leather bag behind a couch,

and a glassine bag commonly used in drug trafficking. No one else aside from

Appellant was discovered at the residence.

After securing Appellant, Trooper Palko applied for a second search

warrant related to potential drug activity at the residence. From the black

leather bag where the handgun was found, the troopers recovered multiple

bags of cocaine and heroin, suboxone strips, various pills, drug paraphernalia,

and approximately $6,000 in cash. Trooper Palko later obtained a search

warrant to collect a saliva sample from Appellant for DNA testing, and genetic

material from the two firearms recovered in the residence was determined to

match Appellant’s DNA.

Appellant was charged with persons not to possess a firearm, three

counts of PWID, and other drug charges. Appellant filed an omnibus pre-trial

motion, which sought the suppression of the evidence retrieved from the East

Jefferson Street duplex. On September 21, 2017, the trial court denied this

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motion as untimely. Appellant’s court-appointed counsel then filed an

application to withdraw, which the trial court granted, and Appellant retained

substitute counsel. Appellant’s new counsel then filed motions for leave to file

pre-trial motions and to sever the firearms charge from the remaining

charges. The trial court granted both motions. Appellant’s counsel filed a

suppression motion, which the trial court denied via memorandum opinion and

order on February 7, 2018.

On October 22, 2018, Appellant was found guilty of the firearms offense

after a one-day jury trial. On December 4, 2018, Appellant pleaded guilty to

one count of PWID and the remaining charges were withdrawn. On December

20, 2018, Appellant was sentenced to an aggregate 54-to-108-month term of

incarceration. Appellant then filed the instant appeal.2

On appeal, Appellant raises three issues: (1) whether the search and

seizure of the separate attic room of the East Jefferson Street residence was

2 Appellant first filed a timely post-sentence motion on December 27, 2019. When the trial court failed to rule on the post-sentence motion within 120 days as required by Pa.R.Crim.P. 720(B)(3)(a) and the clerk of courts did not issue an order denying the motion by operation of law as required by Pa.R.Crim.P. 720(B)(3)(c), Appellant filed a notice of appeal on May 30, 2019. Because Appellant’s untimely appeal followed a breakdown in the court system as a result of the clerk of court’s failure to notify him of the denial of his post- sentence motion by operation of law, we will consider his appeal as timely filed. Commonwealth v. Braykovich, 664 A.2d 133, 138 (Pa. Super. 1995). Appellant filed a concise statement of matters complained of on appeal on June 13, 2019. The trial court filed its Pa.R.A.P. 1925(a) opinion on July 29, 2019.

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proper in the absence of a warrant; (2) whether sufficient evidence was

presented that Appellant possessed the firearms found at the residence; and

(3) whether Appellant was denied due process by virtue of the fact that the

trial court did not order the jail where Appellant was being held to return

certain legal papers to him in advance of trial.3

We first review Appellant’s claim that the trial court erred in denying his

suppression motion. 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. Duke, 208 A.3d 465, 469 (Pa. Super. 2019) (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.

Commonwealth v. Kane, 210 A.3d 324, 329 (Pa. Super. 2019). The trial

court has sole authority as fact-finder to pass on the credibility of witnesses

and the weight to be given to their testimony. Duke, 208 A.3d at 470. “Our

scope of review is limited to the record developed at the suppression hearing,

considering the evidence presented by the Commonwealth as the prevailing

3 Appellant’s brief does not contain a statement of the questions involved in his appeal as required by the Rules of Appellate Procedure. Pa.R.A.P. 2111(a)(4); Pa.R.A.P. 2116(a). However, because this defect in the brief does not impede our ability to discern and address the three issues Appellant seeks to raise, we decline to find waiver on this basis. Werner v. Werner, 149 A.3d 338, 341 (Pa. Super. 2016). We have summarized the appellate issues from the summary of the argument section of his brief and the headings within the argument section of the brief. See Appellant’s Brief at 3-4, 10-11.

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party and any uncontradicted evidence presented by the defendant.” Kane,

210 A.3d at 329 (citation and brackets omitted).

On appeal, Appellant challenges the initial search warrant issued for the

search of the East Jefferson Street residence, contending that it only related

to the items taken during the burglary of the boat rental business and did not

state that the officers could search the attic room where he was found.

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Com. v. Shareef, H., Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/com-v-shareef-h-pasuperct-2020.