Commonwealth v. Richardson

664 A.2d 1042, 445 Pa. Super. 129, 1995 Pa. Super. LEXIS 2727
CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedSeptember 8, 1995
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 664 A.2d 1042 (Commonwealth v. Richardson) 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
Commonwealth v. Richardson, 664 A.2d 1042, 445 Pa. Super. 129, 1995 Pa. Super. LEXIS 2727 (Pa. Ct. App. 1995).

Opinion

McEWEN, Judge:

Anthony Richardson (hereinafter appellant) has taken this appeal from the judgment of sentence to serve a total term of imprisonment of from 51 months to 102 months, imposed after a jury found him guilty of the offense of possession with intent to distribute cocaine. Appellant argues that the trial court erred when it denied his petition to suppress the contraband discovered after a search was conducted by his supervising parole officer. We are compelled to conclude that the evidence should have been suppressed.

Appellant was released on parole under the supervision of Parole Agent Steven Kiss-ner on January 10, 1992. Six months later, on July 24, 1992, appellant was declared delinquent as a result of his failure to report to Agent Kissner as required under the terms of his parole. While a warrant was issued at that time for his arrest, it was not until three months later, on October 17,1992, that Agent Kissner received information from the Pennsylvania State Police that appellant was staying at the Budgetel Motel in Lower Paxton Township. When Agent Kissner contacted the Lower Paxton Township Police Depart[1043]*1043ment, he was informed that Detective Johnson had also received information that appellant was registered at the Budgetel Motel under the alias, Anthony Moore. After confirming that appellant was in the Budgetel Motel, Agent Kissner and the Lower Paxton Township Police assisted the Dauphin County Quick Response Team in the arrest of appellant in his room at the motel. Immediately after the arrest of appellant, Agent Kissner conducted a search of the room, and observed, in plain view on the counter in the room, money, a pager, and some handwritten addresses. The agent also testified that, during his search, he found a plain brown paper bag containing seven bags of cocaine in a trash can under a desk.

After the motion to suppress the cocaine was denied, a jury, on January 11, 1994, found appellant guilty of possession with intent to deliver cocaine.

The sole issue presented by appellant in this direct appeal is whether the trial court erred when it denied his motion to suppress the 38.7 grams of cocaine found by the parole agent when he searched the motel room occupied by appellant. Two procedures compose our task as an appellate tribunal charged with a review of an order denying a motion to suppress the evidence. We must first determine whether the findings of fact of the suppression court are supported by the record, for we are bound by those findings of fact if a sound evidentiary basis for the findings exists in the record. As we do so, we must consider the evidence presented by the prosecution, and only so much of the evidence presented by the accused as remains uncontradicted by the record as a whole. Once we determine that there is a sound evidentiary basis for the factual findings of the suppression court, we proceed to the second step of a study of the legitimacy of the inferences and legal conclusions drawn by the court from those findings of fact, for we may only reverse at this stage if there is an error of law. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court reiterated these principles when it stated:

When we review the ruling of a suppression court, we must determine whether its factual findings are supported by the record. Where the defendant challenges an adverse ruling of the suppression court, we will consider only the evidence for the prosecution and whatever evidence for the defense which is uncontradicted on the record as a whole; if there is support on the record, we are bound by the facts as found by the suppression court, and we may reverse that court only if the legal conclusions drawn from these facts are erroneous. Commonwealth v. D’Amato, 514 Pa. 471, 482, 526 A.2d 300, 305 (1987). Moreover, even if the suppression court did err in its legal conclusions, the reviewing court may nevertheless affirm its decision where there are other legitimate grounds for admissibility of the challenged evidence. Commonwealth v. Dancer, 460 Pa. 95, 100 n. 5, 331 A.2d 435, 438 n. 5 (1975).

Commonwealth v. O’Shea, 523 Pa. 384, 394, 567 A.2d 1023, 1028 (1989), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 881, 111 S.Ct. 225, 112 L.Ed.2d 180 (1990). See also: Commonwealth v. Campbell, 418 Pa.Super. 391, 396-397, 614 A.2d 692, 695-696 (1992), allo. denied, 535 Pa. 630, 631 A.2d 1003 (1993).

This appeal implicates, of course, the nature of the restrictions of the Fourth Amendment upon a parole officer, an issue which has been the subject of rather recent appellate scrutiny. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 1993, in its examination of a war-rantless search conducted by parole agents who were not accompanied by police, applied the rationale of the United States Supreme Court in Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 107 S.Ct. 3164, 97 L.Ed.2d 709 (1987), and held:

[T]hat the fourth amendment [to the United States Constitution] prohibits the war-rantless search of probationer’s or parolee’s residences based upon reasonable suspicion without the consent of the owner or without a statutory or regulatory framework governing the search. We do so because we recognize that there are no safeguards to protect the limited fourth amendment rights of probationers and parolees if their supervision is left entirely to the discretion of individual parole officers. In the traditional fourth amendment case, the warrant requirement based upon prob[1044]*1044able cause and issued by a neutral and detached magistrate guarantees the protection of a citizen’s constitutional rights. Similarly, in the context of a probationer or parolee’s limited fourth amendment rights, some systemic procedural safeguards must be in place to guarantee those limited fourth amendment rights. In the absence of any statutory or regulatory framework, or an agreement explicitly setting out the rights of the defendant and the authority of the state to supervise the defendant, we are constrained to conclude that the actions of these parole officers violated the fourth amendment.

Commonwealth v. Pickron, 535 Pa. 241, 248, 634 A.2d 1093, 1098 (1993) (footnote omitted).

Thus, the Court, after reiterating that parole agents cannot act like “stalking horses” for the police, ruled that reasonable suspicion is not a sufficient basis for a parole agent to conduct a warrantless search, in the absence of (1) the consent of the owner, or (2) a statutory or regulatory framework which satisfies the “reasonableness” requirement of the Fourth Amendment.1

The Commonwealth contends that the warrantless search in the instant case met the Pickron test because appellant had consented to the search as a condition of his parole when he signed Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole form PBPP-11 (Rev. 7/91) which is entitled “Conditions of Parole/Reparole” and, in relevant part, states:

I expressly consent to the search of my person, property and residence, without a warrant by agents of the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Commonwealth v. Van Rice
721 A.2d 1119 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 1998)
Scott v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation & Parole
668 A.2d 590 (Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, 1995)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
664 A.2d 1042, 445 Pa. Super. 129, 1995 Pa. Super. LEXIS 2727, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-richardson-pasuperct-1995.