In the Int. of: H.C., a Minor

• Court: Superior Court of Pennsylvania
• Decided: March 13, 2025
• Docket: 672 MDA 2024
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

J-S45032-24

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

IN THE INTEREST OF: H.C., A MINOR : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF : PENNSYLVANIA : APPEAL OF: THE COMMONWEALTH : OF PENNSYLVANIA : : : : : No. 672 MDA 2024

Appeal from the Order Entered May 9, 2024 In the Court of Common Pleas of Lycoming County Juvenile Division at No(s): CP-41-JV-0000035-2024

BEFORE: OLSON, J., DUBOW, J., and McLAUGHLIN, J.

MEMORANDUM BY McLAUGHLIN, J.: FILED: MARCH 13, 2025

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania appeals from the order granting

H.C.’s motion to suppress and dismissing the Commonwealth’s delinquency

petition. The Commonwealth argues the court erred in concluding the police

lacked reasonable suspicion to stop H.C. We reverse.

The Commonwealth filed a petition alleging H.C., a minor, was

delinquent for committing the offenses of defiant trespass and evading arrest

or detention on foot.1 H.C. filed a motion to suppress.

At a hearing, Sergeant Brian McGee testified that while on routine patrol,

he turned into a Conoco Gas Station. N.T., 4/25/24, at 3. He noticed two

people, one of which was H.C., walking to the front of the store. Id. They were

both “wearing balaclava style masks covering their face, wearing sweatshirts,

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1 See, respectively, 18 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 3503(b)(1)(iii) and 5104.2(a). J-S45032-24

dark-colored clothing, and one individual had his hands tucked into the front

of his pants as if he was holding something.” Id. Sergeant McGee agreed that

it was winter, and “an individual wearing a sweatshirt in the winter would

make sense[.]” Id. at 12. However, he said that “the temperature of the day

was high 40s, into the 50s, and there was absolutely no reason to keep wind

off your face or keep yourself warm at that point.” Id. at 4.

Sergeant McGee testified that H.C. was “very interested in where I was

going and what I was doing and the direction of my travel.” Id. at 3. H.C.

dropped a cell phone, possibly two, and continued walking. Id. at 12, 14.

Sergeant McGee confronted him, saying, “You’re so interested in what I’m

doing and where I’m going that you dropped a cell phone and you didn’t even

recognize that you dropped a cell phone.” Id. at 3. H.C. picked up the cell

phone and thanked Sergeant McGee, while the other person walked to the

front of the store. Id. at 3-4. H.C. and the other person spoke to each other,

and began walking east on High Street, away from the store. Id. at 4.

Sergeant McGee decided to follow them because he believed “they were

wearing the masks strictly to hide their identity” and they “redirected their

path of travel upon seeing” him. Id. at 4. Sergeant McGee also testified that

there had recently been a robbery of a nearby Uni-Mart, and the description

of the perpetrator “was a younger or juvenile-aged male wearing dark

clothing.” Id. at 5.

Sergeant McGee drove south and then circled back to High Street,

emerging one block further east, where he believed H.C. and his companion

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would then be walking. Id. at 5-6. Sergeant McGee testified he did not see

H.C. or the other person, and so he crossed High Street and headed north.

Id. at 6. Sergeant McGee encountered an unidentified person who “informed

[him] of two individuals in the alley way just south of [their] location.” Id. at

7. Sergeant McGee traveled south again and turned west onto Monroe Place,

where he found H.C. and the other person walking west on the sidewalk. Id.

at 6, 13. Sergeant McGee spoke with them, and then decided to stop them.

Id. at 8. H.C. fled.

The juvenile court found the police did not have reasonable suspicion to

stop H.C. See Order, filed May 9, 2024, at 2.2 It noted that Sergeant McGee

had not decided to stop H.C. when he began walking away from the Conoco

store, and that when he did order him to stop, H.C. was “merely walking down

the street.” Id. It also considered that Sergeant McGee had not observed any

weapons or contraband. Id. It concluded Sergeant McGee had stopped H.C.

“simply for walking down the street after being informed by a citizen that they

were observed walking through a nearby alley[.]” Id.3 The court also

concluded that because H.C.’s ensuing flight and trespass were the result of

an illegal stop, the Commonwealth lacked probable cause to support the

charges. The court granted H.C.’s motion to suppress and dismissed the

Commonwealth’s delinquency petition. ____________________________________________

2 The order is dated April 30, 2024.

3 The court relies on this order to satisfy Pa.R.A.P. 1925(a). See Trial Court

Opinion, 7/19/24, at 3.

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The Commonwealth appealed. It raises one issue: “Whether the trial

court erred as a matter of law in determining that there was not reasonable

suspicion for the initial police stop of the juvenile.” Commonwealth’s Br. at 6.

The Commonwealth argues the police reasonably suspected that H.C.

and the other juvenile “were planning to rob a convenience store.” Id. at 20.

It points out that the juveniles “were dressed as if they were trying to conceal

their identities”; “decided not to enter the store only after spotting the police

officer and subsequently walked off in the opposite direction”; and were each

“carrying a bag capable of concealing a handgun.” Id. Additionally, one of the

juveniles “had his hand tucked down the front of his pants with an item in his

waist area, consistent with a person concealing a firearm.” Id. Furthermore,

“[a]fter turning and walking east, [the juveniles] later turned back and started

walking west, which the officer reasonably inferred to be an effort to elude the

police.” Id. The Commonwealth likens these facts to those in Terry v. Ohio,

392 U.S. 1, 5-8 (1968), where the United States Supreme Court found

reasonable suspicion based on a police officer’s suspicion that the defendant

and two other people, who were pacing and peering in store windows, were

casing a robbery. H.C. has not filed an appellee’s brief.

On review of an order granting a defendant’s motion to suppress, we

consider the suppression record to determine whether the Commonwealth

carried its burden to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the

challenged evidence was not obtained in violation of the defendant’s rights.

Commonwealth v. Barnes, 296 A.3d 52, 55 (Pa.Super. 2023). “[W]e are

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bound by that court’s factual findings to the extent that they are supported

by the record, and we consider only the evidence offered by the defendant,

as well as any portion of the Commonwealth’s evidence which remains

uncontradicted, when read in the context of the entire record.” Id. (citation

omitted). However, we are not bound by the trial court’s legal conclusions,

which we review de novo. Id.

To justify an investigatory detention, police must be “able to point to

specific and articulable facts leading him to suspect criminal activity is afoot.”

Commonwealth v. Butler, 194 A.3d 145, 148 (Pa.Super. 2018) (internal

quotation marks and citation omitted). “Reasonable suspicion is a less

demanding standard than probable cause[.]” Id. (citation omitted). The

reasonable suspicion inquiry requires a review of the totality of the

circumstances and the inferences derived therefrom, given the police officer’s

training and experience. Id. “[A] combination of innocent facts, when taken

together, may warrant further investigation by the police officer.”

Commonwealth v. Garcia, 311 A.3d 1138, 1145 (Pa.Super. 2024) (citation

omitted), appeal denied, No. 223 WAL 2024, 2025 WL 99507 (Pa. Jan. 15,

2025).

For example, unprovoked flight from the police, alone, does not give

rise to reasonable suspicion. However, if the flight occurs in a high-crime area,

these facts combined may support an investigatory stop. See Barnes, 296

A.3d at 59; see also Commonwealth v. Mayo, 496 A.2d 824, 826

(Pa.Super. 1985) (“Though flight alone will not justify a stop . . . a combination

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of circumstances, none of which taken alone would justify a stop, may be

sufficient”) (citation omitted). Our Court has repeatedly found reasonable

suspicion where a suspect retreated from or attempted to evade the police

after engaging in other suspicious activity. See, e.g., Commonwealth v.

Dix, 207 A.3d 383, 389 (Pa.Super. 2019) (finding reasonable suspicion where

defendant put something in his waistband and began walking to corner store,

but retreated and placed item back in truck once he saw the police);

Commonwealth v. Carter, 105 A.3d 765, 774-75 (Pa.Super. 2014) (en

banc) (finding reasonable suspicion where defendant was in a high-crime area,

had a “weighted and angled bulge in his coat pocket,” walked away when he

saw the police, and turned his body “at least three times, to conceal the

bulge”).

We have also considered the wearing of face coverings to be relevant to

the reasonable suspicion analysis, particularly where it is not warranted by

the weather. See Mayo, 496 A.2d at 826 (finding police had reasonable

suspicion where three men had been seen earlier putting on ski masks outside

of a bank, the police found three men wearing ski masks less than a mile away

from the bank, and the men drove away when the police approached, with the

two passengers ducking from view).4 ____________________________________________

4 See also Commonwealth v. Campbell, 319 A.3d 3, *5 (Pa.Super. 2024)

(unpublished mem.) (finding reasonable suspicion where defendant was wearing overcoat, camouflage pants and ski mask in 66-degree weather, defendant retreated when he saw the police, and defendant attempted to conceal his body by walking behind a car and walking with his body angled when the police approached).

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Here, Sergeant McGee testified that he suspected H.C. was engaged in

criminal activity because he was wearing dark clothing, and a different store

in the neighborhood had recently been robbed by a juvenile wearing dark

clothing; H.C. had his face covered, which the sergeant found was not justified

by the weather, and from which the sergeant inferred H.C. was attempting to

conceal his identity; he was watching the sergeant’s movements; he and his

companion did not enter the Conoco, which the sergeant attributed to his own

arrival; H.C. and his companion crossed High Street and started walking west

down an alley after Sergeant McGee had been following them east and had

turned south to circle the block.

Therefore, the court’s finding that H.C. had been “merely walking down

the street” is not supported by the record. Rather, the uncontradicted

evidence was that, while wearing a balaclava in temperate weather, H.C.

approached a store; left after he saw the police, without having entered the

store; and then altered his course of travel to evade the police. Sergeant

McGee had reasonable suspicion to stop H.C. and investigate. See Carter,

105 A.3d at 775.

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Order reversed. Case remanded. Jurisdiction relinquished.

Judgment Entered.

Benjamin D. Kohler, Esq. Prothonotary

Date: 3/13/2025

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