In the Int. of: S.M., a Minor

Opinion

J-A25011-25

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

IN THE INTEREST OF: S.M., A MINOR : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF : PENNSYLVANIA : APPEAL OF: COMMONWEALTH OF : PENNSYLVANIA : : : : : No. 1572 EDA 2025

Appeal from the Order Entered May 30, 2025 In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Juvenile Division at No(s): CP-51-JV-0000965-2024

BEFORE: LAZARUS, P.J., BOWES, J., and FORD ELLIOTT, P.J.E.*

MEMORANDUM BY BOWES, J.: FILED DECEMBER 3, 2025

The Commonwealth appeals from the order granting the suppression

motion filed by S.M. We reverse and remand for further proceedings

consistent with this memorandum.

The juvenile court supplied the following factual background:

On June 26, 2024, at approximately 7:00 p.m., Officer Kevin Creely, a [twenty-two]-year veteran of the Philadelphia Police Department assigned to the 24th Police District, was conducting surveillance via [Real Time Crime Camera (“RTCC”)1] at the 700 block of East Willard Street, an area known for its open-air [illegal] drug market. Officer Creely observed S.M., wearing a white T- shirt and gray pants, interact with two individuals: a white male later identified as Spencer Craven and another male in a gray shirt and white hat. S.M. approached them, crossed to a black SUV, ____________________________________________

* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.

1 RTCC technology allows police to mount a camera in a designated area and

watch from a remote location the audio and video captured by the camera, in real time. The camera is not hidden. J-A25011-25

and motioned for them to follow. Both individuals went behind the SUV with S.M., bent down out of the camera’s view, and then dispersed, with Craven heading westbound on Willard Street.

Based on his experience, Officer Creely believed these actions were consistent with narcotics transactions. He stopped Craven, who admitted to possessing narcotics purchased from S.M., and officers recovered a zip-lock packet with a blue wax insert stamped “Pinocchio” containing a powdery substance, alleged to be heroin or fentanyl. . . .

Approximately five to ten minutes later, at 7:13 p.m., Officer Creely observed S.M. [through the RTCC] engage in a similar interaction with a female in a pink shirt. S.M. motioned her to the same black SUV, where they bent down out of view and then parted ways. Officer Creely, along with [two other officers], then stopped and arrested S.M. [One of the assisting officers] recovered six clear zip-lock packets with “Pinocchio” stamped wax inserts, identical to those found on Craven, and $75 in U.S. currency from S.M.’s right pants pocket.

Juvenile Court Opinion, 7/16/25, at 2-3 (citations omitted). The substance

recovered from Craven and the juvenile was later tested and confirmed to be

a mix of heroin and fentanyl.

As a result, the Commonwealth filed a petition alleging that S.M.

committed delinquent acts which would constitute possession with intent to

deliver and possession of a controlled substance if committed by an adult. At

an adjudicatory hearing, S.M. orally moved to suppress all evidence obtained

from his person, arguing that Officer Creely did not have reasonable suspicion

or probable cause to stop and arrest him. A suppression hearing ensued, and

the Commonwealth presented Officer Creely.

In addition to the facts outlined above, the officer attested that he has

made “hundreds” of narcotics-related arrests on the high-crime block where

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the juvenile was located. See N.T. Suppression, 5/30/25, at 7. He was

familiar with the type of concealed exchange that S.M. had performed and

recognized that crouching out of sight of the RTCC, remaining hidden behind

a vehicle for a short period, and dispersing quickly, was indicative of drug

transactions. Id. at 8-9. S.M. did not testify or present evidence. The court,

finding that the officer did not have probable cause to arrest S.M., granted the

motion and ordered the juvenile to be released with GPS and house

restrictions, noting that he nevertheless had an unrelated delinquency petition

pending.

The Commonwealth filed a motion for reconsideration, which the court

denied with an accompanying opinion. The Commonwealth timely appealed

from the suppression order, simultaneously filing its concise statement of

errors in accordance with Pa.R.A.P. 1925(a)(2)(i), and a Pa.R.A.P. 311(d)

certification, averring that the court’s order granting the suppression motion

substantially handicapped its case. Pursuant to Rule 1925(a), the court

referred us to its opinion denying the motion for reconsideration. The

Commonwealth raises the following question for our determination:

Did the lower court err by concluding that officers lacked probable cause and ordering suppression where: a seasoned officer with decades of experience in investigating Philadelphia drug trafficking was conducting surveillance in an area known to be rife with drug sales; that officer observed S.M. motion two men behind a parked SUV, bend down out of view of a law enforcement surveillance camera, and shortly thereafter disperse; one of those men was stopped and quickly admitted to possessing narcotics; and, just minutes later, the officer watched S.M. repeat the same pattern with an unidentified woman?

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Commonwealth’s brief at 4.

We begin with an overview of the applicable legal principles:

When the Commonwealth appeals from a suppression order, we follow a clearly defined standard of review and consider only the evidence from the defendant’s witnesses together with the evidence of the prosecution that, when read in the context of the entire record, remains uncontradicted. The suppression court’s findings of fact bind an appellate court if the record supports those findings. The suppression court’s conclusions of law, however, are not binding on an appellate court, whose duty is to determine if the suppression court properly applied the law to the facts.

Our standard of review is restricted to establishing whether the record supports the suppression court’s factual findings; however, we maintain de novo review over the suppression court’s legal conclusions.

Commonwealth v. Floyd, 313 A.3d 1061, 1064 (Pa.Super. 2024) (cleaned

up).

This Court has explained that there are three types of warrantless

interactions between citizens and police officers:

The first of these is a “mere encounter” (or request for information) which need not be supported by any level of suspicion, but carries no official compulsion to stop or to respond. The second, an “investigative detention” must be supported by a reasonable suspicion; it subjects a suspect to a stop and a period of detention, but does not involve such coercive conditions as to constitute the functional equivalent of an arrest. Finally, an arrest or “custodial detention” must be supported by probable cause.

Commonwealth v. Roberts, 133 A.3d 759, 771 (Pa.Super. 2016) (cleaned

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Since Officer Creely arrested S.M. without a warrant, we determine

whether the officer had probable cause to do so. 2 In this vein, “we must

consider the totality of the circumstances.” Commonwealth v. Hoyle, 337

A.3d 544, 562 (Pa.Super. 2025) (cleaned up). Specifically, “[p]robable cause

for a warrantless arrest exists when the facts and circumstances within the

knowledge of the arresting officer are reasonably trustworthy and sufficient to

justify a person of reasonable caution in believing that the arrestee has

committed an offense.” Id. This Court has further explained that “probable

cause for a warrantless arrest requires only the probability, and not a prima

facie showing, of criminal activity.” Floyd, 313 A.3d at 1065. Notably, an

“officer’s training and experience are [factors] in determining probable cause

but relevant to the issue only if there is a nexus between those skills and the

search and seizure of the person and/or evidence.” Commonwealth v.

Luczki, 212 A.3d 530, 545 (Pa.Super. 2019) (citation omitted).

The juvenile court determined that Officer Creely arrested S.M. without

probable cause because “the RTCC footage did not show S.M. exchanging any

items with Craven.” See Juvenile Court Opinion, 7/16/25, at 5. The court

further stated that “the subsequent interaction with a female in a pink shirt

involved the same obscured behavior—bending down behind the SUV—

____________________________________________

2 The Commonwealth concurs that the proper analysis is one of probable cause, not reasonable suspicion, because Officer Creely immediately arrested S.M. after observing the third suspected drug exchange. See Commonwealth’s brief at 13 n.5.

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without visible evidence of a transaction.” Id. In sum, the court found that

“the lack of direct observation of a narcotics exchange, coupled with the failure

to identify a stash location[,] did not provide the specific facts necessary to

establish probable cause.” Id.

The Commonwealth argues that the court erred by disregarding Officer

Creely’s “professional experience, training, and familiarity with both narcotics

trafficking and the nature of that particular neighborhood’s open drug sales—

all relevant factors in a probable cause analysis.” Commonwealth’s brief at

17. It declares that “the totality of the circumstances amply supported Officer

[Creely]’s conclusion that drug sales were occurring.” Id. at 16. In sum, the

Commonwealth explains that “[t]o rule, as the lower court essentially did here,

that an officer cannot conclude he is observing criminal activity unless he sees

actual drugs and cash in fact would eviscerate the standard of probable cause,

improperly elevating it to near certainty.” Id. at 20 (emphasis omitted).

Pursuant to the above legal principles and the facts found by the juvenile

court,3 we agree with the Commonwealth that the court’s legal conclusions

are erroneous. This Court’s analysis in Commonwealth v. Dixon, 997 A.2d

368 (Pa.Super. 2010), is apt. In that matter, Dixon was arrested after an

officer believed he observed the appellant sell an illegal substance through a

closed-hand exchange in a high crime area. The trial court denied Dixon’s

3 The RTCC footage, which this Court has reviewed, supports the court’s findings.

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suppression motion, concluding that the officer had probable cause to arrest

him. Although the officer did not see the drugs during the exchange, the trial

court cited the officer’s “vast experience with narcotics arrests in that

particular area, including [forty] arrests in that immediate vicinity.” Id. at

377 (cleaned up). Additionally, it noted that the officer had “personally

observed drug dealers engaged in the closed fist to closed fist hand transaction

that he observed Dixon and [his customer] perform.” Id. at 380.

This Court affirmed. We explained that the officer’s experience was a

relevant factor based upon the nexus between his skill and the arrest, and

summarized:

[T]he totality of the circumstances presented at [the] suppression hearing established that [the officer], with the benefit of extensive drug crime experience, observed suspicious behavior (the furtive glances up and down the street), followed by a hand[-]to[-]hand gesture the officer knew from experience was indicative of a drug transaction, in a known high crime neighborhood. We find that these facts and circumstances, which were within the knowledge of [the officer] at the time Dixon was stopped and a search was attempted, are sufficient to warrant a person of reasonable caution in the belief that Dixon had committed a crime. As such, probable cause existed, and suppression was properly denied.

Id.

Like the officer in Dixon, Officer Creely attested to his substantial

experience in law enforcement, particularly with the drug activity on the block

in question. His knowledge demonstrated the requisite nexus between his

aptitude and his decision to arrest S.M. See Luczki, 212 A.3d at 545.

Particularly, the officer referenced his years of work on the drug-afflicted

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block, high number of narcotic-related arrests, and familiarity with the

common behaviors associated with illegal-substance transactions. See N.T.

Suppression, 5/30/25, at 7-8. He recognized S.M.’s interactions with the first

two individuals as indicative of drug sales and stopped Craven, who

spontaneously confessed to obtaining illegal substances from the juvenile. Id.

at 8-10. Shortly thereafter, Officer Creely observed S.M. on the RTCC engage

in the same sequence of events with a third person. Id. at 11. At that point,

Officer Creely possessed “reasonably trustworthy and sufficient” information

to detain S.M. See Hoyle, 337 A.3d at 562.

By requiring Officer Creely to directly observe drugs being exchanged

between S.M. and the three patrons before he could arrest the juvenile, the

court erroneously applied a bar higher than probable cause. Conversely, the

correct standard for probable cause is whether there was a “probability” of

criminal activity based upon a totality of the circumstances. See Floyd, 313

A.3d at 1065. As explained, Officer Creely articulated facts and circumstances

that would cause a person of reasonable caution to believe that S.M. had

committed a delinquent act that would constitute a crime if perpetrated by an

adult. Accordingly, we reverse the order granting the suppression motion and

remand for further proceedings.

Order reversed. Case remanded for further proceedings. Jurisdiction

relinquished.

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Date: 12/3/2025

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