In the Interest of William M.

655 A.2d 158, 440 Pa. Super. 140, 1995 Pa. Super. LEXIS 414
Superior Court of Pennsylvania·Decided February 24, 1995·Published·Cited by 4 cases

Opinion

ROWLEY, President Judge:

The facts underlying this appeal are not in dispute. On October 26, 1993, at approximately 1:11 a.m., Police Officer Gerald McLaughlin, while patrolling in a marked police ear in the city of Philadelphia, observed appellee William M. sitting outside a restaurant. Believing appellee to be in violation of the city’s curfew ordinance, Officer McLaughlin stopped and asked appellee his age. When Officer McLaughlin ascertained appellee’s age, he determined that appellee was in fact in violation of the curfew ordi[159] nance.1 Officer McLaughlin then searched appellee, whereupon he found thirty-seven clear plastic vials containing an off-white chunky substance. The police officer placed appellee in the patrol car and transported him to the police station.

The trial court granted appellee’s motion to suppress the vials and their contents on the basis that the police officer did not have authority to arrest appellee for a curfew violation. The Commonwealth filed this timely appeal, arguing that the officer had such authority pursuant to the curfew ordinance itself, 2 Phila.Code § 10-301, as well as 53 Pa.S. § 13349. Appellee, on the other hand, contends that the appeal is moot, that the officer lacked authority to effectuate an arrest, and that the search was unreasonable under Article 1, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. After considering those arguments, we reverse the order granting the motion to suppress and remand for further proceedings.

Before addressing the Commonwealth’s arguments relating to the merits of this appeal, we consider appellee’s contention that the appeal is moot. Appellee argues,

The Commonwealth here appeals a decision that has no practical effect on this juvenile’s rehabilitation, nor on the interests of the community, for even as this appeal is prosecuted, appellee is currently placed in Vision Quest, a secure, long term, extremely intensive juvenile rehabilitation program. Regardless of the outcome of this appeal, appellee’s progress in that program will continue to be monitored by the juvenile court and any additional necessary placements will be determined by his success, or failure, in that program. Thus, the Commonwealth presents this Court with what is wholly and purely an academic question in a prosecution that is already redundant to his current placement.

Brief for Appellee at 6 (footnote omitted). Appellee contends that because he is current ly in placement, the goal of rehabilitation is already being furthered. We disagree. A consideration of the extent and nature of a juvenile’s delinquent conduct is essential to the development of an appropriate treatment program. Furthermore, a large component of rehabilitation is the offender’s awareness that his conduct, which would be subject to criminal sanctions if he were an adult, has consequences and that such conduct will not be tolerated in our society. To hold that a subsequent juvenile proceeding is moot where an offender has already been adjudged delinquent on the basis of other conduct and placed in a rehabilitation program would teach that offender, and others, that recidivism has no adverse consequences. Such a lesson protects neither the juvenile nor the public. Accordingly, appellee’s contention that this appeal is moot is without merit.

We next consider the Commonwealth’s arguments concerning the legality of appellee’s arrest. The Commonwealth does not challenge the trial court’s factual findings, which are not in dispute. Rather, the Commonwealth contends that the trial court committed an error of law in concluding that Officer McLaughlin did not have authority to arrest appellee for a curfew violation. The Commonwealth contends that both the ordinance itself and 53 Pa.S. § 13349 provide authority for the curfew violation arrest. Before considering that contention, we will review the eases cited by the trial court in its opinion and supplemental opinion.

The trial court relied on Commonwealth v. Sams, 465 Pa. 323, 350 A.2d 788 (1976), in support of its determination that the arrest in the present case was not authorized. In Sams, the defendant was apprehended by a police officer near the scene of a murder. According to the officer, the defendant appeared to be under the age of sixteen; the officer therefore ordered the defendant into a patrol wagon for violating the Philadelphia curfew law which was in effect at that time.2 [160] The Supreme Court observed, in the footnote relied upon by the trial court in this ease, that “[a]t the time of [the defendant’s] arrest [in 1971,] the violation of the Philadelphia curfew was not an arrestable offense.” Id. at 325 n. 1, 350 A.2d at 789 n. 1 (emphasis added). It would be reasonable to infer that the above statement, rather than supporting the trial court’s conclusion that a curfew violation is not an arrestable offense, supports a conclusion that a curfew violation became an arrestable offense during the period between the date of the arrest in that case and the date of the Court’s decision. If a curfew violation was not an arrestable offense at the time of the arrest and it was not an arrestable offense at the time of the Court’s decision, there would have been no need for the Court to note that at the time of the defendant’s arrest, a curfew violation was not an arrestable offense.

However, we have reviewed the past and present versions of the ordinance, specifically, the 1955 version, the 1977 version, and the 1980 version. The language relied upon by the Commonwealth in support of its assertion that the ordinance itself authorizes an arrest does not appear until the 1980 version. In 1955, the ordinance provided that an officer who discovered a minor violating the ordinance, after obtaining information as to the minor’s name, address, age, and the names of his parents, should instruct the minor to proceed home. The officer would then forward the information obtained from the minor to the Juvenile Aid Bureau which would subsequently cause written notice to be mailed to the parents of the minor advising them of the violation. The 1977 version of the ordinance did not contain any substantial changes with regard to the above penalty provision.

Accordingly, the Supreme Court’s statement in Sams, which implies that a curfew violation became an arrestable offense between 1971 and 1977, is not grounded in the language of the ordinance itself. In addition to providing no support for the trial court’s conclusion, therefore, the Supreme Court’s decision in Sams also provides no support for the Commonwealth’s contention that the curfew ordinance authorizes an arrest for a violation of its provisions.

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In the Interest of William M., 655 A.2d 158, 440 Pa. Super. 140, 1995 Pa. Super. LEXIS 414 (Pa. Ct. App. 1995).

655 A.2d 158 (In the Interest of William M.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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