Com. v. Rodriguez Luaces, P. ( 2019 )

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NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT
Appellant : OF PENNSYLVANIA
:
V. :
:
:
PEDRO MANUEL RODRIGUEZ LUACES :
Appellee :
: No. 969 MDA 2018
Appeal from the Order Entered May 31, 2018
In the Court of Common Pleas of Centre County
Criminal Division at No: CP-14-CR-0000380-2017
BEFORE: STABILE, J., DUBOW, J., and STEVENS,* P.J.E.
MEMORANDUM BY STABILE, J.: FILED MARCH 22, 2019
The Commonwealth appeals from an order granting the motion to
suppress of Appellee, Pedro Manuel Rodriguez Luaces, on the ground that a
state trooper lacked probable cause to stop Appellee’s vehicle on the highway.
We affirm.
On February 2, 2017, Appellee was arrested during a traffic stop on
Interstate 80 and charged with possession with intent to deliver a controlled
substance1 and related offenses. Appellee filed a motion to suppress, and
after an evidentiary hearing, the trial court granted the motion on the ground
that Trooper Hoy lacked probable cause to stop Appellee’s vehicle.
The trial court made the following findings of fact:
* Former Justice specially assigned to the Superior Court.
1 35 Pa.C.S.A. § 780-113(a)(30).
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1. On February 2, 2017, Trooper Jeremy Hoy was employed by
the Pennsylvania State Police and assigned to the Bureau of
Criminal Investigation’s Drug Law Enforcement Division as a
member of the central SHIELD Unit, a highway criminal
interdiction team.
2. At approximately noon on February 2, 2017, Trooper Hoy was
on duty in a marked police car in the emergency crossover on
Interstate 80 at mile marker 151 observing eastbound traffic.
3. Trooper Hoy testified that 1-80 is a common drug corridor.
4. From his position at mile marker 151, Trooper Hoy observed a
black Nissan pickup truck pass by him at a speed that was much
slower than the normal pace of traffic.
5. Trooper Hoy testified that his vehicle was not hidden and could
be seen for about one half mile on approach, and eight-tenths of
a mile past.
6. Trooper Hoy noted the pick-up truck had a temporary
registration tag.
7. Trooper Hoy pulled out and followed the Nissan truck.
8. He testified that, as he got closer, he could see numbers on the
temporary registration tag, but he could not see a state of origin
or expiration.
9. Trooper Hoy testified he was in the left lane and [Appellee]’s
vehicle was in the right lane and he “got as close as [he] could to
attempt to read the vehicle or the information on the temporary
tag.” Trooper Hoy stated he could only see the numbers, not the
state or expiration.
10. Trooper Hoy did not provide a description of how close he was
to [Appellee]’s vehicle when making this observation.
11. Trooper Hoy conducted a traffic stop of the pick-up truck at
mile marker 158 in Boggs Township, Centre County.
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Opinion and Order, 5/31/18 (“Opinion”), at 1-2 (citations omitted). In
addition, the trial court found that the temporary tag’s state of registration
and expiration were “clearly visible.”2 Id. at 14.
The Commonwealth filed a timely appeal to this Court, and both the
Commonwealth and the trial court complied with Pa.R.A.P. 1925. The lone
issue raised by the Commonwealth on appeal is whether the lower court erred
in granting the motion to suppress.
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.
Commonwealth v. Miller, 56 A.3d 1276, 1278–1279 (Pa. Super. 2012).
“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. Brown, 996 A.2d 473, 476 (Pa. 2010).
Having carefully reviewed the record, we conclude that the record
supports the trial court’s factual findings. In particular, our review of a color
2 The trial court made additional findings of fact concerning the events
following the stop, including conversations with Appellee and the search of his
vehicle. We need not recite these additional findings given our decision that
Trooper Hoy lacked probable cause to stop the vehicle in the first place.
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photograph of Appellee’s temporary license plate, admitted as Commonwealth
Exhibit 3 during the suppression hearing, confirms that the state of
registration and expiration on the plate were clearly visible.
Turning to the trial court’s legal conclusions, we first address whether
Trooper Hoy needed probable cause or reasonable suspicion to stop Appellee’s
vehicle. Section 6308(b) of the Vehicle Code defines the requisite cause for a
traffic stop:
(b) Authority of police officer.—Whenever a police officer is
engaged in a systematic program of checking vehicles or drivers
or has reasonable suspicion that a violation of this title is occurring
or has occurred, he may stop a vehicle, upon request or signal,
for the purpose of checking the vehicle's registration, proof of
financial responsibility, vehicle identification number or engine
number or the driver’s license, or to secure such other information
as the officer may reasonably believe to be necessary to enforce
the provisions of this title.
75 Pa.C.S.A. § 6308(b). “Although subsection 6308(b) delineates the general
rule, it does not apply in all instances, because not all vehicle offenses require
further investigation to determine whether a motorist has committed that
offense.” Commonwealth v. Ibrahim, 127 A.3d 819, 823 (Pa. Super.
2015). Instead, “some offenses, by their very nature, require a police officer
to possess probable cause before he or she may conduct a traffic stop.” Id.
We explored this subject at length in a recent decision:
[W]hen considering whether reasonable suspicion or probable
cause is required constitutionally to make a vehicle stop, the
nature of the violation has to be considered. If it is not
necessary to stop the vehicle to establish that a violation
of the Vehicle Code has occurred, an officer must possess
probable cause to stop the vehicle. Where a violation is
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suspected, but a stop is necessary to further investigate
whether a violation has occurred, an officer need only
possess reasonable suspicion to make the stop. Illustrative
of these two standards are stops for speeding and DUI. If a
vehicle is stopped for speeding, the officer must possess probable
cause to stop the vehicle. This is so because when a vehicle is
stopped, nothing more can be determined as to the speed of the
vehicle when it was observed while traveling upon a highway. On
the other hand, if an officer possesses sufficient knowledge based
upon behavior suggestive of DUI, the officer may stop the vehicle
upon reasonable suspicion of a Vehicle Code violation, since a stop
would provide the officer the needed opportunity to investigate
further if the driver was operating under the influence of alcohol
or a controlled substance. Compare Commonwealth v. Enick,
70 A.3d 843, 846 (Pa. Super. 2013) (probable cause required to
stop for failure to drive on right side of roadway),
Commonwealth v. Brown, 64 A.3d 1101, 1105 (Pa. Super.
2013) (probable cause required to stop for failure to use turn
signal), Commonwealth v. Busser, 56 A.3d 419, 424 (Pa.
Super. 2012) (probable cause required to stop for failure to yield
to emergency vehicles), and [Commonwealth v.] Feczko, 10
A.3d [1285,] 1291 [(Pa. Super. 2010) (en banc)] (probable cause
required to stop for failure to maintain lanes), with
Commonwealth v. Holmes, [] 14 A.3d 89, 96–97 ([Pa.] 2011)
(reasonable suspicion sufficient to stop to investigate front
windshield obstruction), Commonwealth v. Bailey, 947 A.2d
808, 812–14 (Pa. Super. 2008) (reasonable suspicion sufficient to
stop to investigate faulty exhaust system or muffler); see also
Commonwealth v. Landis, 89 A.3d 694, 703 (Pa. Super. 2014)
(noting that where trooper stopped motorist for failing to drive
within a single lane—and not to investigate possible DUI—he
needed probable cause to stop).
Commonwealth v. Salter, 121 A.3d 987, 993 (Pa. Super. 2015) (emphasis
added).
To establish grounds for the less demanding standard of reasonable
suspicion,
the officer must articulate specific observations which, in
conjunction with reasonable inferences derived from those
observations, led him reasonably to conclude, in light of his
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experience, that criminal activity was afoot and that the person
he stopped was involved in that activity. The question of whether
reasonable suspicion existed at the time [the officer conducted the
stop] must be answered by examining the totality of the
circumstances to determine whether the officer who initiated the
stop had a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the
individual stopped. Therefore, the fundamental inquiry of a
reviewing court must be an objective one, namely, whether the
facts available to the officer at the moment of the [stop] warrant
a [person] of reasonable caution in the belief that the action taken
was appropriate . . . While an actual violation need not be
established, a reasonable basis for the officer's belief is required
to validate the stop.
Commonwealth v. Postie, 110 A.3d 1034, 1039-40 (Pa. Super. 2015).
Probable cause, the more demanding test, “does not require certainty, but
rather exists when criminality is one reasonable inference, not necessarily
even the most likely inference.” Commonwealth v. Spieler, 887 A.2d 1271,
1275 (Pa. Super. 2005).
The trial court correctly determined that Trooper Hoy needed probable
cause to stop Appellee’s vehicle. Trooper Hoy testified that the basis for
initiating a traffic stop was because he could not see the state or the expiration
on the temporary license plate of Appellee’s vehicle. Section 1332(b)(4) of
the Vehicle Code states in relevant part that “[i]t is unlawful to display on any
vehicle a registration plate which . . . is obscured, covered or otherwise
obstructed in a manner which inhibits the visibility of the issuing jurisdiction
at a reasonable distance.” 75 Pa.C.S.A. § 1332(b)(4) (emphasis added). Like
a traffic stop for speeding, a traffic stop for an obstructed or covered license
plate depends entirely upon observations that the officer makes before the
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stop. Before making the stop, the officer must observe a license plate that is
“obscured, covered or otherwise obstructed in a manner which inhibits
visibility at a reasonable distance.” Id. There is nothing further to investigate
after the stop—that is, the officer cannot conduct further investigation after
the stop as to whether the plate’s visibility is obscured from a reasonable
distance.
The trial court concluded correctly that the evidence did not give rise to
probable cause. A driver does not violate Section 1332(b)(4) simply because
his license plate cannot be viewed at any distance at all. Instead, an essential
element is that the license plate cannot be viewed “from a reasonable
distance.” Id. Trooper Hoy testified: “I got as close as I could to attempt to
read the vehicle or the information on the temporary tag. All I could see were
the numbers. I could not see the state or the expiration written on it.” N.T.,
9/8/17 at 16. He added that he was not able to ascertain what state Appellee’s
vehicle was from at a “reasonable distance.” Id. at 51. He failed, however,
to provide sufficient facts to support his subjective definition of “reasonable
distance,” such as the number of car lengths between his vehicle and
Appellee’s or any other measurement. Cf. Commonwealth v. Holmes, 14
A.3d 89, 97-98 (Pa. 2011) (evidence was insufficient to support conclusion
that officer had reasonable suspicion to stop vehicle for windshield
obstruction; although officer testified that objects were hanging from rearview
mirror that obstructed driver’s vision, record was devoid of any description of
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objects or how they materially impaired driver’s vision or created safety
hazard). Moreover, the photograph of Appellee’s license plate shows that the
state of registration and expiration date were “clearly visible” and not
obstructed at all. Opinion at 14. As the trial court aptly observed, while it
was “possible” that “these details were less clear from a position farther away
than that from which the photograph was taken,” there was “no factual
testimony to establish that to be true or [show] that the state of origin and
expiration date could not be seen from a ‘reasonable distance.’” Id.
The Commonwealth’s reliance on Commonwealth v. Wilbert, 858
A.2d 1247 (Pa. Super. 2004), is misplaced. There, we held that an officer had
probable cause to stop the defendant’s vehicle because, inter alia, mud
obscured multiple characters on his license plate and prevented the officer
from discerning the characters from a distance of three to four car lengths.
Here, in contrast, the state and expiration date on Appellee’s license plate
were clearly visible and not obscured in any way. Further, unlike the officer
in Wilbert, Trooper Hoy failed to testify how many car lengths he was driving
behind Appellee’s vehicle.
Order affirmed. Case remanded for further proceedings. Jurisdiction
relinquished.
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Judgment Entered.
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 3/22/2019
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