Com. v. Lovell, S. ( 2015 )

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NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
PENNSYLVANIA
Appellee
v.
SCOTT MICHAEL LOVELL,
Appellant No. 539 WDA 2014
Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered March 6, 2014
In the Court of Common Pleas of Elk County
Criminal Division at No(s):
CP-24-CR-0000292-2013
BEFORE: BENDER, P.J.E., LAZARUS, J., and MUNDY, J.
MEMORANDUM BY BENDER, P.J.E.: FILED APRIL 13, 2015
Appellant, Scott Michael Lovell, appeals from the judgment of sentence
of 16-48 months’ incarceration following his conviction for growing
marijuana and related offenses. Appellant claims the trial court erred when
it denied his motion for a mistrial due to prosecutorial misconduct, and that
retrial should be barred on double jeopardy grounds because the misconduct
was so egregious. Appellant also contends the trial court erred when it
denied his motion to suppress the seized contraband. After careful review,
we affirm.
On July 25, 2012, Trooper James McIntosh of the Pennsylvania State
Police (PSP) conducted aerial surveillance of Appellant’s property in a rural
area of Elk County. That warrantless search was prompted by a tip from
Anthony Milliard, Appellant’s neighbor, who advised the PSP that Appellant
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was growing marijuana. On the first flyover, Trooper McIntosh observed
what he believed to be marijuana plants growing in buckets along a tree line
on the east side of Appellant’s property.1 Trooper McIntosh then returned to
his barracks and proceeded to Appellant’s residence by ground. Upon his
arrival, Trooper McIntosh met up with Trooper Emery Faith, and the two
troopers drove up Appellant’s driveway in separate vehicles. Trooper Faith
moved quickly to detain Appellant, who was spotted outside of his home.
Once detained, Appellant stated that “they are only male plants.” N.T.,
1/3/13, at 53. He also indicated that additional narcotics were located in his
home.
The troopers seized approximately 11 marijuana plants from
Appellant’s property. Based on these seizures, other observations at the
scene, and Appellant’s statements, Trooper McIntosh obtained a warrant to
search Appellant’s home and an enclosed structure near the home that
smelled of marijuana. During that ensuing search, a few more plants were
seized, as well as paraphernalia related to marijuana cultivation.
Subsequently, the Commonwealth charged Appellant with
manufacturing marijuana, 35 P.S. § 780–113(a)(30), possession of a
controlled substance (marijuana), 35 P.S. § 780–113(a)(16), and possession
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1
Trooper McIntosh purportedly made this observation with his naked eye,
from 500-700 feet above ground, moving at approximately 75-85 miles per
hour. N.T., 1/3/13, at 17-18.
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of drug paraphernalia, 35 P.S. § 780–113(a)(32). Appellant filed an
omnibus pre-trial motion on October 31, 2012, seeking, inter alia,
suppression of his statements and the seized contraband. The trial court
conducted a suppression hearing on January 3, 2013, and denied Appellant’s
suppression motion(s) on May 28, 2013. Appellant also filed a motion to
compel discovery on February 7, 2013, which, pertinent to this appeal,
sought discovery of the identity of an informant and lab results from the
testing of the seized marijuana plants. The Commonwealth eventually
revealed the identity of the informant six months prior to Appellant’s trial
after initially denying that he existed.
Appellant proceeded to a jury trial on December 12, 2013, where the
jury convicted him of all three of the above offenses. On March 6, 2014, the
trial court sentenced Appellant to an aggregate term of 16-48 months’
incarceration. On April 2, 2014, Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal. He
then filed a timely Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) statement of errors complained of on
appeal on April 24, 2014. The trial court issued its Rule 1925(a) opinion on
June 6, 2014.
Appellant now presents the following allegations of error for our
review:
[I.] The lower court erred in refusing to grant a mistrial and in
failing to bar a re-trial based on the extensive prosecutorial
misconduct of the district attorney throughout the case.
[II.] The lower court erred when it found that [Appellant]’s
Fourth Amendment rights were not violated when the police
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should have obtained a search warrant before going on[ ]to the
property and securing any plants.
Appellant’s Brief, at 7 (unnecessary capitalization omitted).
We apply the following standard of review to a claim that a trial court
erred in refusing to grant a mistrial:
It is well-settled that the review of a trial court's denial of a
motion for a mistrial is limited to determining whether the trial
court abused its discretion. An abuse of discretion is not merely
an error of judgment, but if in reaching a conclusion the law is
overridden or misapplied, or the judgment exercised is
manifestly unreasonable, or the result of partiality, prejudice,
bias or ill-will ... discretion is abused. A trial court may grant a
mistrial only where the incident upon which the motion is based
is of such a nature that its unavoidable effect is to deprive the
defendant of a fair trial by preventing the jury from weighing
and rendering a true verdict. A mistrial is not necessary where
cautionary instructions are adequate to overcome prejudice.
Commonwealth v. Brooker, 103 A.3d 325, 332 (Pa. Super. 2014)
(quoting Commonwealth v. Fortenbaugh, 69 A.3d 191, 193 (Pa. 2013)).
Furthermore,
The phrase “prosecutorial misconduct” has been so abused as to
lose any particular meaning. The claim either sounds in a
specific constitutional provision that the prosecutor allegedly
violated or, more frequently, like most trial issues, it implicates
the narrow review available under Fourteenth Amendment due
process. See Greer v. Miller, 483 U.S. 756, 765, 107 S.Ct.
3102, 97 L.Ed.2d 618 (1987) (“To constitute a due process
violation, the prosecutorial misconduct must be of sufficient
significance to result in the denial of the defendant's right to a
fair trial.”) (internal quotation marks omitted); Donnelly v.
DeChristoforo, 416 U.S. 637, 643, 94 S.Ct. 1868, 40 L.Ed.2d
431 (1974) (“When specific guarantees of the Bill of Rights are
involved, this Court has taken special care to assure that
prosecutorial conduct in no way impermissibly infringes them.”).
However, “[t]he Due Process Clause is not a code of ethics for
prosecutors; its concern is with the manner in which persons are
deprived of their liberty.” Mabry v. Johnson, 467 U.S. 504,
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511, 104 S.Ct. 2543, 81 L.Ed.2d 437 (1984). The touchstone is
the fairness of the trial, not the culpability of the prosecutor.
Commonwealth v. Tedford, 960 A.2d 1, 28 (Pa. 2008).
Appellant sought a mistrial based on multiple allegations of
prosecutorial misconduct. We consider each allegation in turn.
The first subpart of Appellant’s prosecutorial misconduct claim
concerns Appellant’s attempts to identify an informant who precipitated the
initial aerial search of his property by the Trooper McIntosh. At the January
3, 2013 suppression hearing, Trooper McIntosh testified that he conducted
aerial surveillance of Appellant’s property because he “had received a tip
that [Appellant] was growing [m]arijuana on the property.” N.T., 1/3/13, at
62. When Appellant’s counsel asked if Anthony Milliard, Appellant’s
neighbor, had been the source of the tip, the Commonwealth objected on
relevancy grounds. The trial court sustained the Commonwealth’s objection,
reasoning that “[t]here’s been no challenge to the search warrant itself in
terms of the information that was supplied in support of the warrant. So I’ll
sustain that objection.” Id. at 63.
On February, 4, 2013, the Commonwealth, in its response to
Appellant’s initial discovery request, denied the existence of an informant,
thereby contradicting Trooper McIntosh’s suppression hearing testimony.
This prompted Appellant to file a motion to compel discovery on February 7,
2013. A hearing on that motion was held on March 4, 2013. Appellant
notified the court of Trooper McIntosh’s suppression hearing statement.
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Nevertheless, the Commonwealth again denied the existence of any
informant.
In an order dated March 4, 2013, the trial court neither denied nor
granted Appellant’s motion, but instead afforded him the opportunity to
obtain and review the suppression hearing transcript in order to evidence
Trooper McIntosh’s suppression hearing statement. Appellant obtained the
transcript, proved the Commonwealth’s error, and, on June 7, 2013, the
Commonwealth advised Appellant that Trooper McIntosh had received a tip
from another Pennsylvania State Police officer, Trooper Agosti. Trooper
Agosti then confirmed for Appellant that he had been tipped off by Anthony
Milliard.
Appellant contends that the Commonwealth’s conduct, as detailed
above, constituted a Brady2 violation. “To establish a Brady violation, a
defendant must show that: (1) the evidence was suppressed by the state,
either willfully or inadvertently; (2) the evidence at issue is favorable to the
defendant; and (3) the evidence was material, meaning that prejudice must
have ensued.” Commonwealth v. Willis, 46 A.3d 648, 667 (Pa. 2012).
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2
Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963). In Brady, the United States
Supreme Court held that “the suppression by the prosecution of evidence
favorable to an accused upon request violates due process where the
evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment, irrespective of the good
faith or bad faith of the prosecution.” Brady, 373 U.S. at 87.
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Here, it is apparent that Appellant has satisfied the first element
necessary to establish a Brady violation. The Commonwealth admitted that
there was an informant in this case after having denied his existence. It is
also plausible that knowledge of the informant could have served one or
more defense strategies at trial. Therefore, the (temporarily) withheld
evidence could be construed as “favorable” to Appellant, in satisfaction of
the second Brady element.3
However, to be entitled to relief under Brady, Appellant must also
show that the (temporarily) undisclosed evidence was material to his case,
i.e., that he was prejudiced by the Commonwealth’s failure to disclose that
evidence. The trial court rejected Appellant’s Brady claim because the
Commonwealth ultimately disclosed the existence and name of the
informant six months before Appellant’s trial. Nevertheless, Appellant
contends that “[b]ecause of the District Attorney’s withholding of information
for 6 months, and due to the minimal information which was eventually
provided by the District Attorney, [d]efense counsel was unable to
adequately present the information to the jury regarding the tipster
neighbor.” Appellant’s Brief, at 18. Appellant’s argument appears to merely
be a bald, unsubstantiated assertion of prejudice.
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3
Appellant suggests that the informant’s identity could have been used to
buttress an argument to the jury that the informant, Appellant’s neighbor,
rather than Appellant, had planted the marijuana plants in the field on the
outskirts of Appellant’s property.
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Evidence is material under Brady, and the failure to disclose it
justifies setting aside a conviction, only where there exists a
reasonable probability that had the evidence been disclosed the
result at trial would have been different. Conversely, “[t]he
mere possibility that an item of undisclosed information might
have helped the defense, or might have affected the outcome of
the trial does not establish materiality in the constitutional
sense.”
Commonwealth v. Chamberlain, 30 A.3d 381, 409 (Pa. 2011) (internal
citations omitted).
Here, Appellant’s Brady claim is not based on the Commonwealth’s
failure to disclose evidence in the absolute sense, but on the
Commonwealth’s delay in disclosing that evidence. Thus, it is incumbent
upon Appellant to demonstrate that the delay in disclosure prejudiced him to
an extent that it affected the outcome of his trial. Appellant has not met
this burden. The initially withheld evidence was disclosed well before
Appellant’s trial began, and he has not offered a plausible, specific argument
as to how that initial delay hindered his defense at trial six months later.
Accordingly, we conclude that this subpart of Appellant’s prosecutorial
misconduct claim lacks merit.
Next, Appellant claims that the prosecutor failed to provide him with
an updated property log from the PSP. His entire argument is as follows:
As part of the discovery process, the District Attorney
provided the State Police Incident Report as well as the
State Police Property Record. … The Property Record which
was provided by the District Attorney indicates the date
and time the evidence was originally received at the state
police barracks and the officer who received the evidence.
However the Property Record is not complete in that it
does not indicate when the evidence was taken from the
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evidence room and taken to the lab for testing. It also
does not show which items were taken to the lab to be
tested. On December 4, 2013, approximately 8 days
before the trial, defense counsel emailed the District
Attorney requesting a copy of the property log. The
purpose of the property log (also interchangeably referred
to by defense counsel as a property record) was to
establish the chain of custody for the material submitted to
the lab. The District Attorney responded that he had
previously supplied the property log in the original
discovery and that he did not have an updated one.
Defense counsel then viewed the property log but it was
not updated and was not complete in that it did not
indicate at the bottom portion when the evidence was
taken out of the property room and taken to the lab.
Obviously we know that the evidence was taken to the lab,
but what was taken to the lab, when it was taken and by
whom is information that the District Attorney did not
provide to the defense.
During a discussion in chambers after trial had
commenced, defense counsel explained that she was
prejudiced because she had not received an updated
property record. The property record would have allowed
defense counsel to better prepare for the case. Part of the
defense relied upon the fact that there had been another
marijuana arrest at the Defendant's neighbor's house,
which also related to the information regarding the tipster.
Also, the property record provides important information
regarding chain of custody. It would show when items
were taken out of evidence, what was taken out of
evidence, and when items were returned to evidence. This
information is analyzed by the defense in order to prepare
questions for the police at trial, including establishing a
proper chain of custody.
The prosecutor's response to the missing property
record during the trial was "I don't have an updated one in
terms of when it went to the lab[,]" [a]gain demonstrating
the complete lack of concern for [Appellant]'s right to
discoverable documents.
Appellant’s Brief, at 19-20 (internal citations to the record omitted).
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Notably, Appellant does not allege any specific trial court error with
respect to this claim. Additionally, the trial court found that
[t]he property log was not admitted into evidence, the initial
request by [Appellant] to the Commonwealth does not appear of
record, and there was no motion made on behalf of [Appellant]
to compel an updated property log. The chain of custody for the
marijuana was not directly challenged during trial, nor was there
any objection made to the introduction or the admission into
evidence of the marijuana plants.
TCO, at 4.
Nevertheless, Appellant included this claim when he requested a
mistrial. However, Appellant has not explained how the prosecutor’s actions
(or inactions) regarding the property log impeded his trial strategy other
than to baldly claim that “[t]he property record would have allowed defense
counsel to better prepare for the case.” Appellant’s Brief, at 20. Appellant
has not specified which of his constitutional rights, if any, were violated by
the Commonwealth’s (mis)conduct, nor has he cited any pertinent case law
in support of this allegation. Accordingly, we conclude that the second
subpart of Appellant’s prosecutorial misconduct claim is under-developed,
meritless, or both.
The third subpart of Appellant’s prosecutorial misconduct claim
concerns evidence of his relationship to the searched property. The
document that provided indicia of Appellant’s occupancy was referenced in
the search warrant receipt, but neither it, nor its content, was provided to
the defense prior to trial. Instead, the document was revealed, apparently
for the first time since its seizure, in front of the jury. The indicia of
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occupancy turned out to be a receipt for a payment that Appellant made to
Elk County Probation.
Appellant complains that this document, from which the jury could
have inferred otherwise inadmissible prior criminal conduct, should have
been disclosed to him prior to trial. Furthermore, he claims the document
should have been reviewed by defense counsel, the prosecution, and/or the
court prior to having the witness read it aloud before the jury.
When this matter arose at trial, the District Attorney stated that he
had no idea that the sealed envelope contained potentially inadmissible
content until it was opened at trial.4 N.T., 12/12/13, at 117-119. The
District Attorney also argued that he had not acted in bad faith because he
had no intention of presenting that document to the jury. The District
Attorney stated that he intended to simply ask the PSP troopers if they had
found indicia of Appellant’s residency at the home during the search. The
District Attorney argued that the document had only been revealed to the
jury because of Appellant’s best evidence objection to this testimony
regarding the receipt. Id. at 110.
The trial court recognized the potential prejudice from reference to the
probation department, and issued the following curative instruction to the
jury:
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4
The warrant receipt referred to this sealed document merely as, “Indicia of
Occupancy (Receipt).” Trial Court Docket Entry 3, at 7.
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I am now instructing you that as a matter of law, you may not
consider the reference to probation in any way adverse to
[Appellant]. You may not construe that in any way. You may
not extrapolate that information or make any inferences from
that information. In fact, you should not consider that
whatsoever.
Id. at 154.
The trial court states that “[t]here was no objection lodged by
[Appellant] to the cautionary instruction itself.” TCO, at 5. Nevertheless,
Appellant did argue during a lengthy sidebar preceding the curative
instruction that a curative instruction could not undue the prejudicial nature
of the probation reference. N.T., 12/12/13, at 132. Consequently, it is
apparent from the record that Appellant did not concede that the instruction
was sufficient to remedy his prior objection to the probation reference, nor
did he waive the claim.
Nevertheless, the trial court considered Appellant’s aggregate
prosecutorial misconduct claim and found that
the totality of the circumstances did not rise to the level of
manifest necessity to declare a mistrial, where 1) a cautionary
instruction was provided regarding the reference to the receipt
issued by the Elk County Probation Department[;] 2) the identity
of the confidential informant was ultimately provided to the
defense in June of 2013, some six months before trial[;] 3) the
fact that the Commonwealth did not provide the crime lab report
dated November 7, 2013, until … December 4, 2013, was not by
any fault of the Commonwealth as it was not presented to the
district attorney’s office until December 4th[;] and 4) that the
Commonwealth was not aware of items listed on the back page
of the property record report, one of which was the reference to
the probation department receipt. Considering all the factors,
the Court determined that the discrepancies and the
Commonwealth’s failure to present the evidence to the defense
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in as timely a manner as [Appellant] would have liked did not
rise to the level of manifest necessity.
TCO, at 5-6.
Appellant claims he was denied a fair trial because of the actions of the
Commonwealth in this case. However, as discussed above, the first two
subparts to Appellant’s claim do not provide a basis for relief. Despite the
Commonwealth’s initial denials, Appellant was provided with evidence
concerning the informant six months prior to his trial, providing him with
ample time to prepare any defense premised on that information. Regarding
the property log discrepancies, Appellant failed to argue with adequate
specificity how or why he was prejudiced by those discrepancies.
Thus, the only question that remains is whether the incident
concerning the probation receipt deprived Appellant of a fair trial, and we
agree with the trial court that it did not. We do recognize and acknowledge
the District Attorney’s lackluster performance of his duties in this case.
However, for the purpose of a prosecutorial misconduct claim, “[t]he
touchstone is the fairness of the trial, not the culpability of the prosecutor.”
Tedford, 960 A.2d at 28. Although the prosecutor should not have
permitted his witness to read the probation receipt out loud before the jury
without first reviewing its content, there was no mention of specific criminal
conduct made, and the mention of probation was never repeated nor
referenced again by the prosecutor. Moreover, the jury was instructed not
to draw any adverse inference from the probation reference. See
Commonwealth v. Morris, 519 A.2d 374 (Pa. 1986) (holding prejudice
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from limited reference to specific prior criminal activity cured by immediate
cautionary instruction and admonition in jury charge); and see
Commonwealth v. Baker, 614 A.2d 663, 672 (Pa. 1992) (“The
presumption in our law is that the jury has followed instructions.”).
Consequently, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion
when it denied Appellant’s motion for a mistrial. As such, we need not
address Appellant’s derivative claim that retrial should be precluded on
double jeopardy grounds.
Next, Appellant asserts that the police, absent exigent circumstances,
should have obtained a warrant before entering his property to seize the
marijuana plants discovered during the aerial surveillance of his property.
He contends the trial court erred when it denied his motion to suppress the
seized evidence on this basis.
Our standard of review in addressing a challenge to the denial of
a suppression motion is limited to determining whether the
suppression court's factual findings are supported by the record
and whether the legal conclusions drawn from those facts are
correct. Because the Commonwealth prevailed before the
suppression court, we may consider only the evidence of the
Commonwealth and so much of the evidence for the defense as
remains uncontradicted when read in the context of the record
as a whole. Where the suppression court's factual findings are
supported by the record, we are bound by these findings and
may reverse only if the court's legal conclusions are erroneous.
Where, as here, the appeal of the determination of the
suppression court turns on allegations of legal error, the
suppression court's legal conclusions are not binding on an
appellate court, whose duty it is to determine if the suppression
court properly applied the law to the facts. Thus, the
conclusions of law of the courts below are subject to our plenary
review.
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Commonwealth v. McAdoo, 46 A.3d 781, 783-84 (Pa. Super. 2012)
(quoting Commonwealth v. Hoppert, 39 A.3d 358, 361–62 (Pa. Super.
2012)).
The trial court determined that the aerial search that discovered the
marijuana plants on Appellant’s property was permissible under the ‘open
fields’ doctrine. It then concluded that the PSP troopers’ subsequent entry
onto Appellant’s property was “incident to detain any individuals found on
the property in the context of the perpetration of a felony in the nature of
the manufacture of a controlled substance[.]” TCO, at 9. Although we
disagree with the entirety of the trial court’s analysis, we ultimately agree
with its conclusion to deny Appellant’s suppression motion.
In Commonwealth v. Russo, 934 A.2d 1199 (Pa. 2007), our
Supreme Court explained and discussed the ‘open fields’ doctrine as follows:
The open fields doctrine was first recognized by the U.S.
Supreme Court in Hester v. United States, 265 U.S. 57, 44
S.Ct. 445, 68 L.Ed. 898 (1924). In that case, while surveilling
the home of Hester's father (where Hester lived), two revenue
officers observed Hester exit the house and hand a quart bottle
to an individual whom the officers suspected to be attempting to
purchase illegal bootleg whiskey. After the officers began
pursuing the two men, they fled, Hester discarding a jug and his
would-be customer the bottle. Thereafter, the officers recovered
the vessels at an undisclosed distance from the house and
determined them to contain “moonshine whisky, that is, whisky
illicitly distilled.” Id. at 58, 44 S.Ct. at 446. Hester claimed that
the evidence was inadmissible under the Fourth Amendment
because the officers seized it without a warrant. In a brief
opinion for a unanimous court, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes,
Jr., concluded that “[i]t is obvious that even if there had been a
trespass, the [evidence] was not obtained by an illegal search or
seizure.” Id. Citing Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of
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England, Justice Holmes held that “the special protection
accorded by the Fourth Amendment to the people in their
‘persons, houses, papers and effects,’ is not extended to the
open fields. The distinction between the latter and the house is
as old as the common law.” Id. at 59, 44 S.Ct. at 446.
Sixty years later, in a 6–3 decision in Oliver v. United
States, [466 U.S. 170, (1984)], the High Court “reaffirm[ed]”
the vitality of the open fields doctrine as announced in Hester.
Oliver, 466 U.S. at 178, 104 S.Ct. at 1741; id. at 176 n.6, 104
S.Ct. at 1740 n.6 (rejecting the notion that “subsequent cases
discredited Hester's reasoning”). Turning its attention initially
to the constitutional text, the Oliver Court noted that open fields
are not “effects” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.
Indeed, the Court observed, “[t]he Framers would have
understood the term ‘effects' to be limited to personal, rather
than real, property.” Id. at 177 n. 7, 104 S.Ct. at 1740 n.7
(citing, as Justice Holmes did, Blackstone's Commentaries,
among other sources).
Even assuming one had a subjective expectation of privacy
in his open fields, the Oliver Court went on to reason, such an
expectation is not one that society would be prepared to
recognize as reasonable:
[O]pen fields do not provide the setting for those intimate
activities that the Amendment is intended to shelter from
government interference or surveillance. There is no
societal interest in protecting the privacy of those
activities, such as the cultivation of crops, that occur in
open fields. Moreover, as a practical matter these lands
usually are accessible to the public and the police in ways
that a home, an office, or commercial structure would not
be. It is not generally true that fences or “No Trespassing”
signs effectively bar the public from viewing open fields in
rural areas. And both petitioner Oliver and respondent
Thornton concede that the public and police lawfully may
survey lands from the air.
Id. at 178, 104 S.Ct. at 1741–42.
Finally, the Oliver Court explicitly rejected the contention
that the reasonableness of one's expectation of privacy in his
open fields should be determined on an ad hoc, case-by-case
basis:
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Under this approach, police officers would have to guess
before every search whether landowners had erected
fences sufficiently high, posted a sufficient number of
warning signs, or located contraband in an area sufficiently
secluded to establish a right of privacy.... The lawfulness
of a search would turn on a highly sophisticated set of
rules, qualified by all sorts of ifs, ands, and buts and
requiring the drawing of subtle nuances and hairline
distinctions. The ad hoc approach not only makes it
difficult for the policeman to discern the scope of his
authority; it also creates a danger that constitutional rights
will be arbitrarily and inequitably enforced.
Id. at 181–82, 104 S.Ct. at 1743 (citations and quotation marks
omitted). In this regard, the Court specifically
reject[ed] the suggestion that steps taken to protect
privacy establish that expectations of privacy in an open
field are legitimate. It is true, of course, that petitioner
Oliver and respondent Thornton, in order to conceal their
criminal activities, planted the mari[j]uana upon secluded
land and erected fences and “No Trespassing” signs around
the property. And it may be that because of such
precautions, few members of the public stumbled upon the
mari[j]uana crops seized by the police. Neither of these
suppositions demonstrates, however, that the expectation
of privacy was legitimate in the sense required by the
Fourth Amendment. The test of legitimacy is not whether
the individual chooses to conceal assertedly “private”
activity. Rather, the correct inquiry is whether the
government's intrusion infringes upon the personal and
societal values protected by the Fourth Amendment.
Id. at 182–83, 104 S.Ct. at 1743 (footnote omitted).
Russo, 934 A.2d at 1203-05 (footnote omitted). Moreover, the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court concluded in Russo that “the guarantees of
Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution do not extend to open
fields; federal and state law, in this area, are coextensive.” Id. at 1213.
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Here, Appellant does not contend that the aerial surveillance of his
property was illegal. Instead, he asserts that it was illegal for Troopers
McIntosh and Emery to subsequently enter his property without a warrant,
or in the absence of exigent circumstances, in order to seize the marijuana
plants discovered during the aerial surveillance. He argues that to seize
property discovered in plain view, the Commonwealth must view the
contraband from a lawful vantage point and that there must be exigent
circumstances justifying the seizure without a warrant.
However, Appellant does not dispute that the aerial surveillance was
legal in this case. Indeed, for the same reason the aerial surveillance was
not illegal, neither a warrant nor exigent circumstances were necessary to
justify the seizure that occurred. Because the marijuana plants were located
in open fields, Appellant lacked a legitimate expectation of privacy necessary
to justify suppression of the seized plants. Hester, Oliver, Russo.
Appellant contends that Commonwealth v. English, 839 A.2d 1136(Pa. Super. 2003), supports his claim that exigent circumstances were
required to justify the warrantless seizure of the marijuana plants. In
English,
Cranberry Township Patrolman Robert O'Neill and
Detective Frank Evanson received an anonymous tip that the
occupants of 206 Hester Drive were growing marijuana on their
back porch. The following day the officers went to the residence
to investigate. They knocked several times on the front door,
got no response, and then walked around toward the back of the
house. Their path took them through a neighbor's yard. From
the neighbor's yard they observed marijuana plants growing on
[the] appellant's back deck. Officer O'Neill recognized the plants
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as marijuana because of his experience and training. He
explained that the plants were easily identifiable as they were
elevated, sitting in a planter on top of a child's picnic table on
the deck. The officers took photographs of the plants.
The officers knocked repeatedly on the back door, which
was situated under the deck, and got no response. They tried
the front door again, with the same result. Thereafter, the
officers unlatched the gate to the deck, entered the deck and
seized the plants.
English, 839 A.2d at 1138-39.
The English Court found that the marijuana plants had been
discovered in plain view. However, it also found that the plants were located
on the appellant’s “deck[,] which was enclosed by a fence and a latched
gate.” Id. at 1141. The court determined that the plants’ location clearly
fell within the curtilage of the appellant’s home, and the appellant had a
legitimate expectation of privacy therein. Id.As this Court has previously recognized:
Our courts have extended this constitutional protection to the
curtilage of a person's home by analyzing factors that determine
whether an individual reasonably may expect that an area
immediately adjacent to the home will remain private. Curtilage
is entitled to constitutional protection from unreasonable
searches and seizures as a place where the occupants have a
reasonable expectation of privacy that society is prepared to
accept.
Commonwealth v. Simmen, 58 A.3d 811, 815 (Pa. Super. 2012) (internal
citations and quotation marks omitted).
Here, Appellant does not claim that the seized marijuana plants were
seized from within the curtilage of his residence, nor does he contest the
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trial court’s determination that the plants were seized from open fields.
Consequently, English does not support his claim.
We reject the trial court’s conclusion that the seizure in question was
permissible “in the context of the perpetration of a felony” because, among
other things, the trial court has not provided any legal authority for such a
conclusion. TCO, at 8. Nevertheless, “the suppression court's legal
conclusions are not binding on an appellate court[.]” McAdoo, 46 A.3d at
784 (quoting Hoppert). Because we conclude that Appellant lacked a
legitimate expectation of privacy in the location of the seized marijuana
plants, his Fourth Amendment rights did not provide a basis to suppress that
evidence. Accordingly, we conclude that Appellant’s second claim lacks
merit.
Judgment of sentence affirmed.
Judgment Entered.
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 4/13/2015
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