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NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION – SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
: PENNSYLVANIA
v. :
:
LARRY EUGENE SMITH, : No. 1802 WDA 2015
:
Appellant :
Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence, October 27, 2015,
in the Court of Common Pleas of Blair County
Criminal Division at Nos. CP-07-CR-0001414-2014,
CP-07-CR-0001415-2014, CP-07-CR-0001420-2014,
CP-07-CR-0001422-2014, CP-07-CR-0001426-2014,
CP-07-CR-0001427-2014
BEFORE: FORD ELLIOTT, P.J.E., LAZARUS AND JENKINS, JJ.
MEMORANDUM BY FORD ELLIOTT, P.J.E.: FILED DECEMBER 09, 2016
Larry Eugene Smith appeals from the October 27, 2015 aggregate
judgment of sentence of 9½ to 19 years’ imprisonment imposed after a jury
found him guilty of seven counts each of possession of a controlled
substance and possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance
(“PWID”), six counts each of possession of drug paraphernalia and criminal
conspiracy, and one count of receiving stolen property.1 After careful
review, we affirm the judgment of sentence.
1
35 P.S. §§ 780-113(a)(16), (a)(30), and (a)(32); and 18 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 903
and 3925, respectively.
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The relevant facts and procedural history of this case, as gleaned from
the certified record, are as follows. On August 4, 2014, appellant was
charged with multiple counts of PWID and related offenses.2 These charges
stemmed from the Pennsylvania State Police’s seventh-month long
investigation into appellant’s suspected drug activity, and their subsequent
use of a confidential informant, Joseph Vinglass (“CI”), to conduct several
controlled buys of narcotics from appellant. Specifically, on November 25,
2013, Pennsylvania State Trooper Charles Schaefer (“Trooper Schaefer”)
utilized the CI to call appellant’s telephone number and engage in a
controlled purchase of $1,100 of marijuana from an individual who was later
identified as appellant’s co-defendant, Gary Williams. (See Criminal
Complaint -- Affidavit of Probable Cause, No. CP-07-CR-0001426-2014,
5/8/14.) On December 30, 2013, April 3, 2014, and May 1, 2014, Trooper
Schaefer again utilized the CI to engage in three separate controlled
purchases of marijuana from appellant and Williams at the CI’s residence.
(See Criminal Complaints -- Affidavits of Probable Cause, Nos. CP-07-CR-
2
The Commonwealth charged appellant with a total of 27 counts. At
No. CP-07-CR-0001415-2014, appellant was charged with criminal
conspiracy, receiving stolen property, unlawful possession of a firearm, and
two counts each of possession of a controlled substance and PWID. At
Nos. CP-07-CR-0001414-2014, CP-07-CR-0001420-2014, CP-07-CR-
0001422-2014, CP-07-CR-0001426-2014 and CP-07-CR-0001427-2014,
appellant was charged with five separate counts each of criminal conspiracy,
possession of a controlled substance, PWID, and possession of drug
paraphernalia.
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0001422-2014; CP-07-CR-0001420-2014; and CP-07-CR-0001427-2014,
5/8/14.) Thereafter,
On May 8, 2014, surveillance followed
[appellant] and [Williams] from 1818 15th Avenue to
[CI’s] residence. [Appellant] entered [CI’s]
residence and provided [CI] with marijuana in
exchange for $550. Surveillance lost sight of
[appellant] and [Williams] after they left [CI’s]
residence; however, surveillance reacquired them
and observed them enter 1818 15th Avenue and then
depart. 1818 15th Avenue is the listed address for
[Williams]. After [appellant] and [Williams] departed
1818 15th Avenue, they were stopped and taken into
custody for the preceding controlled purchase.
[Appellant] had $500 of the $550 in prerecorded
funds from the May 8, 2014 controlled purchase on
his person. Trooper Schaefer then obtained and
executed a search warrant for [the second-floor
apartment at] 1818 15th Avenue, whereupon he
located marijuana packed in the same manner as the
marijuana obtained during all of the buys, codeine
laced cough syrup, cocaine, heroin, unused baggies
for packaging, a digital scale, “a fake can” for hiding
items, $1990 in U.S. Currency, and a Sig Sauer 9mm
pistol. [Appellant] ha[d] his own key to the
apartment in question. Mail addressed to
[appellant], as well as separate mail addressed to
[Williams], was found within the apartment. All of
the controlled substances, distribution paraphernalia,
including a digital scale and sandwich bags, and the
firearm were found within “common areas” of the
apartment.
Trial court opinion and order, 4/3/15 at 6-7 (citations to notes of testimony
omitted); see also Criminal Complaint -- Affidavit of Probable Cause,
No. CP-07-CR-0001415-2014, 5/13/14.
On August 25, 2014, appellant filed an omnibus pre-trial motion that
sought, inter alia, to suppress the evidence obtained by the police during
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the course of their investigation. (See “Omnibus Pre-Trial Motion,” 8/25/14
at ¶¶ 19-22.) On December 24, 2014, appellant filed an amended omnibus
pre-trial motion to, inter alia, suppress the evidence seized from the
April 3, 2014 traffic stop and the May 8, 2014 search of 1818 15th Avenue,
2nd Floor. (See “Amended Omnibus Pre-Trial Motion,” 12/24/14 at ¶¶ 20-
23, 28-40.) Following a hearing on January 23, 2015, the trial court filed a
comprehensive opinion and order denying appellant’s motions on April 3,
2015. On April 20, 2015, appellant filed a motion to reconsider his amended
omnibus pretrial motion, which was denied by the trial court on May 12,
2015.
The firearms charge was ultimately severed and appellant proceeded
to a jury trial on August 12, 2015.3 Following a three-day trial, appellant
was found guilty of seven counts each of possession of a controlled
substance and PWID, six counts each of possession of drug paraphernalia
and criminal conspiracy, and one count of receiving stolen property.
Appellant filed post-trial motions, which were denied by the trial court on
August 19, 2015. On October 27, 2015, the trial court sentenced appellant
to an aggregate term of 9½ to 19 years’ imprisonment. On November 13,
2015, appellant filed a timely notice of appeal. On November 16, 2015, the
trial court ordered appellant to file a concise statement of errors complained
3
The record reflects that appellant’s motion to sever his case from that of
Williams was denied as moot after Williams entered a plea of guilty to the
charges. (See notes of testimony, 1/23/15 at 6-8.)
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of on appeal in accordance with Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b). On December 7, 2015,
appellant filed his timely Rule 1925(b) statement. Thereafter, on
December 8, 2015, appellant filed an amended Rule 1925(b) statement.
The trial court filed its Rule 1925(a) opinion on January 27, 2016.
Appellant raises the following issues for our review:
1. Whether the Trial Court erred by denying
[a]ppellant’s Amended Omnibus Pretrial Motion
as to the Motion to Suppress Evidence based
on the improper search warrant because the
search warrant did not include information
about how the Confidential Informant was
competent, how reliable he was, and prior
crimes of falsehood, the Commonwealth failed
to call witnesses at the Omnibus Pretrial
Motion hearing as to this issue, and the search
warrant failed to properly describe with the
required sufficiency the description of the
house to be searched[?]
2. Whether the Trial Court erred by denying the
[a]ppellant’s Reconsideration of the Amended
Omnibus Pretrial Motions because the denial
was based solely on statements from the
Confidential Informant which had not yet been
written[?]
Appellant’s brief at 4.
Our standard of review when addressing a challenge to a trial court’s
denial of a suppression motion is well settled.
[An appellate court’s] 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
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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, [the appellate court is] bound by [those]
findings and may reverse only if the court’s legal
conclusions are erroneous.
Commonwealth v. Jones, 121 A.3d 524, 526 (Pa.Super. 2015), appeal
denied, 135 A.3d 584 (Pa. 2016) (citation omitted; brackets in original).
Preliminarily, we note that the search warrant at issue pertains only to
the charges filed at No. CP-07-CR-0001415-2014. Accordingly, appellant
has waived any of his ancillary claims concerning the charges filed at
Nos. CP-07-CR-0001414-2014, CP-07-CR-0001420-2014, CP-07-CR-
0001422-2014, CP-07-CR-0001426-2014, and CP-07-CR-0001427-2014.
See Pa.R.A.P. 302(a) (“[i]ssues not raised in the lower court are waived and
cannot be raised for the first time on appeal[]”); Pa.R.A.P. 2117(c)
(requiring citation to place in record where issue has been preserved).
The crux of appellant’s first claim concerns the validity of the affidavit
of probable cause upon which the search warrant issued for the second floor
apartment at 1818 15th Avenue was based. Appellant first argues that the
affidavit of probable cause did not set forth sufficient information within its
four corners to provide the magistrate with a substantial basis for concluding
that probable cause existed to issue said warrant. (Appellant’s brief at
13-15.)
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Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution and the Fourth
Amendment to the United States Constitution mandate that search warrants
must be supported by probable cause. See Commonwealth v. Johnson,
42 A.3d 1017, 1031-1032 (Pa. 2012), cert. denied, 133 S.Ct. 1795 (2013).
[T]he question of whether probable cause exists for
the issuance of a search warrant must be answered
according to the totality of the circumstances test
articulated in Commonwealth v. Gray, [503 A.2d
921 (Pa. 1985)], and its Pennsylvania progeny,
which incorporates the reasoning of the United
States Supreme Court in Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S.
213, 103 S.Ct. 2317 (1983). The task of the
magistrate acting as the issuing authority is to make
a practical, common sense assessment of whether,
given all the circumstances set forth in the affidavit,
a fair probability exists that contraband or evidence
of a crime will be found in a particular place. A
search warrant is defective if the issuing authority
has not been supplied with the necessary
information. The chronology established by the
affidavit of probable cause must be evaluated
according to a common sense determination.
Commonwealth v. Arthur, 62 A.3d 424, 432 (Pa.Super. 2013), appeal
denied, 78 A.3d 1089 (Pa. 2013) (some citations and internal quotation
marks omitted; citation formatting corrected).
Upon review, we conclude that the affidavit provided a substantial
basis to support the issuing authority’s finding of probable cause to search
the apartment in question. The affidavit of probable cause consisted of nine,
single-spaced pages detailing Trooper Schaefer’s nearly seven-month long
investigation into the drug trafficking operation conducted by appellant and
Williams in Blair County, Pennsylvania. (See Application for Search Warrant
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-- Affidavit of Probable Cause, 5/8/14; Commonwealth’s Exhibit 2; certified
record at 26.) The affidavit indicates that Trooper Schaefer utilized the CI to
make five controlled purchases of marijuana from appellant and Williams
between November 25, 2013 and May 8, 2014. (Id. at 2-7.) The affidavit
further indicates that at multiple points during the course of the
investigation, surveillance officers were able to follow appellant and/or
Williams to or from 1818 15th Avenue and observe vehicles utilized in the
controlled buys parked outside this residence. (Id. at 6-9.)
Specifically, the affidavit indicates that during the course of the May 8,
2014 controlled buy, officers followed appellant and Williams from
1818 15th Avenue to the CI’s residence and observed them entering the CI’s
residence to engage in a controlled buy of marijuana. (Id. at 8.) After
appellant and Williams departed the CI’s residence, surveillance officers
briefly lost sight of them before they were later reacquired and observed
entering 1818 15th Avenue. (Id. at 9.) After appellant and Williams
departed 1818 15th Avenue, they were stopped and taken into custody;
$500 of the $550 in prerecorded currency from the controlled buy was found
on appellant’s person. (Id. at 9.) The affidavit indicates that Williams
admitted he resided in the second-floor apartment located at
1818 15th Avenue, which confirmed the surveillance conducted by the
Pennsylvania State Police since November 2013. (Id. at 9.) Additionally,
Altoona Police Officer Chris Moser positively identified appellant in the
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affidavit as the operator of the vehicle utilized in the April 3, 2014 controlled
buy. (Id. at 8.) Based on the totality of the circumstances, we find that the
affidavit in question provided probable cause to search the second-floor
apartment located at 1818 15th Avenue.
Appellant further argues that “the search warrant failed to properly
describe with the required sufficiency the description of the house to be
searched.” (Appellant’s brief at 16-17.) Contrary to appellant’s claim, our
review further indicates that the May 8, 2014 application for search warrant
sets forth a description of the premises to be searched with the requisite
specificity. Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure 205 and 206 mandate
that an application for a search warrant and accompanying affidavit of
probable cause must contain, inter alia, the “name or describe with
particularity the person or place to be searched[.]” Pa.R.Crim.P. 205(3);
Pa.R.Crim.P. 206.
Here, the May 8, 2014 application for search warrant provides as
follows:
The apartment is located at 1818 15th Ave.,
2nd Floor, Altoona, PA. The residence is is [sic] a
two[-]story residence, light blueish gray in color with
a balcony on the second floor. The vehicle to be
searched is a 2014 black Jeep Grand Cherokee
bearing PA registration JKD-7899, VIN:
1C3CDZAB3DN518820.
Application for Search Warrant, 5/8/14 at 1; Commonwealth’s Exhibit 2;
certified record at 26.
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Additionally, Appellant contends that the affidavit failed to contain
information to establish that the CI was competent and reliable, and the trial
court erred “because it permitted the Commonwealth to merely submit the
preliminary transcript in reference to the information contained in each of
the criminal actions and failed to provide live testimony as required by
[Commonwealth v. Hall, 302 A.2d 342 (Pa. 1973)].” (Appellant’s brief at
13, 16.) For the following reasons, we disagree.
We recognize that the affidavit in question does not provide any
reference to the competency or reliability of the CI. However, this fact alone
does not warrant the suppression of evidence in this case. This court has
long recognized that,
[w]hen information essential to a finding of probable
cause is garnered from the use of confidential
informants, the issuing authority determines
reliability of the informant’s information from the
facts supplied by the police official. The
determination of reliability does not hinge on
disclosed records regarding the track record of the
informant. Furthermore, the affidavit need not
contain the names, dates, or other information
concerning prior arrests or convictions. The affidavit
must, however, at the very least, contain an
averment stating the customary phrase that the
informant has provided information[,] which in the
past has resulted in arrests or convictions.
Commonwealth v. Dukeman, 917 A.2d 338, 341-342 (Pa.Super. 2007),
appeal denied, 934 A.2d 72 (Pa. 2007) (citations and internal quotation
marks omitted).
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Appellant relies on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision in Hall
to impugn the CI’s reliability and argue that the affidavit in question was
deficient. (See appellant’s brief at 14, 16-19.) In Hall, our supreme court
held that the veracity of facts recited in an affidavit of probable cause can be
attacked at a suppression hearing. Hall, 302 A.2d at 345-346. The Hall
court reasoned that, “[i]t must be concluded that appellant at the
suppression hearing should have been afforded the opportunity through ‘the
traditional safeguard’ of cross-examination, to test the truthfulness of the
recitals in the warrant alleging the informant’s previous reliability.” Id. at
346.
Unlike Hall, this matter does not involve a situation in which a
confidential informant’s information must be corroborated for purposes of
assessing the veracity of tips used to obtain the warrant. Rather, the police
in this instance utilized the CI as an agent to engage in a series of controlled
buys, and their request for the search warrant was based primarily upon the
surveillance officers’ first-hand observations of appellant and the CI during
the course of these controlled buys. We find that the information provided
by the CI was corroborated by the Pennsylvania State Police’s independent
and extensive investigation into appellant’s drug activity and their first-hand
observations and detailed at great length in the May 8, 2014 affidavit of
probable cause. Accordingly, appellant’s reliance on Hall is misplaced, and
his claim of trial court error must fail.
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In his final issue, appellant argues that the trial court erred in denying
his April 20, 2015 motion to reconsider his amended omnibus pretrial motion
“because the denial was based solely on statements from [the CI] which had
not yet been written.” (Appellant’s brief at 22.) As noted, on May 12, 2015,
the trial court entered the following order denying appellant’s April 20, 2015
motion to reconsider his amended omnibus pretrial motion:
AND NOW, this 11th day of May, 2015, based on the
fact a written statement from [the CI] is available
about the events of November 25, 2013 and the
other events in the case if requested, the Motion for
Reconsideration is DENIED.
Trial court order, 5/12/15.
Appellant contends that he is entitled to a new trial, or alternatively, a
new suppression hearing, on the basis that “no such written statements
existed.” (Appellant’s brief at 24.) Notwithstanding this fact, based upon
our foregoing conclusion that appellant’s omnibus pre-trial motion to
suppress the search warrant in this case was properly denied, we discern no
error on the part of the trial court in denying his motion for reconsideration.
See Commonwealth v. Doty, 48 A.3d 451, 456 (Pa.Super. 2012) (stating,
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“[t]his Court is not bound by the rationale of the trial court, and may affirm
on any basis.” (citation omitted)).4
Judgment of sentence affirmed.
Jenkins, J. joins this Memorandum.
Lazarus, J. files a Concurring and Dissenting Statement.
Judgment Entered.
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 12/9/2016
4
We observe that appellant was sentenced on six separate conspiracy
counts. If raised, this court might well have found that appellant should
have been found guilty of one overarching conspiracy on the facts of this
case and been sentenced on only one conspiracy count. However, since
appellant’s sentences on the various conspiracy counts were all made
concurrent, appellant very well may not have been entitled to relief in any
event.
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