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NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37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. :
:
:
RODNEY DALE COGAR :
:
Appellant : No. 176 WDA 2019
Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered January 2, 2019
In the Court of Common Pleas of Greene County Criminal Division at
No(s): CP-30-CR-0000301-2017
BEFORE: SHOGAN, J., LAZARUS, J., and OLSON, J.
MEMORANDUM BY LAZARUS, J.: FILED NOVEMBER 15, 2019
Rodney Dale Cogar appeals from the judgment of sentence, imposed in
the Court of Common Pleas of Greene County, after the trial court convicted
him of driving while operating privileges are suspended and other summary
offenses. Cogar challenges the denial of his suppression motion, arguing the
initial investigating officer lacked jurisdiction under the Municipal Police
Jurisdiction Act.1 Upon careful review, we affirm.
The following facts have been gleaned from the trial court’s findings of
fact placed on the record at the conclusion of the suppression hearing and
from the record as a whole. Waynesburg Borough Police Officer Marcus Simms
was on patrol on the afternoon of August 11, 2017. Waynesburg Borough
(“Borough”) is approximately one square mile in area and is surrounded by
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1 42 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 8951-8955.
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Franklin Township (“Township”). The Borough has its own police force. The
Township does not maintain a police force, and relies upon the Pennsylvania
State Police for law enforcement. The Township is not within the jurisdiction
of the Borough’s police force.
While on patrol, Officer Simms received a 911 dispatch from the Greene
County Emergency Management Center2 instructing him to be on the lookout
for a silver and red Chevrolet pickup truck being operated erratically on North
Porter Street. A portion of North Porter Street is located within the Borough.
Officer Simms responded to the call and, ultimately, observed a truck fitting
the description of the 911 dispatch parked on a “wide turnaround pulloff area”
on Woodland Avenue, located entirely in Franklin Township. N.T. Suppression
Hearing (Findings of Fact), 4/9/18, at 58. Officer Simms then turned his
vehicle around to return to the area where the pickup was parked, at which
time the driver of the pickup drove away in the opposite direction from Officer
Simms’ vehicle. Officer Simms again reversed course and followed the pickup
truck to Washington Greene Health Systems Hospital (“Hospital”). While
following the truck, Officer Simms observed driving conduct that “would be
sufficient probable cause or reasonable suspicion to initiate a traffic stop” if
Officer Sims were within his primary jurisdiction. Id. at 59. All of this conduct
occurred within the Township.
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2 The Greene County Emergency Management Center dispatches the
Borough’s police force, but does not perform that function for the Pennsylvania
State Police.
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When Officer Simms arrived at the Hospital parking lot, he detained
Cogar pending the arrival of the state police. Pennsylvania State Trooper
Lucas Borkowski, who had subsequently received radio notice that the erratic
driver had been detained at the Hospital by Officer Simms, arrived one to two
minutes thereafter. Trooper Borkowski “immediately noticed that [Cogar’s]
eyes were very glassy and bloodshot” and “detected a strong odor of alcoholic
beverage emanating from his person.” Id. at 33. When Trooper Borkowski
asked Cogar if he had been drinking, Cogar stated that he had been “drinking
all day and just wanted to go see his father who was admitted into the
hospital.” Id.
Trooper Borkowski arrested Cogar and charged him with driving under
the influence, disregarding a traffic lane, failing to stop at a stop sign and yield
right of way, careless driving, driving while operating privileges are revoked,
and reckless driving. A jury found Cogar not guilty of the charge of driving
under the influence. The trial court convicted Cogar of the following summary
offenses: one count of driving while operating privileges are suspended3 and
three counts of disregarding a traffic lane.4 On January 2, 2019, the court
sentenced Cogar to a term of 70 days’ county intermediate punishment, to be
served on electronic home monitoring. Cogan filed a timely notice of appeal
to this court, followed by a court-ordered concise statement of errors
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3 75 Pa.C.S.A. § 1543(b)(1).
4 75 Pa.C.S.A. § 3309(1).
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complained of on appeal pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b). He raises the
following claim on appeal:
Where a borough police officer is on official business, patrols the
entire length of the street within his jurisdiction to no avail in
response to an anonymous, unverified report of an erratic driver
in a two-tone truck, and then intentionally expands his reach by
conducting an investigation outside his jurisdiction[] and then
observes some cause to stops [sic], should the evidence obtained
as a result be suppressed or precluded at trial?
Brief of Appellant, at 7.
Initially, we set forth our standard of review:
When considering the denial of a suppression motion, this Court’s
review is limited to determining whether the court’s factual
findings are supported by the record and whether the legal
conclusions drawn from those facts are correct. Because the
Commonwealth prevailed in the suppression court, we consider
only the Commonwealth’s evidence and so much of the appellant’s
evidence as is uncontradicted when read in the context of the
record as a whole. Where the record supports the suppression
court’s factual findings, we are bound by those facts and may
reverse only if the legal conclusions drawn from them are
erroneous.
Commonwealth v. West, 937 A.2d 516, 527 (Pa. Super. 2007) (internal
citations omitted).
Here, Cogar asserts that the trial court erred in failing to suppress all
evidence obtained as a result of Officer Simms’ extraterritorial foray into
Franklin Township. This claim requires us to interpret the Municipal Police
Jurisdiction Act (“MPJA”),5 which provides police with the authority to act as
police officers outside their jurisdiction in limited circumstances.
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5 42 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 8951–8954.
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Commonwealth v. Bergamasco, 197 A.3d 805, 809 (Pa. Super. 2018).
The MPJA is intended to “promote public safety while maintaining police
accountability to local authority; it is not intended to erect ‘impenetrable
jurisdictional walls benefit[ing] only criminals hidden in their shadows.’”
Commonwealth v. Lehman, 870 A.2d 818, 820 (Pa. 2005), quoting
Commonwealth v. Merchant, 595 A.2d 1135, 1139 (Pa. 1991). The MPJA
is to be construed liberally to give effect to its purposes. Lehman, 870 A.2d
at 820.
Section 8952 of the MPJA provides that a municipal police officer may
perform the functions of his or her office anywhere within his or her primary
jurisdiction.6 Section 8953(a) extends the authority of police officers to
exercise official police duties outside of their primary jurisdictions in six
specific and limited circumstances. Relevant here, extraterritorial action by
police officers is authorized:
(3) Where the officer:
(i) has been requested to aid or assist a Federal, State or
local law enforcement officer or park police officer;
42 Pa.C.S.A. § 8953(a)(3).7
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6 An officer’s “primary jurisdiction” is defined, in relevant part, as “[t]he
geographical area within the territorial limits of a municipality or any lawful
combination of municipalities which employs a municipal police officer[.]” 42
Pa.C.S.A. § 8951.
7Section 8953(a)(3) was recently amended in response to the decision of our
Supreme Court in Commonwealth v. Hlubin, 208 A.3d 1032 (Pa. 2019).
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Thus, the question in this matter is whether Officer Simms, acting in
response to a 911 dispatch, based upon an anonymous tip, from the Greene
County Emergency Management Center seeking assistance in locating an
erratic driver on a street located partially in his primary jurisdiction, violated
the MPJA by foraying into another jurisdiction in search of the vehicle in
question. We conclude that he did not.
This Court addressed a similar scenario in Commonwealth v. Lloyd,
701 A.2d 588 (Pa. Super. 1997). There,
while on routine patrol in his primary jurisdiction, [Ellwood City
Police] Officer [Jon M.] Bobin received a dispatch from the Ellwood
City Police Department requesting him to respond to appellant’s
accident in Ellport[, which was outside his primary jurisdiction].
Pursuant to the dispatch, the officer responded to the scene. . . .
The Ellwood City Police Department was responsible for
dispatching officers to Ellport.
Commonwealth v. Lloyd, 701 A.2d 588, 590–91 (Pa. Super. 1997). Upon
arriving at the scene in Ellport, Officer Bobin observed appellant standing
outside of his vehicle and noticed that his eyes were glassy and that he
smelled of alcohol. Officer Bobin administered field sobriety tests, all of which
appellant failed. Appellant was subsequently taken to the Ellwood City
Hospital where blood was drawn. The blood test revealed that appellant’s
blood alcohol content was .193%. Appellant was later arrested and charged
with DUI. The trial court denied his motion to suppress the evidence obtained
as a result of his arrest by Officer Bobin, and appellant was convicted of DUI.
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See 2019, July 2, P.L. 375, No. 58, § 1.1, imd. effective. The amendment
applies retroactively to law enforcement conduct on or after June 15, 1982.
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On appeal, this Court concluded that, under the circumstances
presented, “we have no difficulty concluding that the police department’s
dispatch qualified as a request for aid or assistance” as contemplated by
section 8953. Id. at 591. We reasoned that
[a] holding to the contrary would lead to an absurd result. It
would be ludicrous to require Officer Bobin to ignore the dispatch
merely because it directed him to act outside his primary
jurisdiction. Such a result would not foster municipal control over
the police or promote public safety. Rather, such a result would
only inure to the benefit of criminals committing crimes in Ellport.
Id.
Similarly, in this case, the safety of the public would be ill-served by
requiring Officer Simms to ignore a dispatch regarding a hazardous driver on
a road straddling two jurisdictions simply because a response might result in
activity outside his primary jurisdiction. The salutary goal of protecting
innocent drivers and pedestrians from the dangers of intoxicated or otherwise
impaired motorists outweighs whatever minimal impact Officer Simms’ actions
may have had on Franklin Township’s ability to maintain accountability over
law enforcement officers within its jurisdiction. Notably, Officer Simms neither
arrested Cogar nor filed a complaint against him. Rather, Officer Simms
responded to the dispatch, located the vehicle in question, and simply
detained its operator for one to two minutes pending the arrival of an officer
with primary jurisdiction. Under these circumstances, we conclude that Officer
Simms’ actions fell within the exception contained in section 8953(a)(3) of the
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MPJA. Accordingly, the trial court did not err in refusing to grant Cogar’s
motion to suppress.8
Judgment of sentence affirmed.
Judgment Entered.
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 11/15/2019
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8 The fact that the tip precipitating the 911 dispatch was anonymous is not
dispositive here. In Hlubin, supra, our Supreme Court analyzed the previous
version of section 8953(a)(3), which authorized extraterritorial action
“[w]here the officer has been requested to aid or assist any local, State or
Federal law enforcement officer or park police officer or otherwise has
probable cause to believe that the other officer is in need of aid or assistance.”
The Hlubin court read this language as requiring an officer to possess
probable cause before leaving his jurisdiction in response to a request to assist
another officer. See Hlubin, 208 A.3d at 1045 (“Giving meaning to the
General Assembly’s inclusion of the word ‘otherwise’ necessitates that the
reference to ‘probable cause’ applies to both the first and second situations in
the subsection—and thus to instances where aid and assistance is requested
or where provided in response to a belief that another officer is in need of the
same.”). The legislature’s amendment of section 8953(a)(3) pointedly omits
any requirement that an officer possess probable cause where his
extraterritorial assistance is requested. See 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 8953(a)(3)(i).
Once Officer Simms observed Cogar’s vehicle in Franklin Township and began
following it, he observed conduct that Cogar concedes provided reasonable
suspicion to conduct a traffic stop. See Brief of Appellant, at 10 (“Not until
outside his jurisdiction does [Officer Simms] observe any conduct that gives
him any reasonable suspicion or probable cause to conduct the traffic
stop[.]”). Finally, we note that Cogar recites the superseded version of the
statute in his brief and does not acknowledge either Hlubin or the subsequent
amendment to section 8953(a)(3).
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