Superior Court 7/3/08 - COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA v. GREGORY WALLACE

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA v. GREGORY WALLACE
No. 3546 EDA 2006 2008 PA Super 144 Atlantic: n/a Filed: 7/3/2008
Appeal from the Order entered November 21, 2006 In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal at No(s): 0606-0839 1/1
Before: STEVENS, KLEIN, and POPOVICH, JJ.
Opinion by: STEVENS, J.
The Commonwealth appeals from the order entered by the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County on November 21, 2006, granting the motion to suppress of Appellee, Gregory Wallace. Herein, the Commonwealth argues that the trial court erred in granting the motion in that the search warrant in question was supported by probable cause. We agree and reverse and remand for further proceedings.



¶ 7 Pa.R.Crim.P. 203 provides, in pertinent part, that:
A search warrant may be issued in anticipation of a
prospective event as long as the warrant is based upon an
affidavit showing probable cause that at some future time, but
not currently, certain evidence of a crime will be located at a
specified place.
Pa.R.Cri.P. 203(F).
¶ 8 It is well-settled that “in determining whether probable cause for
issuance of a warrant is present a ‘totality of the circumstances’ test” is
employed. Commonwealth v. Murphy, 916 A.2d 679, 681-682 (Pa.Super.
2007). This Court has noted that: “Under such a standard, the task of the
issuing authority is to make a practical, common sense assessment whether,
given all the circumstances set forth in the affidavit, there is a fair
probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a
particular place.” Id. at 682 (citation omitted). In Commonwealth v.
West, 937 A.2d 516 (Pa.Super. 2007), this Court reiterated the above
standard, adding that “[p]robable cause does not require a prima facie
showing of criminal activity.” Id. at 530 (citation omitted). See
Commonwealth v. Gannon, 454 A.2d 561, 565 (Pa.Super. 1982) (“The
critical element in a reasonable search is not that the owner of the property
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is suspected of crime but that the specific ‘things’ to be searched for and
seized are located on the property to which entry is sought.”) (citation
omitted).
¶ 9 The Supreme Court has explained that “[p]robable cause is a
‘practical, nontechnical conception:’ it ‘is a fluid concept -- turning on the
assessment of probabilities in particular factual contexts not readily, or even
usefully, reduced to a neat set of legal rules.’” Commonwealth v. Glass,
562 Pa. 187, 201, 754 A.2d 655, 663 (2000) (citations omitted). “[T]he
notion of probable cause [is] based on ‘the factual and practical
considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men, not
legal technicians, act.’” Commonwealth v. Gray, 509 Pa. 476, 483, 503
A.2d 921, 925 (1985), quoting Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 231 (1983).
¶ 10 Moreover, we note that “[a] reviewing court may not conduct a de
novo review of the issuing authority’s probable cause determination. The
role of both the reviewing court and the appellate court is confined to
determining whether there is substantial evidence in the record supporting
the decision to issue the warrant.” Commonwealth v. Huntington, 924
A.2d 1252, 1259 (Pa.Super. 2007) (internal citations omitted).

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