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209 Pa. Super. 1

Commonwealth v. Hicks

Superior Court of Pennsylvania

Decided November 17, 1966

Superior Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1966-11-17

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““It is important to note that all the officer did when he saw appellant appearing to be hiding something under the raincoat he held on his arm was to approach him and ask him what he had! At this point there was no detention, no frisk, and no search. There is no indication that appellant considered himself in custody, that he was not free to leave, or that he did not respond voluntarily. “The officer could plainly have approached appellant and put questions to him without any suspicion whatsoever. “In this instance, the combined fact of appellant wearing one raincoat and carrying another, with something apparently concealed under the second, and with appellant further attempting to hide it on seeing the officer approach, would beyond any question warrant the mere questioning of appellant by the officer. “In his dissenting opinion in Hicks, supra, Judge Hoffman begins by saying, ‘I agree with the majority that a police officer may stop a person on the streets for brief questioning, if he “reasonably suspects” that that person has committed a felony.’ “Even applying Judge Hoffman’s formulation, the conduct of appellant in attempting to conceal from the officer’s view what was under the raincoat would support the reasonable suspicion either that it was not his and was therefore stolen, or that it was something the possession of which would of itself be a crime.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including Commonwealth v. Howell

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1966-11-17

How this case has been cited

Cited by 11 later decisions — most recently September 1984

11 state decisions

60196619701980decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1Dissenting Opinion by

Hoffman, J.:

¶2I agree with the majority that a police officer may stop a person on the streets for brief questioning, if he “reasonably suspects” that that person has committed a felony. In addition, the officer may “pat down” the person stopped, if he believes himself in danger from a concealed deadly weapon.

¶3However, the potential for abuse in the procedures approved today suggests that we should be especially circumspect in reviewing these cases. I cannot agree that the test of reasonable suspicion has been satisfied here.

¶4When the defendant was stopped, he was not acting furtively or stealthily. He was simply walking on the street, some five blocks from the scene of the crime. He was carrying no packages and there were no bulges under his clothing.

¶5Officer Closkey knew only that a burglary had been committed in the area by a Negro with a mustache, wearing a brown coat. The defendant did not have a mustache. He was wearing a light-colored coat. In short, the only point of correspondence in the two descriptions is that both men were Negroes.

¶6The majority concedes that the line between illegal police action and detention on reasonable suspicion is difficult to define. However, reasonable suspicion cannot mean that the police may stop and search any person in the vicinity where a crime has been committed, merely because he happens to be there. The record in this case shows nothing more.

¶7I would reverse and grant a new trial.

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