J-S32008-23
2023 PA Super 277
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
: PENNSYLVANIA
:
v. :
:
:
KARIN EDWARDS :
:
Appellant : No. 79 MDA 2023
Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered December 15, 2022
In the Court of Common Pleas of Lancaster County Criminal Division at
No(s): CP-36-CR-0002767-2021
BEFORE: DUBOW, J., KUNSELMAN, J., and NICHOLS, J.
OPINION BY DUBOW, J.: FILED: DECEMBER 28, 2023
Appellant Karin Edwards appeals from the Judgment of Sentence
entered by the Lancaster County Court of Common Pleas on December 15,
2022, following her conviction of one count of Prostitution.1 After careful
consideration, we affirm the Judgment of Sentence.
On May 14, 2021, Detective Christopher Jones of the East Lampeter
Township Police Department received a tip regarding the potential human
trafficking of a woman. The woman, later determined to be Appellant, was
seen crying at a restaurant near a hotel in an area with a high volume of
prostitution. Detective Jones, who had extensive experience investigating
prostitution and human trafficking, conducted surveillance of the hotel and
determined that Appellant was an occupant.
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1 18 Pa.C.S. § 5902(a)(1).
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On May 17, 2021, the detective utilized a computer program that
investigated online prostitution postings and found an advertisement involving
Appellant on the website “skipthegames.com.” Detective Jones texted the
number in the advertisement. The subsequent text messages “discussed a
price for an hour and a [time and] location, including the hotel address and
room number.” Trial Ct. Op., 3/15/23, at 4.
After Detective Jones knocked on the hotel room door at the agreed
upon time, Appellant opened the door fully nude and invited the detective into
the room. At the time the undercover detective entered the room, officers
had not obtained a warrant to enter her room, and Appellant did not know
that he was a police officer wearing an electronic recording device.2
After entering the room, the detective and Appellant discussed the
intended sexual acts, and the detective provided Appellant with the agreed
upon currency. Officers then arrested Appellant and transported her to the
East Lampeter Township Police Department headquarters, where she provided
inculpatory statements.
In October 2021, Appellant filed an Omnibus Pre-Trial Motion, which she
amended on November 17, 2021. Appellant challenged the legality of the
detective’s warrantless entry into the hotel room, claiming that her consent
was involuntary due to the detective’s deception. Appellant acknowledged
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2 Detective Jones had authorization for the wire pursuant to a May 11, 2021
Order. The trial court ultimately suppressed the recordings made pursuant to
that order, concluding that the order was overbroad. The validity of the order
is not before this Court.
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that courts have applied the federal constitution to allow “police to obtain
consent through deceit[;]” she asserted, however, that “the issue remains
novel under the Pennsylvania Constitution.” Brief in Support of Amended
Omnibus Pretrial Motion, 3/29/22, at 3, 7. Presenting an analysis pursuant to
Commonwealth v. Edmunds, 586 A.2d 887, 895 (Pa. 1991), Appellant
maintained that Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution provided
greater protection of privacy than the Fourth Amendment of the United States
Constitution. Insisting that she did not voluntarily consent to the detective’s
warrantless entry into her hotel room, Appellant argued that her statements
made in the hotel room and at the police station should be suppressed as fruit
of the poisonous tree.
On September 23, 2022, the trial court granted Appellant’s suppression
motion in part and denied it in part.3 In relevant part, the court concluded
that Appellant had consented to the undercover officer’s entry into her hotel
room, such that his entry did not violate the warrant requirement.
Accordingly, the court denied suppression of Appellant’s statements to
Detective Jones in the hotel room and at police headquarters.
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3 The court entered a brief order and placed its reasoning on the record at a
hearing. As noted, the court granted suppression of the recording of the
conversation in the hotel room. The court, however, denied suppression of
the officer’s testimony regarding the recorded conversation, finding that the
officer’s personal knowledge of the conversation constituted an independent
source.
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On December 15, 2022, the court presided over a bench trial and found
Appellant guilty of one count of Prostitution, based upon the parties’
stipulations. The court sentenced Appellant to four years of probation.
Appellant filed her Notice of Appeal on January 13, 2023. Appellant and
the court subsequently complied with Pa.R.A.P. 1925.
Appellant presents the following question to this Court:
Did the trial court err in denying the Motion to Suppress
[Appellant’s] statements to police, in her motel room and at the
police station, where these statements were the poisonous fruit of
[the detective’s] unlawful entry into [Appellant’s] motel room, in
violation of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution of the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania?
Appellant’s Br. at 6.
A.
It is well-settled that “our standard of review for the denial of a
suppression motion is de novo and 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.” Commonwealth
v. Green, 265 A.3d 541, 550 (Pa. 2021) (citation and internal quotation
marks omitted). Our scope of review is limited to the record before the court
at the time of the suppression hearing, and we 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 suppression record as a
whole.”
Id. (citation omitted).
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At base, Appellant challenges the constitutionality of the detective’s
warrantless entry into her hotel room. It is well-established that “[a] search
conducted without a warrant is deemed to be unreasonable and therefore
constitutionally impermissible, unless an established exception applies.”
Commonwealth v. Strickler, 757 A.2d 884, 888 (Pa. 2000). One exception
to the warrant requirement is the voluntary consent of the individual.
Id.
Regarding consent, Appellant’s argument hinges on her assertion that
the Pennsylvania Constitution provides greater protection than the federal
Constitution against law enforcement’s use of deception to gain consent to
enter a residence. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has provided a roadmap
for litigants, such as Appellant, asserting claims for greater protection under
the Pennsylvania Constitution. Edmunds, 586 A.2d at 895. It dictated that
parties address the following: “(1) text of the Pennsylvania constitutional
provision; (2) history of the provision, including Pennsylvania case-law; (3)
related case-law from other states; [and] (4) policy considerations, including
unique issues of state and local concern, and applicability within modern
Pennsylvania jurisprudence.”
Id.
The Supreme Court recently reiterated that Article I, Section 8 of the
Pennsylvania Constitution affords greater protection than the Fourth
Amendment of the federal Constitution. Commonwealth v. Alexander, 243
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A.3d 177, 181 (Pa. 2020).4 In so doing, the Court contrasted Pennsylvania’s
emphasis on protecting the privacy of individuals, with the federal
Constitution’s focus on the deterrence of law enforcement misdeeds.
Id. at
187-88.
Despite this divergence, Pennsylvania has adopted the basic federal
Fourth Amendment test which “requires a person to demonstrate (1) a
subjective expectation of privacy; and (2) that the expectation is one that
society is prepared to recognize as reasonable and legitimate.” Id. at 205.
“[I]f the defendant has no protected privacy interest, neither the Fourth
Amendment nor Article I, [Section] 8 is implicated.” Commonwealth v.
Enimpah,
106 A.3d 695, 699 (Pa. 2014). Indeed, the Supreme Court advised
that a court presented with a suppression motion “need go no further” if it
determines that the defendant did not have a reasonable expectation of
privacy.
Id. at 702. In determining whether an expectation of privacy is
reasonable, we consider the totality of the circumstances. Commonwealth
v. Kane,
210 A.3d 324, 330 (Pa. Super. 2019).
An expectation of privacy is not reasonable or justified where an
individual “knowingly exposes to the public” his home or other private
location. Commonwealth v. Weimer, 396 A.2d 649, 651 (Pa. Super. 1978)
(en banc) (quoting Katz v. United States,
389 U.S. 347, 351-52 (1967)).
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4 In Alexander, the Court rejected the federal automobile exception to the
warrant requirement and instead held “that the Pennsylvania Constitution
requires both a showing of probable cause and exigent circumstances to justify
a warrantless search of an automobile.”
Id.
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“One cannot envelop[] oneself with the cloak of [constitutional] protection
while leaving gaping holes in the fabric.” Id. Accordingly, in evaluating
whether an expectation of privacy is reasonable, we look to the measures that
an individual has taken to ensure their privacy.
Id.
In Weimer, this Court found that members of a private club did not
have a reasonable expectation of privacy based upon the individuals’ actions.
We concluded that the members negated any expectation of privacy when
they failed to employ an installed buzzer entry system and one-way mirror
and instead allowed plain-clothed officers entry into the club when they rang
the buzzer, without any inquiry as to their identity.5 “This lax enforcement of
purported security measures indicates that [the members’] expectation of
privacy was hardly reasonable or justifiable.” Id. at 652.
B.
Appellant maintains that the trial court erred in not suppressing her
statements in the hotel room and at the police station, claiming that they
“were the poisonous fruit of Detective Jones’ unlawful entry in Ms. Edwards’
[hotel] room, without a warrant, through the use of deception.” Appellant’s
Br. at 11. She asserts that her consent was involuntary because she was not
aware that Detective Jones was a member of law enforcement nor was she
knowledgeable of her right to refuse the warrantless search. Id. at 15-16.
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5 While finding the entry in Weimer constitutionally permissible, the Court
acknowledged that the actions of the officers were not “wholly judicious[,]”
given that they could have sought a search warrant for the club. Id. at 653.
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As noted above, while acknowledging that the use of deceptive actions
to gain consent is permissible under the federal Constitution, Appellant argues
for greater protection under Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania
Constitution, asserting that the issue “remains novel under the Pennsylvania
Constitution.” Appellant’s Br. at 24. Appellant maintains that “Article I,
Section 8 requires a search warrant before a law enforcement officer is
permitted to use deception to enter a private residence.” Id. at 11. As applied
to the instant case, Appellant asks the court to find Detective Jones’
warrantless entry into her hotel room via deception to be an unconstitutional
invasion of her privacy requiring the suppression of the resulting evidence.
Although Appellant raises an interesting constitutional question, her
argument fails for a more fundamental reason: she lacked a reasonable
expectation of privacy.6 As in Weimer, Appellant negated any expectation of
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6 As she did in the trial court, Appellant presents a colorable argument,
utilizing the four-factor Edmunds analysis, that Article I, Section 8 of the
Pennsylvania Constitution provides greater protection than the federal Fourth
Amendment regarding law enforcement’s use of deception to gain warrantless
entry into a home. We do not reach this issue because we conclude that
Appellant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in her hotel room,
as set forth infra.
We additionally do not speak to the trial court’s response to Appellant’s
argument, which did not address Appellant’s distinction between the state and
federal protections, but instead merely found the constitutional validity of
Detective Jones’ use of an undercover identity to be “patently obvious” based
upon caselaw applying the federal Fourth Amendment. Trial Ct. Op., 3/15/23,
at 7. While we do not address this analysis, we concur with the court’s
conclusion that the detective’s entry into the hotel room was constitutionally
permissible. See Commonwealth v. Taggart, 997 A.2d 1189, 1197 n.10
(Footnote Continued Next Page)
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privacy in her hotel room through her actions. Specifically, rather than taking
measures to maintain the privacy of her hotel room, she advertised on a
prostitution website, arranged to meet an anonymous stranger who responded
to the advertisement in her hotel room, and then opened the door and invited
the stranger into the room without any inquiry as to who he was. In essence,
she did not guard her privacy or attempt to exclude others when she invited
an unknown person into her hotel room without asking any questions. Absent
a reasonable expectation of privacy, we conclude that Article I, Section 8 of
the Pennsylvania Constitution is not implicated in this case. Enimpah, 106
A.3d at 699.
Accordingly, we conclude that the trial court properly denied
suppression of Appellant’s statements and affirm the Judgment of Sentence.
Judgment of Sentence affirmed.
Judge Kunselman joins.
Judge Nichols concurs in the result.
Judgment Entered.
Benjamin D. Kohler, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 12/28/2023
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(Pa. Super. 2010) (observing that this Court may “affirm an order on a
rationale that differs from that of the trial court”).
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