The Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed the denial of the defendant’s suppression motion, though the Court questioned the validity of the phrase “mere encounter”. Two police officers saw the defendant walking on the sidewalk and noted an L-shaped bulge in his right jacket pocket. One officer immediately recognized that bulge as a firearm. Thus, the officer asked the defendant his age. Based on the answer, the officers knew that the defendant was not old enough to possess a gun lawfully. The officers arrested the defendant, and the Commonwealth charged VUFA. The defendant filed a motion to suppress, which the trial court denied. The Superior Court affirmed. The defendant argued that given the totality of these circumstances, no reasonable person in his position would have felt free to ignore the officer’s questioning and leave. The Court ruled that at the time of the initial contact, i.e., when an officer exited his marked police cruiser and addressed the defendant, the officer did no more than ask the defendant his age. “This single question did not transform the mere encounter into an investigatory detention”. The Court noted that it was “sympathetic to the defendant’s assertion that, to hold that a reasonable, innocent person in his position would have felt free to continue walking and ignore the officer’s questioning, confident that he would not be further pursued or impeded by the officers, would be to ignore the realities of human nature.” And concluded, “It is time to dispel the notion of a ‘mere encounter’. The concept is a legal fiction, entirely divorced from reality. Nevertheless, based upon the law as it presently exists, we must affirm the judgment of sentence”.
