Aaron finestone philadelphia

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Want a Premium Customized Photo Badge? Call Toll Free: Contact Lawyer. Image Link 1. Image Link 2. Image Link 3. Image Link 4. Image Link 5. Image Link 6. Image Link 7. Image Link 8. Text Link 1 Lawyer. The substance inside the packets tested positive for cocaine. Two separate suppression hearings were held.

The trial court denied suppression in both instances. After the charges were consolidated for trial, a jury found Appellant guilty of the above-stated offenses. The trial court sentenced Appellant to serve a three to six-year term of imprisonment on one count of possession with the intent to deliver and a concurrent one to two-year term on the other count of possession.

The court did not impose an additional penalty for the two counts of criminal conspiracy. This appeal followed. Did the Trial Court err in prohibiting defense counsel from questioning a police officer about the confidential location of the surveillance?

On appeal from the denial of a defendant's motion to suppress, this Court applies the following standard of review:. Rosario, Pa. Foster, Pa. Essentially, he contends that, based on the surveillance alone, the police could not have developed either reasonable suspicion or probable cause that he was trafficking in drugs because they could not see what was being exchanged to the passersby or drivers who approached the corners where he had stood.

Moreover, he maintains, the Philadelphia Police Department's reputation for brutality and planting of false evidence gave him a legitimate reason to flee the approaching officers. We disagree. Pizarro, A. As this Court has stated:. Johnson, Pa. In other words, "[a]bandonment can be established where an individual's surrender of possession of the property constitutes such a relinquishment of interest in the property that a reasonable expectation of privacy may no longer be asserted.

In Johnson, the police received an anonymous tip that a black male wearing a red baseball cap was selling drugs in a neighborhood park. The police set up surveillance of the park and watched as a male individual approached a man fitting the description from the anonymous tip. Both men then walked about ten to twelve feet into the park. At that point, the man in the red hat reached into a tree and pulled down a brown plastic bag.

He then allowed his prospective "customer" to look into the bag. The men conversed for a moment, then the bag was returned to its perch in the tree. The men proceeded to part and go separate ways, the one in the red hat returning to his original post in the park. Police officers conducting the surveillance then entered the park. One officer secured the man in the red hat while another checked the bag in the tree. The second officer then signaled the first that he had found drugs in the bag.

The trial court granted the suppression motion and the Commonwealth appealed. A panel of this Court reversed, holding that the warrantless search and seizure were proper because the defendant "effectively abandoned any reasonable expectation of privacy in the bag" of drugs by placing it in the tree.

Johnson, A. Appellant's decision to hide the seized drugs in public areas establishes that he effectively abandoned any reasonable expectation of privacy in them. Consequently, Appellant had no standing to challenge the search and seizure of the drugs. See Commonwealth v. Tillman, Pa. Here, Appellant strategically placed the drugs on the weeded lot and the lawn area long before members of the LINE Unit approached his sales corner.

Thus, he cannot claim that the approach of the officers caused him to abandon the drugs. David Chang. By Brian X. Local Breaking news and the stories that matter to your neighborhood.

Lehigh County 31 mins ago. First Alert Weather 9 hours ago. Back to Article. Under Pennsylvania law, prosecutors only need to rely on a preponderance of evidence to seize property under civil asset forfeiture—a lower burden of proof than the standard "beyond a reasonable doubt" used in criminal cases. The city eventually allowed the couple to return to their home on the condition that their son did not. This is what the British were doing.

Items seized by police through asset forfeiture range from houses to cars to the nonsensical and petty. The police seized her cell phone, medicine, and the jumper cables in the back of her car.

Several were not native English speakers. One of the biggest problems with the Philadelphia forfeiture system, the Institute for Justice and other critics say, is that the prosecutors—an adversarial party—advise the very people from whom they are seizing property. Asset forfeiture proceeds make up 20 percent of the Philadelphia D. Megan Dota, 26, raised her hand. A single mother of two with a third child due in mid-October, Dota had been waiting her turn as patiently as could be expected of an eight-months-pregnant woman.

Dota said a father of one her close friends drove her car to a shop to get a new sound system installed. After he was later arrested on criminal charges, none of which involved Dota, police arrived at the shop and seized her car. That was in April, and Dota has been to four hearings at Room since then.