The Herald, Sharon, Pa.

Local News

December 11, 2009

UPDATE: Court reinstates evidence in drug case

By Joe Pinchot

WEST MIDDLESEX — By 2-1, a panel of Superior Court has reversed a Mercer County judge’s ruling to suppress evidence in a drug case.

The decision reinstates evidence against Matthew C. Skarica, 24, of 139 Jackson Road, West Middlesex, who was charged with possession of 13 ounces of marijuana, possession with intent to deliver and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Mercer County Common Pleas Court Judge Thomas R. Dobson said Southwest Mercer County Regional police held Skarica too long before taking him before a district judge on a traffic warrant.

Southwest said they got a tip Nov. 6, 2007, that Skarica was involved in drug activity and, knowing the warrant was outstanding for his arrest, looked for him and arrested him.

Police questioned Skarica and he told them he stored marijuana at 2019 Landay Lane, Farrell. After obtaining a search warrant, police said they found marijuana under a mattress in a bedroom and in a jeans pocket. Burnt pot was found in an ashtray in another bedroom, and a lockbox found in an attic contained a scale, sandwich bags and marijuana, police said.

Skarica was arrested at 2:47 p.m., but was not released until after 6 p.m., when a constable told him to report the next morning to the office of District Judge Ronald E. Antos, Farrell.

In a suppression motion, Assistant Mercer County Public Defender Charles F. Gilchrest said police are required promptly to take a person arrested on a warrant before the judge who issued the warrant.

At issue is a rule of criminal procedure that states that, when someone is arrested on a warrant between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., police are to take that person before the judge who issued the warrant “without unnecessary delay.”

Dobson agreed with Gilchrest, but the Mercer County District Attorney’s Office appealed arguing that a three-hour delay was not unnecessary.

“The grant of a motion to suppress evidence is the exception and not the rule when it comes to the remedy employed for violation of a procedural rule by police,” said Superior Court Senior Judge Zoran Popovich, writing for himself and Judge Cheryl Lynn Allen.

Popovich cited a state Supreme Court case in which the court ruled suppression was not warranted when the rule is violated by police.

Southwest committed a “mere technical violation,” Popovich said in a precedential opinion filed Wednesday.

Even if Southwest had complied with the rule, Skarica still might have been detained past the time when he could pay the fine and costs or plead not guilty to the warrant charge, Popovich said.

“And, unlike the trial court, we are of the view that it is not uncharacteristic for a person arrested because of an outstanding warrant to be detained by police and questioned, which is what occurred” in the Skarica case, Popovich said.

Superior Court President Judge Kate Ford Elliott dissented, but did not publish an opinion.

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