Attorney Clemens Wins Motion to Suppress Firearm

Philadelphia Criminal Defense Attorney Thomas C. Clemens, Esquire

Philadelphia criminal defense lawyer Thomas C. Clemens, Esquire, recently won a motion to suppress in a firearms case. In Commonwealth v. Y.P., the Philadelphia Police arrested Y.P. after finding a firearm secreted in his car. Prosecutors filed VUFA (violation of the uniform firearms act) charges such as carrying a concealed firearm without a license (VUFA § 6106), felon in possession of a firearm (VUFA § 6105), and carrying a firearm on the streets of Philadelphia (VUFA § 6108). Accordingly, Y.P. was facing up to 32 years in jail if a judge or jury convicted him of the charges.

The police officers claimed that they stopped Y.P. in North Philadelphia after he blew through a stop sign in his car. The arresting officer claimed that during the stop, he could see Y.P. begin to move around in the car in a nervous manner as if he was trying to place something away from his body. The officer removed Y.P. from the car and placed him in the patrol car. The officer then “frisked” the passenger compartment of the car for weapons and found a gun. The police arrested Y.P., and prosecutors charged him with the aforementioned weapons offenses.

Y.P. retained Attorney Clemens, and Attorney Clemens promptly filed a motion to suppress the gun. The Philadelphia Court of Common pleas held an evidentiary hearing on the motion to suppress. At the hearing, Attorney Clemens used the officer’s body camera footage to show that the window tint on the vehicle was actually too dark for the officer to have seen anything going on in the car during the stop. The officer even noted in the video that he could not see into the car, meaning he could not have seen Y.P. moving around or acting nervously. Therefore, Attorney Clemens argued that the officer had not actually seen any nervousness or furtive movements, making the “frisk” of the vehicle really a search for evidence based on a mere hunch rather than a legitimate frisk of the vehicle for officer safety. The police had not obtained a search warrant, so they would have been allowed to search the car only if exigent circumstances such as a need to ensure officer safety existed.

The trial judge agreed that the police could not actually see into the car and granted the motion. This left the prosecution with no choice but to dismiss the charges. Y.P. will be eligible for a full expungement.

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