Hicks - PA Supreme Court

[Kanye Wyoming]

I did a quick and dirty search and didn’t see a discussion of this elsewhere. Apologies if I missed it and this is duplicative.

Enter the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. In Commonwealth v. Hicks, police responded to a citizen call after Hicks was spotted showing his handgun to another person outside a convenience store. He did not rob the store. He did not do anything illegal. He was a concealed-carry holder in lawful possession of his gun. “Numerous” police officers responded to the call, stopped the vehicle, restrained him, and conducted a search. They smelled alcohol and found a small bag of marijuana. They then arrested him for driving under the influence and disorderly conduct.

Hicks challenged the legality of his arrest, and while the trial court dismissed the disorderly-conduct charge, it upheld the legality of the initial search. The court ruled that “possession of a concealed weapon in public creates a reasonable suspicion justifying an investigatory stop in order to investigate whether the person is properly licensed.”
Thus any concealed-carry holder could be subject to search simply because he chose to carry his weapon, to exercise rights guaranteed by state law and buttressed by the Bill of Rights.

The state supreme court disagreed, holding that it could “find no justification for the notion that a police officer may infer criminal activity merely from an individual’s possession of a concealed firearm in public.” It continued:

“Unless a police officer has prior knowledge that a specific individual is not permitted to carry a concealed firearm, and absent articulable facts supporting reasonable suspicion that a firearm is being used or intended to be used in a criminal manner, there simply is no justification for the conclusion that the mere possession of a firearm, where it lawfully may be carried, is alone suggestive of criminal activity.”

This is exactly correct, and it’s buttressed by the plain constitutional truth that there exists “a first principle that lies at the heart of the Fourth Amendment — that the government may not target and seize specific individuals without any particular suspicion of wrongdoing, then force them to prove that they are not committing crimes.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/...-pennsylvania/

[Gray01]

peripherally mentioned here:

https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....l=1#post887252

[blues]

You just never know what you're going to get with these rulings. (Especially in light of the display of a firearm outside a convenience store.)

[OlongJohnson]

The current chief of police in Houston was chief of police in Austin when open carry was going through the state house. He tried really hard to get it so that any person seen to be open carrying could be stopped and questioned and required to produce their LTC, simply on the basis of them open carrying. Fortunately, it didn't get done that way.

[Kingsfield]

The full text of the majority opinion, at least at the moment, is here: http://www.pacourts.us/assets/opinio...018mo.pdf?cb=2 Starting at about page 25, the court rejects the approach, taken by some courts, that the answer depends on whether licensure is a defense to a basic firearms possession crime (as opposed to non-licensure being an element).

[Irelander]

I think the lesson here is to keep your CCW concealed. It's not a SYFIPCW (Show Your Friends In Public Carry Weapon).

I certainly agree that possession of a gun does not justify suspicion of a crime and search. However, they did find illegal drugs. That's a sticky one.

[Gray01]

I think the lesson here is to keep your CCW concealed. It's not a SYFIPCW (Show Your Friends In Public Carry Weapon).

I was born and raised in one of the communist states, and left upon military induction, never to return except for dutiful familial visitation. I have worked in other communist venues (Although I harbor strong suspicions regarding anyplace east of the Mississippi, south of 42N, and west of Mountain Time )

The cultural differences that exist and specifically regarding firearms, is sufficient to create in LEO's unused to the practice, clonus that would make Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus appear to be a well man. I have personally witnessed the cognitive dissonance experienced by visiting LEO relatives and associates when they witnessed "ordinary citizens" possessing, openly carrying and using everything from "switch blade knives" up to and including all sorts of NFA items. I used to enjoy the look I would get when I answered the "how do you deal with that" (as a LEO) question with "how do we deal with what?".