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A petition by an Altoona man seeking to have his criminal charges dismissed because of an alleged improper police stop nearly four years ago has been rejected by Senior Judge Hiram A. Carpenter of Blair County.
The defense attorney for Olubaya Mudada Mensah Ranger, 39, contended a city police officer improperly stopped his client for erratic driving.
Ranger was charged with driving under the influence, possession with intent to deliver cocaine, possession of cocaine, careless driving and failure to drive at a safe speed.
Altoona defense attorney Daniel J. Kiss filed a motion to suppress the evidence and dismiss the criminal charges because, he contended, a city patrol officer did not have the "requisite level of suspicion" to stop Ranger's vehicle that was allegedly speeding along Broad Avenue prior to crossing two lanes of traffic and exiting onto Beale Avenue Extension.
The defense also argued that Ranger's due process rights had been violated because the dashboard video in the police cruiser had not been preserved, despite departmental policy to preserve such videos.
Late last week, Carpenter issued an opinion in which he found Patrol Officer Jon Burns had the necessary probable cause to stop Ranger's vehicle, and he found there was "no demonstration that (the video) was destroyed or hidden in an attempt to shield its contents from the court.
"We find no bad faith on the part of Officer Burns," he concluded.
The incident in question occurred on Nov. 20, 2016, while Burns was parked on Broad Avenue talking to other officers.
According to the testimony during two hearings on the suppression motion held last October, Burns began to follow Ranger's dark-colored vehicle after it "rocked his patrol car" as it passed.
The officer testified that he "paced" Ranger's vehicle, concluding it was traveling 50 mph in a 25 mph zone.
When he saw Ranger drive erratically while turning onto Beale Avenue Extension, he activated his lights and siren to make a stop.
He smelled alcohol coming from the vehicle, and after conducting three field sobriety tests, the officer placed Ranger in custody for additional testing.
Police found Ranger also had three bags of cocaine in his possession.
A major issue raised by the defense was that the dashboard video of the stop had not been preserved or copied, thereby depriving the defense of possible exculpatory evidence.
The officer testified that in 2016, the department had no set policy that would have required that the video be preserved.
But police Lt. Michael Sapiensa testified that in 2016, any officer injury, misdemeanor or felony arrest where the video contains evidence should have been duplicated from the server.
Carpenter found the Ranger stop should have been preserved under the department's 2016 policy.
However, department records also showed Burns' cruiser had a malfunctioning camera as of September, but the lieutenant could not say if it was still malfunctioning on Nov. 20, 2016.
The defense inferred the video possibly captured the stop and "may have shown the field sobriety tests" administered by Burns.
"This court finds no facts that support a finding that the (dashboard video) contained materially exculpatory evidence," Carpenter found.
Kiss explained that the case has taken a long time to arrive at the trial stage because the arrest initially was challenged on a separate issue that went to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
He predicts it should come to trial in September.