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State Supreme Court rejects inmate’s challenge

Benitez maintains investigation was illegal from start

The Pennsylvania Su­­preme Court has denied further hearing for an Altoona man convicted of drug offenses, but who has adamantly proclaimed for several years the investigation into his drug activities was illegal from the beginning.

The state’s highest court however took a different position Wednesday when it denied the request by Carlos S. Benitez, 50, for further review of his case.

Benitez was eventually convicted and sentenced to a prison term of five to 10 years by Blair County President Judge Elizabeth A. Doyle.

He was sentenced on four counts of possession with intent to deliver and one count of possession of a controlled substance.

The Pennsylvania inmate locator shows that Benitez, a native of Philadelphia, was paroled in February 2021.

But Benitez, through attorney Todd M. Mosser of Philadelphia, continued to challenge the incident that initiated the police investigation into his drug activities.

On Aug. 8, 2015, a 911 call informed AMED personnel of a medical emergency that was occurring in a home on the 2300 block of Beale Avenue.

One of the first responders to arrive on the scene was an Altoona police officer who was informed that the individual having trouble breathing was upstairs.

The officer went to Benitez’s upstairs bedroom where he observed a crack pipe.

He soon was joined by AMED technicians who placed Benitez on a gurney for a trip to the hospital.

At that point, a digital scale fell from his pocket.

Also, one of the technicians transporting Benitez found crack cocaine in his pocket.

Police obtained a search warrant and eventually found crack cocaine in the home as well as sandwich bags used for packaging drugs and a spoon covered with cocaine.

Benitez complained that police had no right to be in his room, and in his appeals, he faulted his attorneys for not moving to suppress the evidence of drug activity found at the scene.

Both Doyle and the Pennsylvania Superior Court ruled that the officer legally entered Benitez’s room in response to a medical emergency.

The Superior Court concluded “the contraband observed in plain view in (Benitez’s) room, the scale that fell from his pocket and the crack cocaine discovered in his person were lawful.”

The court concluded that a police officer responding to a medical emergency does not need a search or an arrest warrant to enter a home.

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