The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has reversed a Superior Court decision that a police officer executing a search warrant for a home didn't have probable cause to arrest a man on the premises, even though another police officer allegedly saw the defendant take part in a drug transaction days before.

Below, the three-judge panel of the Superior Court overruled the lower court's ruling to deny the defendants' suppression motion in Commonwealth v. Yong and held that since the officer who allegedly saw the drug deal did not relay information about the defendant to the arresting officer before the arrest, the collective knowledge doctrine, giving the arresting officer probable cause to arrest defendant Alwasi Yong, did not apply.

However, the Supreme Court set new parameters for the collective knowledge doctrine, according to the majority opinion authored by Justice Sallie Updyke Mundy.

“We maintain that Pennsylvania adheres to the vertical approach of the collective knowledge doctrine, which instructs that an officer with the requisite level of suspicion may direct another officer to act in his or her stead,” Mundy wrote.

“However, where, as here, the arresting officer does not have the requisite knowledge and was not directed to so act, we hold the seizure is still constitutional where the investigating officer with probable cause or reasonable suspicion was working with the officer and would have inevitably and imminently ordered that the seizure be effectuated,” she continued. “We echo that not all factual circumstances fit squarely within a purely vertical or horizontal framework, and we find this modified approach best balances the important interest of ensuring police efficacy and efficiency with protecting citizens' rights to be free from unconstitutional intrusions. Applying this approach to this case, we conclude that Yong's Fourth Amendment rights were not violated.”

Justice Christine Donohue offered the sole dissent.

“The majority today announces a new rule that permits uncommunicated knowledge of one police officer to justify an arrest conducted by another officer. In my view, the absence of a communication or directive by an officer with probable cause to the arresting officer renders the arrest unconstitutional,” Donohue wrote in her separate opinion.

Justice David Wecht did not participate in the Supreme Court's ruling, as he previously wrote the opinion for the Superior Court for the case.

According to that opinion, during a controlled narcotics buy in September 2011, police officer Joseph McCook claimed he watched Yong take money from a confidential informant and pass it along to his co-defendant, Samuel Vega, who then entered the home and returned with 12 packets of marijuana.

Two days later, police saw Vega and Yong in front of the same home, and an undercover officer allegedly bought marijuana from Vega. About 10 minutes later, police executed a search warrant on the home, according to the decision.

When they entered, Yong was standing on the first floor. Officer Gerald Gibson immediately arrested Yong, and found a loaded 0.38 revolver concealed in Yong's waistband, Wecht wrote. Yong was charged with drug- and firearm-related offenses.

At a suppression hearing, McCook testified that he saw Yong accept money from the confidential informant and then hand it to Vega, who then gave the informant drugs. He testified that he had seen hundreds of similar transactions during his 18 years as a police officer, according to the decision.

Gibson did not testify at the suppression hearing, according to Wecht; however, McCook said he was present when Gibson recovered the gun from Yong.

The court determined that there was probable cause, and did not suppress the physical evidence from the search, Wecht said.

On appeal, the parties disputed whether McCook's knowledge could be imputed to Gibson under the collective-knowledge doctrine.

The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office did not respond to a request for comment.

Daniel John O'Riordan, Yong's attorney, said he's exploring a petition for reargument or a federal appeal.

“Obviously my client's disappointed especially considering that the supreme court reversed what we believed was a well reasoned opinion by now Justice Wecht.”