PA: RS not needed to seize firearm on car seat in plain view during traffic stop

The inherent dangers in a traffic stop justified the officer doing a protective sweep to seize a firearm on the seat in plain view, despite lack of any sense that defendant was going to use it. Commonwealth v. Hawkins-Davenport, 2026 Pa. LEXIS 266 (Feb. 18, 2026), affirming Commonwealth v. Hawkins-Davenport, 319 A.3d 537 (Pa. Super. 2024):

After a hearing, the suppression court granted the motion suppressing both the firearm and statements. On appeal by the Commonwealth, the Superior Court reversed, see Commonwealth v. Hawkins-Davenport, 319 A.3d 537 (Pa. Super. 2024), and Appellant thereafter sought this Court’s review. We granted allowance of appeal to consider whether, in Appellant’s words, police may, “during a lawful traffic stop, frisk a car and seize a weapon in plain view where there is no evidence that the car’s occupant is ‘presently dangerous’ other than his mere possession of the weapon[.]” Commonwealth v. Hawkins-Davenport, 333 A.3d 300 (Pa. 2025) (per curiam). For the reasons that follow, we affirm the order of the Superior Court.

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These distinctions notwithstanding, it is beyond dispute that there are inherent dangers associated with traffic stops: “we recognized that investigative detentions involving suspects in vehicles are especially fraught with danger to police officers[,]” Long, 463 U.S. at 1047; “[r]egrettably, traffic stops may be dangerous encounters[,]” Maryland v. Wilson, 519 U.S. 408, 413 (1997); “we have specifically recognized the inordinate risk confronting an officer as he approaches a person seated in an automobile. … We are aware that not all these assaults occur when issuing traffic summons, but we have before expressly declined to accept the argument that traffic violations necessarily involve less danger to officers than other types of confrontations. Indeed, it appears that a significant percentage of murders of police officers occurs when the officers are making traffic stops[,]” Mimms, 434 U.S. at 110 (internal citations and quotation marks omitted); “[a]ccording to one study, approximately 30% of police shootings occurred when a police officer approached a suspect seated in an automobile[,]” Adams, 407 U.S. at 148 n.3.

Likewise, firearms are unquestionably dangerous, as they are, by their very nature, lethal weapons, regardless of whether they are legally possessed. As we explained in Int. of T.W., supra, “It may not be immediately apparent that the possession of a weapon, such as a firearm for example, is illegal contraband. A Terry frisk then would serve little purpose if police officers could only remove objects which they reasonably suspect to be a weapon if it was immediately apparent that possession of the weapon was illegal.” Int. of T.W., 261 A.3d at 422. See also Terry, 392 U.S at 23-24 (“American criminals have a long tradition of armed violence, and every year in this country many law enforcement officers are killed in the line of duty, and thousands more are wounded. Virtually all of these deaths and a substantial portion of the injuries are inflicted with guns and knives.” (footnote omitted)). Similarly, the United States Supreme Court has held, within the meaning of the federal bank robbery statute, that an unloaded handgun is a “dangerous weapon[,]” as a gun is, inter alia, “an article that is typically and characteristically dangerous; the use for which it is manufactured and sold is a dangerous one, and the law reasonably may presume that such an article is always dangerous even though it may not be armed at a particular time or place.” McLaughlin v. United States, 476 U.S. 16, 17 (1986). See also Florida v. J.L., 529 U.S. 266, 272 (2000) (“Firearms are dangerous, and extraordinary dangers sometimes justify unusual precautions.”).

We find that the facts available to Officer Torres at the moment of the seizure, i.e., the unexpected sight, through an open car window, of an unsecured firearm in plain view on the passenger’s seat during a legal vehicle stop, is the kind of circumstance that would warrant a “reasonably prudent man” to believe “that his safety or that of others was in danger.” Terry, 392 U.S. at 27. See also Commonwealth’s Brief at 29 (“Removing the gun was essential so that the stop could proceed in a safe and orderly manner[,]” as “[t]he officers could hardly be expected to focus on such mundane matters as whether defendant’s paperwork was in order while preoccupied with whether they might be staring down the barrel of a gun an instant later” (footnote omitted)). To hold otherwise would be to ignore the realities of traffic stops and the dangers these type of tense encounters often pose to law enforcement and civilians alike. It would also require this Court to interpret Terry as narrowly permitting a frisk only when the offender’s actions alone demonstrate that he is armed and dangerous, see Appellant’s Brief at 2 (emphasizing that during the stop, he “did not make any furtive movements, and did not attempt to hide his gun”), without accounting for the other circumstances attendant to the stop and seizure. This we cannot do. As previously observed: “the risk of a violent encounter in a traffic-stop setting stems not from the ordinary reaction of a motorist stopped for a speeding violation, but from the fact that evidence of a more serious crime might be uncovered during the stop.” Johnson, 555 U.S. at 331 (internal quotation marks omitted). See also Mimms, 434 U.S. at 112 (“The bulge in the jacket permitted the officer to conclude that Mimms was armed and thus posed a serious and present danger to the safety of the officer.”); Commonwealth v. Revere, 888 A.2d 694, 707 (Pa. 2005) (“[T]he U.S. Supreme Court has explained that the ‘central requirement’ and the ‘touchstone’ of the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness. Reasonableness … is measured in objective terms by examining the totality of the circumstances.” (citations and some internal quotation marks omitted)).