This section contains the nature of the case and procedural background.

Officer Devlin, Narcotics Strike Force, was working the morning shift involving undercover surveillance. Devlin had five years on the beat and nine months with the Strike Force. He'd made fifteen - twenty drug busts in the neighborhood he was not sitting in. Devlin spotted a lone man on the corner. D approached the lone man and they exchanged words. Cash was handed over, and small objects were handed back. Each man then quickly on his own way. Devlin radioed a description, and Officer Stein picked up D. Sure enough, there were three bags of crack in the guy's pocket. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court held in a divided decision that the police lacked probable cause to arrest Dunlap (D). It held that a 'single, isolated transaction' in a high-crime area was insufficient to justify the arrest, given that the officer did not actually see the drugs, there was no tip from an informant, and D did not attempt to flee. P appealed

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