Commonwealth v. Privette


NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports. If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557- 1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us SJC-13248 COMMONWEALTH vs. DAVID PRIVETTE. Suffolk. September 9, 2022. - March 28, 2023. Present: Budd, C.J., Gaziano, Lowy, Cypher, Kafker, Wendlandt, & Georges, JJ. Firearms. Practice, Criminal, Motion to suppress, Interlocutory appeal. Evidence, State of police knowledge. Constitutional Law, Search and seizure, Reasonable suspicion, Investigatory stop. Search and Seizure, Reasonable suspicion, Threshold police inquiry. Threshold Police Inquiry. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on October 10, 2018. A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Elaine M. Buckley, J. An application for leave to prosecute an interlocutory appeal was allowed by Lenk, J., in the Supreme Judicial Court for the county of Suffolk, and the appeal was reported by her to the Appeals Court. After review by the Appeals Court, the Supreme Judicial Court granted leave to obtain further appellate review. Anne Rousseve, Committee for Public Counsel Services, for the defendant. Kathryn Sherman, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. 2 GAZIANO, J. On a rainy, early morning in August of 2018, Boston police officers received a report of an armed robbery of a gasoline station in the Clam Point area of the Dorchester section of Boston at 3:35 A.M. The first radio report described the suspect as a "Black male, late twenties, five foot seven, blue hoodie, blue jeans, on foot towards [a pharmacy]." Later dispatches added that the suspect had facial hair. Seven minutes after the first dispatch, and one street away from the location of the armed robbery, an officer stopped the defendant. Contemporaneously, other officers responding to the call were canvassing the area for potential suspects; one of the officers continued to communicate via the police department radio channel dedicated to use in the area. This officer arrived at the location of the investigatory stop at the same time as the officer who initiated the stop. After a patfrisk of the defendant's person and his backpack by both officers revealed $432 and a firearm, the defendant was arrested and indicted for multiple firearms offenses. He filed a motion to suppress the items seized as a result of the stop, on the ground that the officer who initiated it lacked the requisite reasonable suspicion. After an evidentiary hearing, a Superior Court judge denied the motion, and the defendant sought interlocutory review. The single justice allowed the appeal to proceed in the 3 Appeals Court, where the court affirmed the denial of the motion to suppress. We then allowed the defendant's application for further appellate review. We are tasked with deciding whether, through the collective knowledge doctrine, information known to other investigating officers may be imputed to the officer who initiated the stop, and thus be …

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