Commonwealth v. Ortiz (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-026-18)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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-12273 COMMONWEALTH vs. ANTHONY C. ORTIZ. Hampden. October 3, 2017. – February 12, 2018. Present (Sitting at Greenfield): Gants, C.J., Lenk, Gaziano, Lowy, Budd, Cypher, & Kafker, JJ. Constitutional Law, Search and seizure. Search and Seizure, Motor vehicle, Consent, Fruits of illegal search. Consent. Evidence, Result of illegal search. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on March 25, 2015. A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Edward J. McDonough, Jr., J. An application for leave to prosecute an interlocutory appeal was allowed by Hines, J., in the Supreme Judicial Court for the county of Suffolk, and the appeal was reported by her to the Appeals Court. The Supreme Judicial Court granted an application for direct appellate review. Cynthia Cullen Payne, Assistant District Attorney (Bethany Lynch, Assistant District Attorney, also present) for the Commonwealth. Patrick Levin, Committee for Public Counsel Services, for the defendant. GANTS, C.J. In this case we must decide whether a driver’s consent to allow the police to search for narcotics or firearms “in the vehicle” authorizes a police officer to search under the hood of the vehicle and, as part of that search, to remove the vehicle’s air filter. We hold that it does not. A typical reasonable person would understand the scope of such consent to be limited to a search of the interior of the vehicle, including the trunk. Because the police here exceeded this scope by searching under the hood and removing the air filter, and because the search was not otherwise supported by probable cause and was not a lawful inventory search, the Superior Court judge’s order granting the defendant’s motion to suppress is affirmed. Background. We summarize the facts as found by the motion judge, supplemented by uncontroverted evidence that the judge explicitly or implicitly credited. See Commonwealth v. Isaiah I., 448 Mass. 334, 337 (2007), S.C., 450 Mass. 818 (2008). On January 23, 2015, Officer Jared Hamel and Detective Boyle[1] of the Holyoke police department were on patrol in an unmarked police cruiser when they heard loud music coming from a vehicle. The officers determined that the loud music posed a public safety hazard under a local ordinance that prohibits excessively loud music in a motor vehicle. Officer Hamel activated the […]