Commonwealth v. Foster (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-063-15)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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-11596 COMMONWEALTH vs. STEPHEN FOSTER. Bristol. November 7, 2014. – April 15, 2015. Present: Gants, C.J., Cordy, Duffly, Lenk, & Hines, JJ. Homicide. Robbery. Felony-Murder Rule. Probable Cause. Search and Seizure, Probable cause, Warrant, Affidavit. Practice, Criminal, Capital case, Motion to suppress, Warrant, Affidavit, Duplicative convictions. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on December 11, 2009. A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Renee P. Dupuis, J., and the cases were tried before Robert J. Kane, J. Dana Alan Curhan for the defendant. Sebastian Jose Pacheco, Assistant District Attorney (David B. Mark, Assistant District Attorney, with him) for the Commonwealth. DUFFLY, J. In December, 2009, the defendant was indicted on charges of murder in the first degree, armed robbery, receiving stolen property, and carrying a firearm without a license, in the shooting death of Hegazy Sayed. In May, 2012, the defendant filed a motion to suppress evidence seized pursuant to a search warrant from his room in a “sober house.” After an evidentiary hearing that took place in eight nonconsecutive days over the course of one year, the motion was denied, and the case proceeded to trial before a different judge of the Superior Court. The defendant’s motion for a required finding of not guilty was denied. Before submitting the case to the jury, the judge dismissed the charges of carrying a firearm without a license and of receiving stolen property. A Superior Court jury found the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree on theories of deliberate premeditation and felony-murder, and also found the defendant guilty of armed robbery. The armed robbery conviction was dismissed subject to being reviewed for sentencing if the murder conviction were reversed on appeal. On appeal, the defendant argues that the motion judge erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence seized from his residence pursuant to a search warrant, and all other evidence seized as a result of that initial search, because there was no probable cause that he was the perpetrator, and also because, even if there were evidence of his involvement in the robbery and killing, no nexus was established to show that evidence of the crimes would be found in his room. The defendant also requests that we exercise our authority to provide relief […]