Commonwealth v. Stewart (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-135-14)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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-11475 COMMONWEALTH vs. PAUL STEWART. Plymouth. March 6, 2014. – August 7, 2014. Present: Ireland, C.J., Spina, Cordy, Botsford, Gants, Duffly, & Lenk, JJ.[1] Controlled Substances. Habitual Offender. Constitutional Law, Search and seizure, Investigatory stop, Probable cause, Reasonable suspicion. Threshold Police Inquiry. Probable Cause. Search and Seizure, Threshold police inquiry, Reasonable suspicion, Search incident to lawful arrest, Fruits of illegal search, Probable cause. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on July 23, 2008. A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Frank M. Gaziano, J., and the cases were tried before Judith Fabricant, J. After review by the Appeals Court, the Supreme Judicial Court granted leave to obtain further appellate review. James P. Vander Salm for the defendant. Zachary Hillman, Assistant District Attorney (Melissa L. Brooks, Assistant District Attorney, with him) for the Commonwealth. Michael J. Fellows, Committee for Public Counsel Services, for Committee for Public Counsel Services, amicus curiae, submitted a brief. William W. Adams, for Tari Richardson, amicus curiae, submitted a brief. GANTS, J. A Superior Court jury convicted the defendant of possession of a class B substance (cocaine) with intent to distribute, in violation of G. L. c. 94C, § 32A (c).[2] After that guilty finding, in the second part of a bifurcated trial, the jury found that the defendant had previously been convicted in 2006 of distribution of a class B substance and in 1994 of assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, and that he had been committed to prison for not less than three years on each of these prior convictions. As a result, the defendant was sentenced both under G. L. c. 94C, § 32A (d), which provides for a sentence of not less than five years nor more than fifteen years in State prison where a defendant is convicted of a violation of § 32A (c) after an earlier conviction of that offense, and under G. L. c. 279, § 25, as a habitual offender, which requires that the defendant “be punished by imprisonment in the [S]tate prison for the maximum term provided by law as a penalty for the felony for which he is then to be sentenced,” which the judge determined to be the statutory maximum of fifteen years in State prison. In an unpublished memorandum and order pursuant to rule 1:28 […]