Commonwealth v. Jones-Pannell (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-139-15)

NOTICE:  All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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-11737   COMMONWEALTH  vs.  OLAJUWAN JONES-PANNELL.[1] Suffolk.     April 6, 2015. – August 14, 2015. Present:  Gants, C.J., Spina, Cordy, Botsford, Duffly, & Lenk, JJ.     Constitutional Law, Stop and frisk, Reasonable suspicion.  Search and Seizure, Protective frisk, Reasonable suspicion, Threshold police inquiry.  Threshold Police Inquiry.  Practice, Criminal, Motion to suppress, Findings by judge.  Firearms.       Complaints received and sworn to in the Roxbury Division of the Boston Municipal Court Department on August 8 and 25, 2011.   After transfer to the Central Division of the Boston Municipal Court Department, a pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Raymond G. Dougan, J.   An application for leave to prosecute an interlocutory appeal was allowed by Spina, J., in the Supreme Judicial Court for the county of Suffolk, and the appeal was reported by him to the Appeals Court.  After review by that court, the Supreme Judicial Court granted leave to obtain further appellate review.     John O. Mitchell for the defendant. Cailin M. Campbell, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.     DUFFLY, J.  The defendant, Olawajuwan Jones-Pannell, fled when two Boston police officers attempted to stop and question him on Norfolk Avenue, between East Cottage Street and Burrell Street, in the Roxbury section of Boston.[2]  When the officers pursued and apprehended him, a handgun containing seven rounds of ammunition fell from his pants.  The defendant was charged with several firearms offenses, as well as resisting arrest.  Prior to trial in the Boston Municipal Court, the defendant moved to suppress all evidence derived from the encounter.  After an evidentiary hearing, a Boston Municipal Court judge allowed the defendant’s motion.  A single justice of this court granted the Commonwealth’s application for leave to pursue an interlocutory appeal.  See Mass. R. Crim. P. 15 (a) (2), as appearing in 422 Mass. 1501 (1996).  The Appeals Court reversed the allowance of the motion to suppress, Commonwealth v. Jones-Pannell, 85 Mass. App. Ct. 390, 391 (2014), and we allowed the defendant’s petition for further appellate review.  We affirm the motion judge’s order allowing the motion to suppress. 1.  Background.  We summarize the judge’s factual findings, which were prefaced with his statement that “[t]he following facts are the only ones found by the court based on credible testimony presented at the hearing on the motion to suppress.” At approximately 12:37 A.M., two […]

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