Commonwealth v. Warren (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-151-16)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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 11956 COMMONWEALTH vs. JIMMY WARREN. Suffolk. February 9, 2016. – September 20, 2016. Present: Gants, C.J., Spina, Cordy, Botsford, Duffly, Lenk, & Hines, JJ.[1] Firearms. Practice, Criminal, Motion to suppress. Constitutional Law, Search and seizure, Reasonable suspicion. Search and Seizure, Reasonable suspicion. Complaint received and sworn to in the Roxbury Division of the Boston Municipal Court Department on December 19, 2011. After transfer to the Central Division, a pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Tracy-Lee Lyons, J., and the case was heard by Annette Forde, J. After review by the Appeals Court, the Supreme Judicial Court granted leave to obtain further appellate review. Nelson P. Lovins for the defendant. Michael Glennon, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. HINES, J. After a jury-waived trial in the Boston Municipal Court, the defendant, Jimmy Warren, was convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm, G. L. c. 269, § 10 (a).[2] The complaint arose from the discovery of a firearm after an investigatory stop of the defendant in connection with a breaking and entering that had occurred in a nearby home approximately thirty minutes earlier. Prior to trial, the defendant filed a motion to suppress the firearm and statements made after his arrest, arguing that police lacked reasonable suspicion for the stop. The judge who heard the motion denied it, ruling that, at the time of the stop, the police had reasonable suspicion that the defendant was one of the perpetrators of the breaking and entering. The defendant appealed, claiming error in the denial of the motion to suppress.[3] The Appeals Court affirmed, Commonwealth v. Warren, 87 Mass. App. Ct. 476, 477 (2015). We allowed the defendant’s application for further appellate review and conclude that because the police lacked reasonable suspicion for the investigatory stop, the denial of the motion to suppress was error. Therefore, we vacate the conviction. Background. We summarize the facts as found by the judge at the hearing on the motion to suppress, supplemented by evidence in the record that is uncontroverted and that was implicitly credited by the judge. Commonwealth v. Melo, 472 Mass. 278, 286 (2015). On December 18, 2011, Boston police Officer Luis Anjos was patrolling the Roxbury section of Boston in a marked police cruiser when, at 9:20 P.M., he received […]