Commonwealth v. Jones (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-027-13)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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 10‑P‑1635 Appeals Court COMMONWEALTH vs. WILBERT JONES. No. 10‑P‑1635. Plymouth. November 9, 2012. ‑ February 15, 2013. Present: Meade, Sikora, & Carhart, JJ. Firearms. Constitutional Law, Search and seizure, Reasonable suspicion, Right to bear arms. Search and Seizure, Reasonable suspicion, Protective frisk. Evidence, Firearm. Complaint received and sworn to in the Brockton Division of the District Court Department on June 22, 2009. A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Julie J. Bernard, J., and the case was heard by Paul J. McCallum, J. Sarah G.J. Clymer for the defendant. Audrey Anderson Kachour, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. SIKORA, J. At the conclusion of a jury-waived trial, a judge of the District Court found the defendant guilty of carrying a firearm without a license, G. L. c. 269, § 10(a); possession of a firearm without a firearm identification card (FID card), G. L. c. 269, § 10(h)(1); and drinking alcohol in public, in violation of a Brockton city ordinance.[1] The defendant appeals from his convictions of the two firearms-related offenses upon the grounds (1) that the patfrisk search of his person uncovering the unauthorized firearm lacked justification; and (2) that the convictions violated his right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, as applied through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. For the following reasons, we affirm the judgments. Facts. Two officers testified at the pretrial suppression hearing, State police Troopers Michael McCarthy and Carlton Jackson. The evidence developed at the hearing permitted the motion judge to find as follows. At approximately 9:45 P.M. on June 19, 2009, McCarthy, Jackson, and a Brockton police officer were patrolling an area of Brockton in an unmarked cruiser. The area had a history of firearm offenses, narcotics violations, and homicide. The officers spotted the defendant as he walked unsteadily in the street and drank from an apparent bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag. They pulled over and approached him on foot. From close range they saw more clearly the neck of a green bottle and smelled the aroma of alcohol. The defendant acknowledged that he was drinking beer. When the officers removed the brown bag, they found a forty-ounce bottle of beer. Trooper Jackson asked the defendant whether he possessed any objects which might […]