Commonwealth v. Perez (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-038-15)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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 12-P-1378 Appeals Court COMMONWEALTH vs. CARLOS MANUEL PEREZ. No. 12-P-1378. Middlesex. December 8, 2014. – April 15, 2015. Present: Kafker, Grainger, & Agnes, JJ. Controlled Substances. Practice, Criminal, Required finding, Instructions to jury, Motion to suppress, Warrant, Affidavit, New trial. Constitutional Law, Search and seizure. Search and Seizure, Warrant, Affidavit, Probable cause. Complaint received and sworn to in the Lowell Division of the District Court Department on April 26, 2010. A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Martine Carroll, J.; the case was tried before Laurence D. Pierce, J.; and motions for a new trial and for other postconviction relief were heard by him. Jeffrey G. Harris for the defendant. Matthew Bailey for the Commonwealth. GRAINGER, J. The defendant was charged with possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. He was convicted by a jury in the District Court of the lesser included offense of possession of a class B substance, G. L. c. 94C, § 34. He appeals, asserting insufficiency of the evidence, error in the jury instructions, and error in the denial of his motion to suppress evidence and his motion for a new trial or a hearing pursuant to Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154 (1978). His claims of reversible error are primarily dependent on the issuance and execution of a so-called “no-knock” warrant that produced the evidence resulting in his conviction. We address ancillary claims before considering the issuance of the warrant, referring to the undisputed facts as they are pertinent to the issues. Sufficiency. The defendant argues that the Commonwealth failed to demonstrate the requisite knowledge coupled with intent to exercise control that would support a conviction for constructive possession of the cocaine found in his bedroom. We disagree. The jury received evidence that the defendant was the only person in his bedroom when the police executed the search warrant. The police found cocaine in a glassine bag in the pocket of a man’s shirt hanging in the defendant’s bedroom closet. In the defendant’s bedroom the police found a bottle of boric acid, sandwich bags, a digital scale, $ 422 in cash, a Massachusetts identification card bearing the defendant’s name and picture, a Venezuelan passport bearing the defendant’s name and a picture closely resembling the defendant, and a billing receipt addressed to the defendant at that […]