Commonwealth v. Gallagher (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-046-17)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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 16-P-192 Appeals Court COMMONWEALTH vs. JUDITH A. GALLAGHER. No. 16-P-192. Hampden. February 7, 2017. – April 21, 2017. Present: Green, Meade, & Agnes, JJ. Motor Vehicle, Operating under the influence. Intoxication. Evidence, Intoxication, Opinion. Practice, Criminal, Witness. Witness, Police officer. Complaint received and sworn to in the Chicopee Division of the District Court Department on June 30, 2014. The case was tried before Bethzaida Sanabria-Vega, J. Colin Caffrey for the defendant. Kelsey A. Baran, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. MEADE, J. After a jury trial, the defendant was convicted of operating while under the influence of intoxicating liquor (OUI), in violation of G. L. c. 90, § 24(1)(a)(1). On appeal, she claims that the judge improperly admitted a State trooper’s testimony concerning her impairment to operate a motor vehicle, and that the evidence was insufficient to support her conviction. We affirm. Background. a. The incident. In the early morning hours of June 29, 2014, the Massachusetts State police were conducting an OUI checkpoint on Route 33 in Chicopee.[1] State Trooper John Haidousis, who had ten years of experience working in law enforcement,[2] was assigned to work the secondary location, i.e., the parking lot of Monroe Muffler, a business located directly off of Route 33.[3] The business parking lot was brightly lit, the ground was flat and paved, and individual parking spots were marked visibly by painted lines on the pavement. At about 12:15 A.M., the defendant, as directed by another trooper, drove her vehicle into the secondary location parking lot without incident. Trooper Haidousis directed her to park in one of the marked parking spots. The defendant failed to do as instructed, instead parking her vehicle “crooked[ly]” or “diagonally across two parking spots.” Upon request, the defendant produced a driver’s license and perhaps a registration; Trooper Haidousis determined that she was seventy-one years old. As Trooper Haidousis spoke to the defendant he detected an odor of alcoholic beverage coming from her mouth, and observed her eyes to be “bloodshot and glassy.” Trooper Haidousis asked the defendant whether she had consumed any alcohol, to which she replied that she had consumed three beers, and had started drinking around midnight. Her speech was “a bit slurred.” Based on these observations, Trooper Haidousis asked the defendant to perform field sobriety tests, to […]