Commonwealth v. Meneide (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-060-16)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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 15-P-124 Appeals Court COMMONWEALTH vs. JERRY MENEIDE. No. 15-P-124. Plymouth. November 12, 2015. – June 1, 2016. Present: Cohen, Grainger, & Wolohojian, JJ. Marijuana. Firearms. Practice, Criminal, Motion to suppress. Search and Seizure, Automobile, Protective frisk, Reasonable suspicion. Constitutional Law, Search and seizure, Stop and frisk. Complaint received and sworn to in the Brockton Division of the District Court Department on October 30, 2013. A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Stephen S. Ostrach, J. An application for leave to prosecute an interlocutory appeal was allowed by Geraldine S. Hines, J., in the Supreme Judicial Court for the county of Suffolk, and the appeal was reported by her to the Appeals Court. Gail M. McKenna, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. Moya R. Gibson for the defendant. WOLOHOJIAN, J. Before us is the Commonwealth’s interlocutory appeal from an order allowing, in part, the defendant’s motion to suppress. At issue is the search of an automobile after a routine traffic stop during which a noncriminal amount of marijuana was found.[1] The motion judge found that safety concerns justified the exit order and patfrisk of the driver, but that once the patfrisk resulted in the discovery of only a noncriminal quantity of marijuana, safety concerns did not justify searching the backseat armrest. We affirm. Background. We summarize the findings of the motion judge, none of which are challenged. At approximately 10:30 P.M. on October 29, 2013, three State troopers were driving in an unmarked car on the south side of Brockton. Their attention was drawn to a car that took a right turn from a left-turn only lane. The car was a small four-door sedan without tinted windows. It was traveling slowly, and the officers decided to follow it. As they did so, they observed the defendant (who was driving) speaking on a cellular telephone (cell phone) and looking from side to side. The defendant, who was unknown to the troopers, was alone in the car. As the troopers followed, the defendant drove slowly through a residential area and through an apartment complex, all the while continuing to speak on his cell phone and appearing to look for someone. The troopers had no particular information about the apartment complex. However, they knew that drug sales had been taking place […]