Commonwealth v. Smith (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-138-17)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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-406 Appeals Court COMMONWEALTH vs. ANTONIO A. SMITH. No. 16-P-406. Plymouth. April 5, 2017. – October 27, 2017. Present: Meade, Hanlon, & Maldonado, JJ. Controlled Substances. Evidence, Expert opinion. Witness, Expert. Indictment found and returned in the Superior Court Department on July 11, 2014. The case was tried before Robert C. Cosgrove, J. Nancy A. Dolberg, Committee for Public Counsel Services, for the defendant. Nathaniel Kennedy, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. HANLON, J. After a jury trial, the defendant was convicted of possession of a class B substance, crack cocaine, with intent to distribute.[1] He now argues that the improper admission of an expert witness’s “profiling” testimony impinged on the jury’s fact-finding role and created a substantial risk of a miscarriage of justice. For the following reasons, we affirm. Background. We summarize the facts as the jury could have found them, based upon the evidence admitted. On April 22, 2014, officers of the Brockton Police narcotics unit were watching an area near the intersection of North Cary Street and East Ashland Street. At 9:30 A.M., Detective Mercurio observed a green Volvo driving slowly; the driver was talking on a cellular telephone while leaning her head out of the window and looking around at nearby parking lots. After driving back and forth through the intersection, the Volvo came to a stop in the parking lot of a nearby liquor store that was closed. Neither the driver, nor the other occupants, a male and a child in the backseat, got out of the car. A few minutes later, the officers saw the defendant walking down North Cary Street; he went directly to the Volvo and got into the front passenger seat. About one minute later, the Volvo drove out of the parking lot and south on North Cary Street, turning onto Ashfield Drive, then stopping at an intersection on Anawan Street, a short distance from the original pick up location; the defendant got out of the car there. Shortly afterwards, Mercurio drove his unmarked police car past the Volvo, which was stopped at the next intersection. The defendant, having left the Volvo, was walking in the travel lane of the street in Mercurio’s direction; the detective then stopped his car and said “hey,” and the defendant walked […]