Commonwealth v. Meneus (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-009-17)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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 SJC-12105 COMMONWEALTH vs. McGREGORY MENEUS. Middlesex. September 8, 2016. – January 11, 2017. Present: Gants, C.J., Botsford, Lenk, Hines, Gaziano, Lowy, & Budd, JJ. Firearms. Constitutional Law, Investigatory stop, Stop and frisk, Reasonable suspicion, Search and seizure. Search and Seizure, Threshold police inquiry, Protective frisk, Reasonable suspicion. Practice, Criminal, Motion to suppress. Complaint received and sworn to in the Cambridge Division of the District Court Department on June 30, 2006. A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by James L. LaMothe, Jr., J., and a motion for reconsideration was considered by him; and the case was heard by Michele B. Hogan, J. After review by the Appeals Court, the Supreme Judicial Court granted leave to obtain further appellate review. David Gerson for the defendant. Randall F. Maas, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. HINES, J. After a jury-waived trial in the Cambridge District Court, the defendant was convicted of various firearms charges. The firearm was discovered after the defendant and a group of young black males were stopped by Cambridge police officers to investigate a report of shots fired at a vehicle. The defendant filed a motion to suppress the firearm, claiming that the police lacked reasonable suspicion for the stop. The motion judge denied the motion, as well as a motion for reconsideration thereof filed in light of our decisions in Commonwealth v. Martin, 457 Mass. 14 (2010), and Commonwealth v. Narcisse, 457 Mass. 1 (2010).[1] The defendant appealed from his convictions and the Appeals Court affirmed in an unpublished memorandum and order issued pursuant to its rule 1:28. We allowed the defendant’s application for further appellate review. We conclude that the police lacked reasonable suspicion for the stop and that the denial of the motion to suppress was error. Therefore, we vacate the conviction and remand for a new trial. Background. We summarize the facts as found by the motion judge, supplemented by uncontroverted evidence drawn from the record of the suppression hearing and evidence that was implicitly credited by the judge.[2] Commonwealth v. Melo, 472 Mass. 278, 286 (2015). In the late evening hours of April 29, 2006, Debra Santos reported to police that a gunshot struck her vehicle as she was driving on Windsor Street in Cambridge. At approximately 10:50 […]