Commonwealth v. Tarjick (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-050-15)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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 13-P-932 Appeals Court COMMONWEALTH vs. AARON M. TARJICK. No. 13-P-932. Hampshire. December 3, 2014. – May 18, 2015. Present: Kantrowitz, Green, & Meade, JJ. Practice, Criminal, Motion to suppress, Warrant. Constitutional Law, Search and seizure. Search and Seizure, Warrant, Plain view. Evidence, Digital image, Photograph, Prior misconduct. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on September 22 and December 17, 2010. A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Mary-Lou Rup, J., and the cases were tried before C. Jeffrey Kinder, J. Elaine Fronhofer for the defendant. Joseph A. Pieropan, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. KANTROWITZ, J. This matter involves the interplay between twenty-first century technology and twentieth century search and seizure principles. We hold that the police, while executing a search warrant for nude images of the defendant’s thirteenyear old stepdaughter on a video camera, cellular telephone (cell phone), and computer, were justified in seizing three memory cards from digital cameras that they came across.[1] The defendant challenges the propriety of the order denying his motion to suppress the contents of a memory card removed from one of the digital cameras. He also challenges the admission at trial of enlarged photographs of one young female victim at various ages, the Commonwealth’s references to the defendant’s status as a prisoner, and the playing of two recordings of telephone calls that he made from jail. We affirm. Background.[2] Carla was the defendant’s stepdaughter. She lived with her biological mother and the defendant, who were living together and were married when Carla was about seven or eight years old. Carla testified that in 2006, the defendant began sexually abusing and raping her. At one point, she indicated that the defendant took at least one sexually explicit photograph of her using his cell phone and made sexually explicit video recordings of her with a video camera. The police suspected that the defendant transferred or copied the images to the family computer because Carla told authorities that her mother had said that the defendant was viewing sexually explicit images of young girls on the computer. After Carla disclosed the abuse, she went to live with her biological father. The second victim, Nina, was Carla’s ten year old friend from school. The defendant sexually abused Nina on multiple occasions when she visited. […]
Commonwealth v. Tarjick (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-050-15)
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 13-P-932 Appeals Court COMMONWEALTH vs. AARON M. TARJICK. No. 13-P-932. Hampshire. December 3, 2014. – May 18, 2015. Present: Kantrowitz, Green, & Meade, JJ. Practice, Criminal, Motion to suppress, Warrant. Constitutional Law, Search and seizure. Search and Seizure, Warrant, Plain view. Evidence, Digital image, Photograph, Prior misconduct. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on September 22 and December 17, 2010. A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Mary-Lou Rup, J., and the cases were tried before C. Jeffrey Kinder, J. Elaine Fronhofer for the defendant. Joseph A. Pieropan, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. KANTROWITZ, J. This matter involves the interplay between twenty-first century technology and twentieth century search and seizure principles. We hold that the police, while executing a search warrant for nude images of the defendant’s thirteenyear old stepdaughter on a video camera, cellular telephone (cell phone), and computer, were justified in seizing three memory cards from digital cameras that they came across.[1] The defendant challenges the propriety of the order denying his motion to suppress the contents of a memory card removed from one of the digital cameras. He also challenges the admission at trial of enlarged photographs of one young female victim at various ages, the Commonwealth’s references to the defendant’s status as a prisoner, and the playing of two recordings of telephone calls that he made from jail. We affirm. Background.[2] Carla was the defendant’s stepdaughter. She lived with her biological mother and the defendant, who were living together and were married when Carla was about seven or eight years old. Carla testified that in 2006, the defendant began sexually abusing and raping her. At one point, she indicated that the defendant took at least one sexually explicit photograph of her using his cell phone and made sexually explicit video recordings of her with a video camera. The police suspected that the defendant transferred or copied the images to the family computer because Carla told authorities that her mother had said that the defendant was viewing sexually explicit images of young girls on the computer. After Carla disclosed the abuse, she went to live with her biological father. The second victim, Nina, was Carla’s ten year old friend from school. The defendant sexually abused Nina on multiple occasions when she visited. […]