Commonwealth v. Vick (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-161-16)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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 14-P-1150 Appeals Court COMMONWEALTH vs. TYRONE VICK. No. 14-P-1150. Suffolk. September 7, 2016. – November 8, 2016. Present: Kafker, C.J., Milkey, & Blake, JJ. Controlled Substances. Practice, Criminal, Motion to suppress. Constitutional Law, Investigatory stop, Reasonable suspicion, Probable cause, Search and seizure. Search and Seizure, Reasonable suspicion, Probable cause, Body examination. Probable Cause. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on June 7, 2007. A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Charles J. Hely, J., and the cases were tried before Judith Fabricant, J. Genevieve K. Henrique for the defendant. Nicholas Brandt, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. KAFKER, C.J. The defendant, Tyrone Vick, was convicted of possession of a class B substance, see G. L. c. 94C, § 34, following a jury trial. He appeals, arguing that the motion judge erred in denying the defendant’s motion to suppress evidence seized as the result of a stop, a search at the scene, and a search at the police station.[1] The search at the police station involved the use of force to pull down the defendant’s pants and to remove a plastic bag containing drugs (which an officer had felt during the search at the scene) protruding from his buttocks. On appeal, the defendant claims that (1) the motion judge erred by failing to resolve conflicting testimony regarding material facts;[2] (2) the search at the police station constituted a manual body cavity search not supported by a warrant issued by a judge, as required by Rodriques v. Furtado, 410 Mass. 878, 888 (1991); and (3) the police station search, even if characterized as a strip or visual body cavity search, was unreasonably conducted, particularly because it was performed in violation of a Boston police department policy requiring a warrant for the use of force to effectuate such a search. We affirm. Background. “We summarize the facts found by the motion judge following the evidentiary hearing, supplemented where necessary with undisputed testimony that was implicitly credited by the [motion] judge.” Commonwealth v. Oliveira, 474 Mass. 10, 11 (2016). On May 9, 2007, at approximately 6:00 P.M., Boston police Officers Peter Cazeau and Linda Stanford, both in uniform, were on patrol in a marked cruiser near the intersection of Stuart and Tremont Streets, in an area of […]
Care and Protection of Vick (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-084-16)
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-1451 Appeals Court CARE AND PROTECTION OF VICK.[1] No. 15-P-1451. Plymouth. May 10, 2016. – July 13, 2016. Present: Cypher, Blake, & Henry, JJ. Parent and Child, Care and protection of minor, Custody of minor, Interference with parental rights. Minor, Care and protection, Custody. Petition filed in the Plymouth County Division of the Juvenile Court Department on November 25, 2013. The case was heard by John P. Corbett, J. Karen O. Young for the mother. Rizwanul Huda for the child. Sookyoung Shin, Assistant Attorney General, for Department of Children and Families. Dennis M. Toomey for the father. BLAKE, J. A judge of the Juvenile Court found that the child was in need of care and protection, that the mother was unfit to assume parental responsibility, and that the unfitness was likely to continue into the indefinite future. On appeal, the mother challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the judge’s conclusion that she was unfit, contending that the evidence failed to establish a nexus between her parenting and a showing of harm to the child. She also claims that the judge did not conduct an evenhanded assessment of the evidence, and ignored the child’s preference to live with his mother. The child joins in these arguments. We affirm on the basis that the mother was unfit to assume parental responsibility due to neglect of the child. Background. We summarize the relevant facts and procedural history as set forth in the judge’s decision and as supported by the record, reserving other facts for later discussion. The parents met in high school and, shortly thereafter, the mother became pregnant. The child was born in February, 2002. Immediately after his birth, and for the next four and one-half years, the father was the child’s primary caretaker; during that time period, the father and child lived with the father’s mother. When the father lost his job, he placed the child in the mother’s care. In 2008, the father moved to Georgia, where he has extended family, because he was unable to find employment in Massachusetts. Despite the distance, the father maintained contact with the child’s schools and medical providers. From 2008 to 2013, the child spent most of his summers with the father in Georgia. In 2013, the mother resided […]