Commonwealth v. Carlson (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-013-18)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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 17-P-35 Appeals Court COMMONWEALTH vs. JASON C. CARLSON. No. 17-P-35. Worcester. November 15, 2017. – February 6, 2018. Present: Wolohojian, Massing, & Wendlandt, JJ. Larceny. Identification. Constitutional Law, Identification. Due Process of Law, Identification. Evidence, Identification. Practice, Criminal, Motion to suppress. Indictment found and returned in the Superior Court Department on January 21, 2014. A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Daniel M. Wrenn, J., and the case was tried before Richard T. Tucker, J. Geraldine C. Griffin for the defendant. Donna-Marie Haran, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. WOLOHOJIAN, J. A pawnbroker, after a single-photograph identification procedure, identified the defendant as the man who had some days earlier pawned certain items of stolen jewelry. The pawnbroker’s identification was an important part of the evidence at the defendant’s jury trial, which resulted in his conviction of larceny over $ 250.[1] The central issue on appeal is whether the defendant’s motion to suppress the pawnbroker’s identification should have been allowed because the single-photograph identification procedure violated the defendant’s rights under art. 12 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. Concluding that the motion should have been allowed, we reverse the judgment. We summarize the facts found by the motion judge, supplemented by undisputed evidence introduced at the evidentiary motion hearing. See Commonwealth v. Dew, 478 Mass. 304, 305 (2017). Pauline and Emile Daigle, a couple in their seventies, hired a professional moving company to move from their single-family home in Templeton to a condominium unit in Hubbardston on August 31, 2013. The next day, Pauline Daigle reported to police that seventeen pieces of jewelry valued at approximately $ 30,000 were missing; only empty boxes remained in the dresser drawers where she had stored the jewelry. Templeton police Detective Derek Hall opened an investigation into the theft. He learned that two moving men had handled the move: Ronny Norton and the defendant. Norton was a long-time employee of the moving company; the defendant, by contrast, had been employed for the day. Norton told Hall that the defendant had been alone in the Templeton bedroom where the jewelry had been stored and also when he (the defendant) had unpacked the bedroom dresser drawers at the end of the move in Hubbardston. Norton also said that when he […]