Commonwealth v. Keene (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-036-16)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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-1793 Appeals Court COMMONWEALTH vs. ANTOINE KEENE. No. 14-P-1793. March 28, 2016. Firearms. Constitutional Law, Search and seizure, Reasonable suspicion. Search and Seizure, Reasonable suspicion. Practice, Criminal, Motion to suppress. This case began when two men, one of whom is the defendant, ran out of a nightclub in Stoughton at 12:52 A.M. on April 21, 2013. When stopped by Stoughton police Officer Mark Baldner, they said they were leaving the club because there was a fight inside, which was true. The officer told them they could leave, and saw them get into a Nissan Altima vehicle, the license plate number of which he wrote down. He did not see them again. Approximately ten minutes later there was a shooting outside the nightclub. The officer told Stoughton police dispatch to issue a “be on the lookout” (BOLO) bulletin for the Altima, requesting that it be “stop[ped] and h[e]ld.” Although the defendant and his companion had left the scene before the shooting occurred, the Boston police department issued a broadcast for units to be on the lookout for a Nissan Altima with the license plate number provided by Officer Baldner, which was described as “coming back to 130 Cummings Highway, [Boston] containing two occupants” and “last seen heading northbound on route 138.” The broadcast directed units to “stop and hold for the Stoughton [police department] regarding a shooting” and, for reasons that are unexplained in the record, added that the occupants “should be considered armed and dangerous.” Boston police officers saw the Altima on Radcliffe Street in Mattapan. They stopped the car and approached it with guns drawn, ordering its occupants to keep their hands up and make no sudden movements. The officers secured the defendant, who had been driving, and put him in a police car with his hands cuffed behind his back. Police searched the car for a gun without success. An officer from the K9 unit then conducted a more thorough search, during which he lifted the armrest of the driver’s side door, which seemed to be loose and not sealed as designed. He saw a cloth bag and the baseplate of firearm magazine. He then closed the armrest and put his K9 partner inside the car, and the dog alerted to the driver’s side door armrest. Two firearms were recovered. A Suffolk County […]