Commonwealth v. Johnson (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-185-15)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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 14-P-1400 Appeals Court COMMONWEALTH vs. CAJOU JOHNSON. No. 14-P-1400. Essex. September 14, 2015. – December 9, 2015. Present: Green, Wolohojian, & Hanlon, JJ. Firearms. Practice, Criminal, Motion to suppress, Findings by judge. Constitutional Law, Search and seizure, Investigatory stop, Reasonable suspicion. Search and Seizure, Reasonable suspicion, Clothing. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on November 8, 2012. A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Timothy Q. Feeley, J, and the cases were heard by Howard J. Whitehead, J. Patrick Levin for the defendant. Philip Anthony Mallard, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. WOLOHOJIAN, J. At issue is whether there was reasonable suspicion to stop and frisk the defendant, who did not match the particularized aspects of the descriptions provided by eyewitnesses who called 911 to report that there had been a shoot-out on a residential street. The defendant was, however, among the trees in a closed public park well after dark, close to the scene of the crime within minutes of its occurrence, wearing a “hoodie” pulled tightly around his face. In the circumstances presented, as described more fully below, we conclude that the seizure was reasonable and therefore there was no error in the denial of the defendant’s motion to suppress.[1] Background. We recite the facts as found by the motion judge. “On October 19, 2012, the [Lynn police department (LPD)] received eight 911 calls within a four minute span of time, starting at 10:09 pm. Each of the calls related to a ‘shots fired’ incident on Harwood Street. Several reported hearing the shots fired, but reported no observations of the actual shooting. Those calls could not pinpoint the exact location of the shooting. As many as twelve discharges were reported, involving at least two different weapons. A caller from Harwood Street reported seeing people shooting on that street. He reported the people to include black and/or Spanish, with a shooter observed to run toward Common Street. A caller from 82 Harwood Street reported guys in her backyard shooting guns, but it appeared that her neighbor had actually made the observations. Another caller reported observing shots fired at 66 Harwood Street. He observed the shooter as being a black male, wearing a black jacket and red bandana, shooting at another black male, and then […]