Commonwealth v. Gorman (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-133-13)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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 12‑P‑743 Appeals Court COMMONWEALTH vs. SAQUAN I. GORMAN. No. 12‑P‑743. Norfolk. April 12, 2013. ‑ November 1, 2013. Present: Rubin, Fecteau, & Hines, JJ. Home Invasion. Armed Assault in a Dwelling. Assault by Means of a Dangerous Weapon. Constitutional Law, Search and seizure. Due Process of Law, Seizure of motor vehicle. Search and Seizure, Motor vehicle. Practice, Criminal, Motion to suppress, Required finding, Instructions to jury. Evidence, Joint venturer. Firearms. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on August 13, 2009. A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Janet L. Sanders, J., and the cases were tried before Kenneth J. Fishman, J. Judith Ellen Pietras for the defendant. Kevin J. Powers, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. RUBIN, J. On August 13, 2009, a grand jury in Norfolk County returned indictments charging the defendant and two codefendants[1] with a number of offenses in connection with an incident at a home in Randolph. Police had apprehended them after stopping the vehicle in which they were driving away from the scene of the incident. The defendant moved to suppress evidence gathered as a result of the vehicle stop, but this motion was denied. After a jury trial in Superior Court, the defendant was convicted as a joint venturer of home invasion, armed assault in a dwelling house, and assault by means of a dangerous weapon. He was acquitted of the charge of possession of a firearm while committing a felony. On appeal, the defendant challenges the denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained in connection with the vehicle stop, the sufficiency of the evidence demonstrating both his intent to commit the offenses as a joint venturer and his knowledge that the principal had a weapon, and the omission of a jury instruction that he could only be convicted as a joint venturer in the charged offenses if the Commonwealth proved he knew that the principal was armed. We hold that the defendant’s motion to suppress was correctly denied, and that the evidence presented was sufficient to support the convictions. We conclude, however, that, on the facts of this case, the trial judge’s failure to instruct the jury with respect to the requirement that the defendant knew that the principal was armed created a substantial risk […]