Commonwealth v. Norman (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-046-15)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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 13-P-1978 Appeals Court COMMONWEALTH vs. KENNETH I. NORMAN. No. 13-P-1978. Worcester. January 8, 2015. – May 8, 2015. Present: Grainger, Brown, & Milkey, JJ. Motor Vehicle, Operating under the influence, License to operate. License. Notice. Registrar of Motor Vehicles, Records. Practice, Criminal, Required finding. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on November 14, 2012. The cases were tried before David Ricciardone, J. Nelson P. Lovins for the defendant. Ellyn H. Lazar-Moore, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. MILKEY, J. Following jury and jury-waived trials in Superior Court, the defendant was convicted of operating under the influence of intoxicating liquor (OUI) while under a license 2 suspension for a prior OUI. 1 G. L. c. 90, § 23. On appeal, the defendant argues primarily that the evidence was insufficient to support that conviction. He makes no challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence that he committed an OUI, that at the time he did so his license was suspended, and that the suspension at issue was for a prior OUI. Instead, he targets the sufficiency only of the evidence that he was notified of the suspension. See Commonwealth v. Oyewole, 470 Mass. 1015, 1016 (2014) (to make out a violation of G. L. c. 90, § 23, the Commonwealth must prove, inter alia, that the defendant “was notified that his license had been suspended or revoked”). We conclude that the evidence was sufficient and therefore affirm the convictions. Background. Given the limited nature of the defendant’s appeal, we lay out only the evidence related to whether the defendant had notice of his license suspension. The longtime branch manager of the Worcester office of the Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) testified that the RMV had a system in place to provide drivers formal notice that their licenses had been suspended. Under that system, once an OUI conviction is entered 1 The defendant was also convicted of OUI, fifth or subsequent offense. G. L. c. 90, § 24(1)(a)(1). As discussed infra at note 6, he initially challenged that conviction but has since abandoned that claim. He has not challenged his additional conviction of operating negligently so as to endanger. G. L. c. 90, § 24(2)(a). 3 into the relevant database, a suspension notice is automatically generated, and employees in the RMV mailroom then place the notice in an envelope and deliver it […]