Commonwealth v. Teixeira-Furtado (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-087-16)

NOTICE:  All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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   SJC-12010   COMMONWEALTH  vs.  EDDY G. TEIXEIRA-FURTADO. June 20, 2016.     Constitutional Law, Search and seizure.  Search and Seizure, Threshold police inquiry.  Threshold Police Inquiry.     The defendant, Eddy G. Teixeira-Furtado, was a passenger in a motor vehicle that was pursued and then stopped for traveling at a “speed greater than is reasonable.”  See G. L. c. 90, § 17.[1]  While the vehicle was still in motion, the defendant got out of the vehicle, looked uncertainly in the direction of the police officers, and grabbed the right side of his waist area.  The police officers gave chase.  When the defendant was apprehended, he was carrying a firearm.  A complaint issued in the Boston Municipal Court charging the defendant with several firearm offenses.  Before trial, a Boston Municipal Court judge allowed the defendant’s motion to suppress the evidence derived from the encounter, and denied the Commonwealth’s motion for reconsideration.  A single justice of this court granted the Commonwealth’s application for leave to pursue an interlocutory appeal.  See Mass. R. Crim. P. 15 (a) (2), as appearing in 422 Mass. 1501 (1996).  The Appeals Court reversed in an unpublished memorandum and order pursuant to its rule 1:28, Commonwealth v. Teixeira-Furtado, 87 Mass. App. Ct. 1133 (2015), and remanded for further proceedings.  We granted further appellate review.  We affirm the order allowing the motion to suppress.   Background.  The motion judge’s findings establish that on the evening of November 23, 2012, three officers of the Boston police department’s youth violence strike force, wearing plainclothes and traveling in an unmarked police vehicle, were patrolling areas of the city known as “hot spots” — areas they knew to be gang affiliated and where guns had been recovered.  One officer observed a known gang associate park a vehicle and then enter a pizza store with the defendant.[2]  Approximately fifteen minutes later,   “the officers were on Bentham Road close to a stop sign facing Mt. Ida Road when they ‘observed a car traveling at a speed greater than reasonable’ on Mt. Ida.  The area is a residential one with ‘plenty of kids around.’  It was nighttime.  The officers recognized the car as the Honda Accord that [the gang associate] had been driving earlier.  They activated the unmarked cruiser’s lights and siren and went after the Honda Accord.  The car did not stop immediately but went […]

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