Com. v. Adames

• Citation: 41 Mass.App.Ct. 14,668 N.E.2d 848
• Decision Date: 05 August 1996
• Docket Number: No. 95-P-16,95-P-16
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Jesus ADAMES.
• Court: Appeals Court of Massachusetts

Page 848

668 N.E.2d 848

41 Mass.App.Ct. 14

COMMONWEALTH v. Jesus ADAMES.

No. 95-P-16.

Appeals Court of Massachusetts,

Middlesex.

Argued Oct. 10, 1995.

Decided Aug. 5, 1996.

Richard N. Foley, Lynn, for defendant.

David E. Edmonds, Assistant District Attorney, Boston, for Commonwealth.

Before ARMSTRONG, PORADA and LENK, JJ.

ARMSTRONG, Justice.

Lowell police, having first obtained search warrants for two apartments in a house, one (first floor) thought to be the locus of retail sales of crack cocaine, the other (third floor) to be the stash apartment, preceded the search ¹ by a controlled buy, effected in this manner. Inspector DeMoura who made the purchase, was given a ten dollar bill which had been dusted with a fluorescent powder that glowed green when put under blue ultraviolet light, and on which had been written "Police" in ultraviolet crayon. The powder and the inscription were invisible in normal light. Inspector DeMoura then went to the door of the first-floor apartment, which was heavily barricaded, and asked for "a piece," which is the term for a "bag" with a small rock of crack cocaine. He passed the ten dollar bill through a hole in the bottom of the door. The "piece" came back through the hole. Inspector DeMoura returned to waiting officers, and a "special operations unit," armed with battering devices to break down barricaded doors, entered the first and third floor apartments and secured them. Then the narcotics officers entered.

Four Hispanic men were found in the first-floor apartment. The hands of two of these men, one of whom was the defendant, glowed distinctly green under the blue ultraviolet light, indicating that they had handled the marked bill. The defendant had $304 on his person. The other had "a large sum of money" including the marked bill. In the third-floor apartment were found 239 "pieces" of crack cocaine, packaged identically to the "piece" sold to the undercover officers, and of identical purity. A photograph of one of the four first-floor occupants was found in the third-floor apartment. The two apartments were connected by an exterior staircase, and prior to the search the officers had observed three instances of a Hispanic male leaving the first-floor apartment, ascending by the exterior stairs to the third-floor apartment, then returning moments later to the first-floor apartment.

Essentially the same factors govern the defendant's two principal contentions: that there was no evidence of his participation in a joint venture to sell crack cocaine, and that the judge erred in admitting in evidence the 239 bags from the third-floor apartment. But the connection between the two apartments was amply demonstrated, both before the raid, by the observed traffic between the first and third floor apartments, and after, by the photograph and the crack cocaine in the upper apartment identical in packaging and purity to the "piece" sold from the first-floor apartment. See Commonwealth v. Pratt, 407 Mass. 647, 652, 555 N.E.2d 559 (1990); Commonwealth v. James, 30 Mass.App.Ct. 490, 495-497, 570 N.E.2d 168 (1991); Commonwealth v. Rivera, 40 Mass.App.Ct. 308, 312, 664 N.E.2d 451 (1996). Moreover, the evidence concerning the first-floor apartment: that it was heavily barricaded, that it was occupied only by four males, and that it was the locus for at least one sale of crack cocaine, through a hole in the door, no questions asked, together suggested that it was a base for retail sales of crack cocaine (compare Commonwealth v. Arias, 29 Mass.App.Ct. 613, 619, 563 N.E.2d 1379 [1990] ) and that, if the stock from which sales were made were not in the apartment, it would in all likelihood be found nearby. The commonsense inference to be drawn from the evidence of the two apartments combined, was that men in the first-floor apartment were engaged in a joint venture to sell the crack cocaine in the third-floor apartment; and, if further evidence were needed to connect the defendant particularly to the joint venture, his participation in the controlled buy, evidenced by the fluorescent powder on his hands immediately after the sale, supplied...