Com. v. Battle

• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
• Writing for the Court: Before TAURO; TAURO
• Citation: Com. v. Battle, 313 N.E.2d 554, 365 Mass. 472 (Mass. 1974)
• Decision Date: 12 June 1974
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. John H. BATTLE.

Page 554

313 N.E.2d 554

365 Mass. 472

COMMONWEALTH v. John H. BATTLE.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Argued April 2, 1974.

Decided June 12, 1974.

Malvine Nathanson, Boston, for defendant.

Richard E. Rafferty, Asst. Dist. Atty., for the Commonwealth.

Before TAURO, C.J., and REARDON, QUIRICO, BRAUCHER and WILKINS, JJ.

TAURO, Chief Justice.

John H. Battle was found guilty and sentenced for possession of heroin with intent to distribute, and possession of barbituric acid and a derivative of barbituric acid (drugs) with intent to distribute. His convictions were affirmed by the Appeals Court. COMMONWEALTH V. BATTLE, --- MASS.APP.CT. ---, 304 N.E.2D 202 (1973)^A. We granted further appellate review. We affirm the convictions.

In this appeal made pursuant to G.L. c. 278, §§ 33A--33G, the defendant contends that the trial judge erred in admitting in evidence the drugs and $161 in currency. The key issue is the legality of the police seizure of the heroin. The barbituric acid, the derivative of barbituric acid, and the money were discovered by the police at the station house pursuant to a search of the defendant incident to his initial arrest for the possession of heroin. It is clear that if the heroin was properly seized, the police had the right to arrest the defendant, and thus were entitled to search his person at the police station for any additional evidence of illegal activity. Conversely, if the heroin was unlawfully obtained, the arrest was invalid, and the other evidence would be a link in a unconstitutional chain of events which would have required all the evidence to be excluded. For reasons to be discussed, we believe the police conduct in case was proper in all respects, and that therefore the trial judge was correct in ruling that the evidence was admissible.

From the evidence before him the trial judge could have found the following facts. ¹ At approximately 8 P.M. on August 3, 1972, William H. Kenefick, Jr., a uniformed Boston policeman of nearly four years experience and a veteran of approximately 200 narcotics arrests, was routinely patrolling the Grove Hall section of Blue Hill Avenue in a marked police vehicle in search of drug traffic. He was accompanied by two other uniformed officers. The weather and light conditions combined to create good visibility. Proceeding at three to four miles an hour along the curb on the right hand side of the street, the officers observed two black males standing fifteen feet away on the top step of the stoop in front of a glass foyer leading into 503 Blue Hill Avenue. The individual later identified as the defendant was standing with his back to the street (and thus with his side facing the oncoming officers), and was, in Officer Kenefick's words, 'well-dressed.' The other individual, standing so as to be facing the officers, was dressed in a T-shirt and dungarees and appeared to be handing folded green bills to the defendant. On spotting the oncoming police cruiser, the two men darted into the outer hallway of 503 Blue Hill Avenue. ² The police immediately stopped the car, got out, and pursued them. Officer Kenefick testified that he observed the defendant 'throw something to the ground' while approaching a second doorway leading into the building's main hallway. Seconds later, Officer Kenefick caught up to the defendant and 'pinned him to the wall.' He then retrieved from the floor four glassine-type bags containing white powder. On the basis of his experience, he recognized the bags as the type usually used to package heroin, and that the white powder was similar in appearance to heroin. The defendant was placed under arrest. The white powder was subsequently determined to be heroin.

The defendant was taken to the station house in the police cruiser, and informed of his rights. A search of his person revealed four pills, later determined to be 'amphetamines,' and $161 in currency.

The defendant contends that all of this evidence was the fruit of illegal police conduct. We disagree. On seeing two persons run into an apartment building in apparent response to an approaching police vehicle, the police had the right--if not the duty--to conduct further visual investigation while the two persons remained in public view. ³ Such police conduct is not a search or seizure, however expansively one wishes to interpret those terms, and therefore a lack of probable cause to arrest or even ground to conduct a 'stop and frisk' is irrelevant. The requirements of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States enter into the picture at a later point in this case, when the arrest was actually made. As the Appeals Court correctly noted, at fn. 7, 'Kenefick's act in picking up the glassing bags did not constitute a search of the defendant within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment . . .. The defendant had voluntarily given up all control over the bags and could have no expectation of privacy with respect thereto. Hester v. United States, 265 U.S. 57, 58, 44 S.Ct. 445, 68 L.Ed. 898 (1924). Abel v. United States, 362 U.S. 217, 240--241, 80 S.Ct. 683, 4 L.Ed.2d 668 (1960). Commonwealth v. Lewis, 346 Mass. 373, 381--382, 191 N.E.2d 753 (1963), cert. den. sub nom. Lewis v. Massachusetts, 376 U.S. 933, 84 S.Ct. 704, 11 L.Ed.2d 653 (1964). United States v. Edwards,441 F.2d 749, 751--753 (5th Cir. 1971).' Thus, the narrow issue before us is clear: did the police have probable cause to arrest the defendant after observing his flight and hurried abandonment of something which in appearance and packaging resembled heroin? While flight alone is certainly not sufficient ground to arrest, Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9...