Com. v. Quinn

• Decision Date: 20 March 2007
• Docket Number: No. 06-P-773.,06-P-773.
• Citation: 68 Mass. App. Ct. 476,862 N.E.2d 769
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. John P. QUINN (and ten companion cases<SMALL><SUP>1</SUP></SMALL>).
• Court: Appeals Court of Massachusetts

862 N.E.2d 769

68 Mass. App. Ct. 476

COMMONWEALTH v. John P. QUINN (and ten companion cases¹).

No. 06-P-773.

Appeals Court of Massachusetts.

Plymouth.

Argued January 12, 2007.

Decided March 20, 2007.

Carolyn A. Burbine, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.

John Matthew Glynn, Natick, for the defendants.

Present: KANTROWITZ, TRAINOR & KATZMANN, JJ.

KANTROWITZ, J.

In the middle of the night, when snow had recently fallen, a police officer stopped the only motor vehicle on the road driving from the direction of a gasoline station break-in that had occurred five minutes earlier. The motion judge, finding that the police officer stopped the motor vehicle on a hunch, allowed the defendants' motions to suppress evidence. The Commonwealth appeals, claiming that the officer had reasonable suspicion to make the stop. We agree and reverse.

Facts.² On January 20, 2004, at approximately 1:45 A.M., officers from the Middleborough police department responded to an alarm call for a break-in at a Texaco gasoline station on Bedford Street, Route 18.³ Officers Richard Harvey and John Graham were the first to arrive at the gasoline station only seconds after receiving the call.⁴ Harvey pulled into the gasoline station and observed that the front door of the building was smashed. The officers went inside the building and saw glass on the floor and articles from the register and counter strewn about. Graham radioed that there was a break-in.

The officers checked the perimeter of the building and saw two fresh sets of footprints in the snow originating at Clay Street and leading to the gasoline station, and two additional sets of footprints leading away from the gasoline station to Clay Street. The footprints led to fresh tire tracks that were headed away from the side of the road next to the gasoline station and toward Route 18, thus suggesting that there was a motor vehicle involved. Harvey radioed information about the footprints and tire tracks.

Officer Jerry Donahue, who had arrived at the gasoline station moments after Harvey and Graham, was advised that there was a live break and one of the front doors had been smashed. Seeing that two other police cruisers were already at the gasoline station, Donahue continued to drive south on Route 18 at about sixty to sixty-five miles per hour for approximately one-half mile until he reached a high point in the road where he observed no motor vehicles ahead of him. He then doubled back on Route 18, traveling approximately fifty to sixty miles per hour, at which point he saw motor vehicle lights ahead of him heading away from the gasoline station toward a rotary. The motion judge found that Harvey had radioed a report about the fresh tire tracks, but that Donahue had not received any such information. Donahue radioed and asked the other officers if any motor vehicles had passed their location, to which they all responded in the negative.

Donahue followed, and intended to stop, the motor vehicle, but he temporarily lost sight of it. He quickly ascertained that he could reach it if he took the Route 44 West exit.⁵ Upon reaching a high point of Route 44 West (an overpass above Route 495) he could see for a distance of about one mile. Once again, he saw but one motor vehicle, now exiting Route 44 and entering Route 495 North. Donahue pursued and stopped the vehicle, within minutes of the crime.

The defendant Geisler was the driver of the motor vehicle and Quinn was the passenger. Their involvement in the break-in became readily apparent as Donahue observed, among other things, shards of glass in the car, an aluminum baseball bat covered with shards of glass, and a fresh cut oozing blood on Geisler's hand.⁶ The defendants were arrested and charged with numerous offenses.⁷ The motion judge granted the defendants' motions to suppress, finding that:

"There was no report or information from anyone that a motor vehicle had been involved to any extent in the break-in at the Texaco [station] or had been seen in the vicinity of the Texaco gas[oline] station at or near the time of the break. After Officer Donahue had driven his police cruiser to the area of the Texaco gas[oline] station, then a half mile or so on Route 18 to a highpoint in the road, then back that half mile or so to the gas[oline] station area, then around the Middleboro rotary to the Route 44 entrance, then onto Route 44 and to a highpoint in that roadway, he saw a motor vehicle entering onto Route 495. There was nothing about that particular motor vehicle or its operation that would have indicated that its occupant(s) had committed, was committing, or was about to commit a crime. Simply, Officer Donahue had a hunch that the motor vehicle might have been involved in the break-in at the Texaco gas[oline] station."

Discussion. "In reviewing a ruling on a motion to suppress, we accept the judge's subsidiary findings of fact absent clear error `but conduct an independent review of his ultimate findings and conclusions of law.'" Commonwealth v. Scott, 440 Mass. 642, 646, 801 N.E.2d 233 (2004), quoting from Commonwealth v. Jimenez, 438 Mass. 213, 218, 780 N.E.2d 2 (2002). See Commonwealth v. Nestor N., 67 Mass. App.Ct. 225, 228, 852 N.E.2d 1132 (2006). "[O]ur duty is to make an independent determination of the correctness of the judge's application of constitutional principles to the facts as found." Commonwealth v. Scott, supra, quoting from Commonwealth v. Mercado, 422 Mass. 367, 369, 663 N.E.2d 243 (1996).

"Where a defendant files a pretrial motion to suppress evidence seized during [an investigatory stop], ... the Commonwealth bears the burden to prove that the police had reasonable suspicion, before initiating the stop, that `a person has committed, is committing or about to commit a crime.'" Commonwealth v. Walker, 443 Mass. 867, 872, 825 N.E.2d 491, cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 126 S.Ct. 662, 163 L.Ed.2d 535 (2005), quoting from Commonwealth v. Comita, 441 Mass. 86, 91, 803 N.E.2d 700 (2004). "In determining whether an officer acts reasonably in initiating a threshold, or investigatory, stop, we view the circumstances as a whole...." Commonwealth v. Stoute, 422 Mass. 782, 790, 665 N.E.2d 93 (1996).

"Reasonable suspicion may not be based on good faith or a hunch, but on specific, articulable facts and inferences that follow from the officer's experience." Commonwealth v. Grandison, 433 Mass. 135, 139, 741 N.E.2d 25 (2001). "The standard is objective: `would the facts available to the officer at the moment of the seizure or the search "warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief" that the action taken was appropriate?'" Commonwealth v. Mercado, 422 Mass. at 369, 663 N.E.2d 243, quoting from Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21-22, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968).

The judge concluded that Donahue acted on a hunch rather than a reasonable suspicion, as he received no report that a motor vehicle was involved in the break-in or seen near the vicinity of the gasoline station. It appears to us that stopping the only motor vehicle on the road, which was being driven from the direction of a crime, within minutes of that crime, was proper. Having to make a rapid decision, the officer acted permissibly. See Commonwealth v. Davis, 63 Mass.App.Ct. 88, 90-91 & n. 3, 823 N.E.2d 411 (2005). See also Commonwealth v. Berment, 39 Mass.App. Ct. 522, 529-530, 657 N.E.2d 1295 (1995) (Kass, J., dissenting) ("The Fourth Amendment is concerned with the right of `the people to be secure in their persons ... against unreasonable searches and seizures' " [emphasis supplied] ).

There is, however, even more here when the collective knowledge of the police officers is taken into consideration. "Where a cooperative effort is involved, facts within the knowledge of one police officer have been relied on to justify the conduct of another." Commonwealth v. Riggins, 366 Mass. 81, 88, 315 N.E.2d 525 (1974). Thus, the information discovered by Harvey —...