Commonwealth v. Bright

• Decision Date: 03 December 2021
• Docket Number: 20-P-1215, 20-P-1216
• Citation: 179 N.E.3d 1124 (Table)
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. John B. BRIGHT, Jr. (and three companion cases ).
• Court: Appeals Court of Massachusetts

179 N.E.3d 1124 (Table)

COMMONWEALTH

v.John B. BRIGHT, Jr. (and three companion cases ¹ ).

20-P-1215, 20-P-1216

Appeals Court of Massachusetts.

Entered: December 3, 2021.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 23.0

The Commonwealth appeals from an order of a Superior Court judge allowing motions to suppress filed by the defendants, John B. Bright, Jr. and Elijah Rosario. Concluding that the judge's finding that the police did not have probable cause is based on reasonable inferences drawn from the detectives’ testimony, we affirm.

1. Standard of review. "In reviewing the grant ‘of a motion to suppress, we accept the judge's subsidiary findings of fact absent clear error and accord substantial deference to the judge's ultimate findings.’ " Commonwealth v. Saywahn, 91 Mass. App. Ct. 706, 708 (2017), quoting Commonwealth v. Carr, 458 Mass. 295, 298 (2010). "The ultimate legal conclusions to be drawn from the findings, however, are matters for review by this court." Saywahn, supra.

"Our deference to the judge's assessment of the weight and credibility of testimonial evidence includes inferences ‘derived reasonably from the testimony.’ " Commonwealth v. Gonzalez, 487 Mass. 661, 668 (2021), quoting Commonwealth v. Kennedy, 426 Mass. 703, 708 (1998). We will not conduct our own "independent fact finding ... to reach a conclusion of law that is contrary to that of a motion judge who has seen and heard the witnesses, and made determinations regarding the weight and credibility of their testimony." Commonwealth v. Tremblay, 480 Mass. 645, 655 (2018), quoting Commonwealth v. Jones-Pannell, 472 Mass. 429, 438 (2015).

2. Probable cause. "Under the protections of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and art. 14 of the Declaration of Rights of the Massachusetts Constitution, a police officer may not lawfully arrest a person without probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed." Commonwealth v. Landry, 438 Mass. 206, 210 (2002). "Where, as is the case here, an arrest and attendant search are made without a warrant, the Commonwealth bears the burden of establishing that the actions of the police" were supported by probable cause. Commonwealth v. Chown, 459 Mass. 756, 763 (2011), quoting Commonwealth v. Santaliz, 413 Mass. 238, 240 (1992). "Probable cause to arrest exists when, ‘at the moment of arrest, the facts and circumstances within the knowledge of the police are enough to warrant a prudent person in believing that the individual arrested has committed or was committing an offense.’ " Commonwealth v. Pridgett, 481 Mass. 437, 439 (2019), quoting Commonwealth v. Storey, 378 Mass. 312, 321 (1979), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 955 (1980).

Here, the police knew that Bright's driver's license was suspended. See Commonwealth v. Rosario-Santiago, 96 Mass. App. Ct. 166, 174 (2019). To uphold the arrest, however, the Commonwealth must have shown that the police had probable cause to believe that Bright -- not someone else -- was operating the motor vehicle. See Pridgett, 481 Mass. at 439, quoting Storey, 378 Mass. at 321.³

The Commonwealth introduced no evidence that the police officers involved in the arrest had ever seen Bright before that night or that they knew what Bright looked like.⁴ One of the two detectives who testified at the suppression hearing stated that he had had no prior dealings with Bright, and the other detective did not testify to any prior experience with Bright.

One detective testified that, prior to the arrest, he notified his lieutenant that he observed Bright operating a motor vehicle. To be sure, the motion judge could have reasonably inferred from that testimony that the detective recognized Bright by sight. The motion judge, however, could also infer that the detective based this report merely on the identity of the motor vehicle, considering that the officer had earlier received an e-mail that Bright "was suspected to be operating that vehicle." The choice between these two reasonable inferences from the testimony was for the motion judge, who saw the demeanor of the detective, not for us, from a cold record. See Gonzalez, 487 Mass. at 668.

Similarly, that the officers later identified the driver as Bright has no bearing on "what [they] knew at the time that [they] made the decision to arrest the defendant." Rosario-Santiago, 96 Mass. App. Ct. at 172. Accord Commonwealth v. Luna, 92 Mass. App. Ct. 523, 527 (2017), quoting Commonwealth v. Charley, 91 Mass. App. Ct. 223, 228 (2017) (existence of probable cause determined "at the moment of arrest"). Accordingly, "there was no error in the judge's findings, including his reasonable...