Commonwealth v. Eckert

• Citation: 728 NE 2d 312,431 Mass. 591
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. JOHN J. ECKERT.
• Decision Date: 07 February 2000
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

431 Mass. 591

728 NE 2d 312

COMMONWEALTH v. JOHN J. ECKERT.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Hampden.

February 7, 2000.

May 18, 2000.

Present: MARSHALL, C.J., ABRAMS, LYNCH, GREANEY, IRELAND, SPINA, & COWIN, JJ.

Sidney E. Reavey, Assistant District Attorney (Jane Davidson Montori, Assistant District Attorney, with her) for the Commonwealth.

Laurie M. Halbert (Aaron Wilson with her) for the defendant.

LYNCH, J.

The defendant was charged with operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor in violation of G. L. c. 90, § 24. A District Court judge allowed the defendant's motion to suppress the results of field sobriety tests administered by the arresting officer. A single justice of this court granted the Commonwealth leave to appeal from the allowance of the motion and reported the matter to the Appeals Court. See Mass. R. Crim. P. 15 (b) (2), 378 Mass. 882 (1979). We transferred the appeal here on our own motion. We conclude that the motion judge erred in requiring a showing of probable cause, rather than reasonable suspicion, to justify the officer's administration of field sobriety tests to the defendant, and remand the matter for further findings.

1. The suppression hearing. The evidence before the motion judge consisted exclusively of testimony from the arresting officer, State Trooper Brendon Shugrue. In allowing the defendant's motion to suppress the results of the field sobriety tests, the judge found and ruled as follows:¹

"[Trooper] Shugrue approached [the defendant's] vehicle at a roadside rest area on [Route] 91 in Holyoke to check on the well-being of the occupant. Upon arousing [the defendant] from a resting condition, [Trooper] Shugrue inquired as to whether [the defendant] was alright, to which the [defendant] replied that he was. [Trooper] Shugrue then, based on [the defendant's] bloodshot eyes and an odor of alcoholic [beverage] emanating from [the] vehicle, asked [the defendant] to get out of his vehicle to perform some field sobriety tests. Ultimately, [the defendant] was placed under arrest for [operating while under the influence].

"I find that once the [trooper] had determined that [the defendant] was okay, his reason for conducting a `well-being' check was accomplished. The [trooper] did not, based on the appearance of [the defendant's] eyes, and on odor of alcoholic [beverage], have probable cause to ask [the defendant] to then exit his car and perform field sobriety tests. Therefore, the results of the field sobriety tests are the result of an illegal search [and] seizure and are suppressed. Motion allowed."

2. Discussion. In reviewing a ruling on a motion to suppress evidence, we accept the judge's subsidiary findings of fact absent clear error and leave to the judge the responsibility of determining the weight and credibility to be given oral testimony presented at the motion hearing. See Commonwealth v. Yesilciman, 406 Mass. 736, 743 (1990), and cases cited. Moreover, we give substantial deference to the judge's ultimate findings and conclusions of law, "but independently review[] the correctness of the judge's application of constitutional principles to the facts found." Commonwealth v. Magee, 423 Mass. 381, 384 (1996), quoting Commonwealth v. Mello, 420 Mass. 375, 381 n.8 (1995). See Commonwealth v. Alvarado, 420 Mass. 542, 544 (1995). We conclude that the motion judge erred in requiring a showing of probable cause rather than reasonable suspicion to justify the trooper's administration of field sobriety tests to the defendant. However, because the judge's findings are insufficient to determine whether the trooper had a reasonable basis for suspecting that the defendant was operating while under the influence, we remand the case to the District Court for further findings of fact and a ruling on the defendant's motion to suppress under the correct constitutional standard.

Initially, we must determine at what point Trooper Shugrue's interaction with the defendant intruded on the defendant's right to personal security under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and art. 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, thus necessitating a justification in the form of either probable cause or reasonable suspicion. The judge implicitly concluded that the trooper's initial approach to the vehicle to inquire about the occupant's well-being was not constitutionally infirm.² This conclusion comports with our decisions affirming the propriety of well-being checks of motorists conducted by law enforcement officers. In Commonwealth v. Leonard, 422 Mass. 504, 505-506 & n.1, cert denied, 519 U.S. 877 (1996), we held that a State trooper who approached a vehicle stopped in a breakdown area on a public roadway, knocked on the window, opened the driver's door to inquire about her wellbeing, and, on detecting the odor of alcohol on her breath, arrested her for operating while under the influence, had not intruded impermissibly on the motorist's art. 14 and Fourth Amendment rights. With respect to the trooper's conduct up to, and perhaps including, his opening the vehicle door, we concluded that such a routine inquiry by a police officer into the well-being of an occupant of a parked vehicle, even if not conducted pursuant to an explicit policy, did not constitute a "seizure" that required constitutional justification, as it involved no physical force or show of authority that could reasonably be construed as a restraint on the motorist's liberty. See id. at 508, and cases cited. See also Commonwealth v. Doulette, 414 Mass. 653, 655 (1993) (trooper's actions in leaving cruiser, approaching defendant's automobile in public parking lot, and shining flashlight inside vehicle not "stop" or "search" under Fourth Amendment); Commonwealth v. Fraser, 410 Mass. 541, 543-544 (1991), citing United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 554 (1980) (no seizure within meaning of Fourth Amendment where police approach individual and ask questions "unless the circumstances of the encounter are sufficiently intimidating that a reasonable person would believe he was not free to . . . walk away"). We expressly distinguished the facts before us in Commonwealth v. Leonard, supra, from the investigatory checks of parked vehicles in Commonwealth v. King, 389 Mass. 233, 241 (1983), and Commonwealth v. Helme, 399 Mass. 298, 300, 302 (1987), where we applied the Fourth Amendment's reasonableness test to police officers' approaches of parked automobiles, on the ground that in each of those cases a trooper had blocked the defendant's vehicle with his cruiser prior to his initial approach, thus effecting a seizure of the defendant under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968).³ See Commonwealth v. Leonard, supra at 508; Commonwealth v. Doulette, supra at 656-657 (noting same distinction). See also Commonwealth v. Smigliano, 427 Mass. 490, 491-492 (1998); id. at 495 (Fried, J., concurring, with whom Lynch, J., joined) (activation of cruiser's blue lights prior to trooper's approach of defendant's stopped vehicle constitutes "seizure" under art. 14 and Fourth Amendment).

Similarly, in Commonwealth v. Murdough, 428 Mass. 760, 763-764 (1999), which involved a well-being check by State troopers on a vehicle parked in the rest area of an interstate highway, we concluded that the troopers' approaching the vehicle, knocking on its window, and inquiring whether the occupant, who was asleep inside with the brake lights on, required assistance, was an "entirely noncoercive inquiry" that "raised no constitutional issue at all" and that thus required no "preliminary showing of need or reasonableness." Significantly, we noted that the police, as long as they neither assert nor imply that a person inquired of is not free to ignore their inquiries, may "knock on any vehicle window without having to explain why, should that initial, noncoercive inquiry ripen into something more," and that, on the facts presented, the "point at which a constitutional question first arose . . . was when the defendant was told to get out of his vehicle." Id.

It follows from these decisions that, by walking up to the defendant's parked vehicle at the rest area, knocking on the window, shining his flashlight inside and asking whether the defendant was "all set," Trooper Shugrue did not engage in any conduct that requires constitutional justification, as he neither asserted nor implied that the defendant was not free at that moment to ignore this inquiry into his well-being.⁴ In our view (and as the motion judge implicitly found), the point at which the trooper's conduct intruded on the defendant's Fourth Amendment and art. 14 rights was when, following the defendant's response to the trooper's inquiry concerning his well-being, the trooper inquired further whether the defendant had been drinking and subsequently asked the defendant to get out of his vehicle to perform field sobriety tests. At this point, it was reasonable for the defendant to conclude that he was no longer free to leave and that his cooperation with the trooper's investigation was no longer voluntary, and the trooper's interaction with the defendant thus ripened into a search or seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment and art. 14. See Terry v. Ohio, supra; Commonwealth v. Blais, 428 Mass. 294, 297 (1998). In determining whether such a search or seizure is constitutionally justified, we inquire, first, whether the investigation was validly initiated and, second, whether the scope of the search was justified by the circumstances. See Commonwealth v. Silva, 366 Mass. 402, 405 (1974).

The motion judge concluded that, based on the defendant's bloodshot eyes and the odor of alcohol on his breath, Trooper Shugrue lacked probable cause that the defendant had committed or presently was committing a criminal offense, and that the administration of field sobriety tests to the defendant was thus constitutionally impermissible. The judge...