Garcia v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 03 December 2020
• Docket Number: SJC-12749
• Citation: 158 N.E.3d 452,486 Mass. 341
• Parties: Alba GARCIA v. COMMONWEALTH.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

486 Mass. 341

158 N.E.3d 452

Alba GARCIA

v.COMMONWEALTH.

SJC-12749

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk..

Argued March 2, 2020

Decided December 3, 2020

Luke Rosseel, Boston, for the defendant.

Michelle R. King, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.

Present: Gants, C.J., Gaziano, Lowy, Budd, Cypher, & Kafker, JJ.¹

GAZIANO, J.

Following her conviction of trafficking in narcotics, the defendant filed a motion for a new trial. She also sought to stay the execution of her sentence while her motion for a new trial was pending. The trial judge granted the stay and imposed conditions of release, including home confinement with various exceptions, and monitoring with a global positioning system (GPS) device. The defendant filed a petition in the county court seeking relief from the conditions on the ground that GPS monitoring and home confinement were an unconstitutional search and seizure. After the single justice denied relief, the defendant appealed to the full court. We conclude that the condition of home confinement was not a seizure because it was imposed pursuant to a valid conviction and lawful sentence. And, although the imposition of GPS monitoring was a search, it was reasonable under the circumstances. Thus, we affirm.²

Background. In 2014, a grand jury indicted the defendant on charges of trafficking in between thirty-six and one hundred grams of heroin, in violation of G. L. c. 94C, § 32E(c ), and possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, in violation of G. L. c. 94C, § 32A(c ). After arraignment, the defendant was released on personal recognizance. A Superior Court jury later convicted her of both charges. The judge sentenced her to a term of from five years to five years and one day in State prison on the trafficking conviction, and two years of probation for the conviction of possession, to be served concurrently.

After appealing from her convictions, the defendant was granted leave by the Appeals Court to file a motion for a new trial in the Superior Court. She sought to stay her sentence while her motion for a new trial was pending. Accompanying her motion to stay, the defendant submitted an affidavit stating that all of her close family members lived in Massachusetts, including multiple children and siblings in Worcester County, the county in which she was convicted and lives. She also averred that she had been released on bail or personal recognizance during multiple years of the pendency of this case, and that she had not missed any court appearances.

The trial judge granted the stay after concluding that "the defendant has presented a meritorious issue regarding sentence that could possibly lead to a new trial." The judge set bail at $2,500 and imposed conditions of release, including home confinement, GPS monitoring, and weekly reporting to the probation department. The defendant was permitted to leave her home only for medical and legal appointments.

In a subsequent motion for reconsideration, the defendant argued that the conditions of GPS monitoring and home confinement were an unreasonable search and seizure, respectively, under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and art. 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. The judge denied the motion but granted the defendant's alternative request to modify the conditions in order to permit her to leave her home for employment in addition to medical and legal appointments. The defendant then filed a petition in the county court pursuant to G. L. c. 211, § 3, seeking to remove the conditions. The single justice denied relief, and the defendant appealed to the full court.

Discussion. "[T]he extraordinary remedy of general superintendence [under G. L. c. 211, § 3,] is meant for situations where a litigant has no adequate alternative remedy." Vaccari, petitioner, 460 Mass. 756, 758, 955 N.E.2d 266 (2011), quoting McMenimen v. Passatempo, 452 Mass. 178, 185, 892 N.E.2d 287 (2008). We "review interlocutory matters in criminal cases only when substantial claims of irremediable error are presented ... and only in exceptional circumstances, ... where it becomes necessary to protect substantive rights" (quotations and citations omitted). Commonwealth v. Snow, 456 Mass. 1019, 1019, 924 N.E.2d 744 (2010), quoting Commonwealth v. Cook, 380 Mass. 314, 320, 403 N.E.2d 363 (1980). "We will not disturb the single justice's denial of relief absent an abuse of discretion or other clear error of law." Care & Protection of Isabelle, 459 Mass. 1006, 1006, 946 N.E.2d 110 (2011), citing Matthews v. Appeals Court, 444 Mass. 1007, 1008, 828 N.E.2d 527 (2005).

1. Home confinement. The defendant argues that the condition of home confinement is an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment and art. 14.³ We conclude that the seizure doctrine is inapplicable here. Moreover, under the applicable law, i.e., the common law and existing rules of criminal procedure, the imposition of home confinement was not an abuse of discretion. See Mass. R. Crim. P. 31(a), as appearing in 454 Mass. 1501 (2009).

a. Seizure. To prevail in her claim that home confinement as a condition of release during a stay of sentence pending

resolution of a motion for a new trial is a seizure under the Fourth Amendment and art. 14, the defendant first must establish that the constitutional prohibitions against unreasonable seizures apply during a postconviction stay of sentence.

i. Pretrial seizures. Seizure jurisprudence historically has focused on arrests, investigatory stops, and other street-level interactions. See, e.g., Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) ; Commonwealth v. Baldassini, 357 Mass. 670, 672-675, 260 N.E.2d 150 (1970). Nonetheless, the reach of the doctrine since has expanded. In Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 114, 125, 95 S.Ct. 854, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975), for example, the United States Supreme Court held that, under the Fourth Amendment, the government cannot detain a suspect following a warrantless arrest without "promptly" obtaining a judicial determination of probable cause. See County of Riverside v. McLaughlin, 500 U.S. 44, 56, 111 S.Ct. 1661, 114 L.Ed.2d 49 (1991) ("judicial determinations of probable cause within [forty-eight] hours of arrest will, as a general matter, comply with the promptness requirement"). Such holdings made clear that a seizure can exist not only as a momentary occurrence, but also as a circumstance that persists from the moment of arrest at least until the determination of probable cause. See Bryant v. City of New York, 404 F.3d 128, 136 (2d Cir. 2005), citing McLaughlin, supra, and Gerstein, supra at 125, 95 S.Ct. 854 ("it is well established that the Fourth Amendment governs the procedures applied during some period following an arrest").

In Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S. 266, 274, 114 S.Ct. 807, 127 L.Ed.2d 114 (1994) (plurality opinion), the United States Supreme Court signaled that the doctrine had an even greater temporal scope when it stated that "[t]he Framers considered the matter of pretrial deprivations of liberty and drafted the Fourth Amendment to address it." The Court cemented this doctrine in Manuel v. Joliet, ––– U.S. ––––, 137 S. Ct. 911, 918, 197 L.Ed.2d 312 (2017), where it proclaimed that "pretrial detention can violate the Fourth Amendment not only when it precedes, but also when it follows, the start of legal process in a criminal case." Thus, the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable seizures remains in effect throughout the pretrial period. See id. ; Hernandez-Cuevas v. Taylor, 723 F.3d 91, 94 (1st Cir. 2013). The reach of art. 14 must extend at least as far. See Commonwealth v. Lyles, 453 Mass. 811, 812 n.1, 905 N.E.2d 1106 (2009), citing Commonwealth v. Stoute, 422 Mass. 782, 786-789, 665 N.E.2d 93 (1996).

ii. Postconviction deprivations of liberty. Notwithstanding the extension of the definition of a seizure, the doctrine is not limitless. "[O]nce a trial has occurred, the Fourth Amendment drops out: A person challenging the sufficiency of the evidence to support both a conviction and any ensuing incarceration does so under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment." Manuel, 137 S. Ct. at 920 n.8. For the following reasons, we conclude that the seizure protections of art. 14 also come to an end at the point of conviction.

There are two conceptual avenues by which a seizure could take place after trial. First, a single seizure could begin during the pretrial period and continue past the moment of conviction. The word "seizure," however, typically describes an event that is momentary or brief. See Manuel, 137 S. Ct. at 926-927 (Alito, J., dissenting); California v. Hodari D., 499 U.S. 621, 627, 111 S.Ct. 1547, 113 L.Ed.2d 690 (1991). The word plausibly can be expanded to encompass the entire pretrial period, which theoretically is a short-lived prelude to the main event of trial. But no purported brevity exists after trial. To say that a seizure can last throughout the pretrial period and then continue throughout any postconviction deprivation of liberty would stretch the concept to the point of snapping.

The second possibility is that a sentence of incarceration or other postconviction deprivation of liberty could constitute a new seizure, independent of any pretrial seizures. But the "constitutional division of labor" inherent in the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights weighs against this possibility. See Manuel, 137 S. Ct. at 920 n.8. The seizure doctrine primarily protects against two types of government action: deprivations that are unreasonable because the government did not have justification to seize, see, e.g., Commonwealth v. Warren, 475 Mass. 530, 531, 58 N.E.3d 333 (2016), and circumstances in which some type of seizure was permissible, but the manner in which the deprivation of liberty was effected was excessive or otherwise unreasonable, see, e.g., Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 395–396, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 104 L.Ed.2d...