Criminal – Firearm – Licensure

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Where a defendant convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm without a license has challenged the admissibility of the testimony of an employee of the Department of Criminal Justice Information Services (DCJIS) that the defendant was not licensed to carry a firearm, the defendant’s conviction should be affirmed because (1) the employee performed a diligent search of the DCJIS-maintained statewide database of firearm licenses and (2) the evidence was sufficient for the jury to conclude that the defendant unlawfully possessed a firearm without a license to carry a firearm.

“The defendant challenges the admissibility of the following evidence that the Commonwealth submitted to establish that the defendant lacked a license to carry a firearm: (1) the testimony from DCJIS employee Amy Conway, who searched the firearm license database for the defendant’s name and date of birth and testified that no record was found, and (2) a printout memorializing the search parameters Conway used and the search result that no record was found (printout or exhibit 1). …

“Here, it is true that Conway did not expressly state that she undertook a diligent search of the database. Nonetheless, the evidence established that Conway’s search was one way to perform a diligent search, meaning that her search efforts would have found a Massachusetts firearms license if the defendant had one. Conway testified that she used a two-parameter search of the database, using the defendant’s name and date of birth. Of course, the Commonwealth must establish in some way that the search was conducted using the defendant’s correct information, … viz., the defendant’s name and date of birth. The Commonwealth established the defendant’s date of birth through the testimony of a police officer who spoke to the defendant at the scene. See note 6, supra. And while Conway was not asked how she spelled the defendant’s first and last names when she conducted the search, the printout memorialized the spellings that she used in the search, and they are the same as the spellings used in the indictments. Exhibit 1 also documented the correct date of birth. This portion of exhibit 1 confirming the search terms entered was admissible for that purpose.

“We reject the defendant’s argument that the Commonwealth did not prove the search was diligent because Conway did not review the charging documents, arrest report, or booking form. The only relevant question was whether she searched the database for the defendant’s name and correct date of birth. Also, the fact that it does not take a long time to search a database for a properly spelled name and a correctly entered date of birth does not nullify the diligence of the search. …

“It is worth noting that we reject the Commonwealth’s argument that Conway’s single search for both the defendant’s name and date of birth was more diligent than conducting two separate searches for each parameter. In proving the absence of a record, performing a single search for two parameters may be less diligent than performing two separate, one-parameter searches (e.g., one for the name and one for the date of birth) because a single, two-parameter search requires a match of two parameters to yield a record. In other words, if there is a typographical error in either parameter of a two-parameter search, the single search will yield no record. … In contrast, conducting two separate, one-parameter searches for the information will yield a record, if one exists, so long as at least one of the parameters is entered correctly. In any event, here, the Commonwealth proved that Conway entered both the name and date of birth correctly.

“In sum, the Commonwealth established that Conway’s search was diligent. Thus, it was within the trial judge’s discretion to admit Conway’s testimony regarding her search of the CJIS database and the printout to the extent that it memorialized her search.”

Commonwealth v. Jones (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-022-26) (18 pages) (Henry, J.) The case was tried before Kathleen McCarthy-Neyman, J., in Superior Court. Andrew P. Power on appeal for the defendant; Ian MacLean for the commonwealth (Docket No. 24-P-161) (March 27, 2026).

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