Search and seizure – Police stop – Reasonable suspicion

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Where a defendant’s motion to suppress was allowed, that decision must be reversed because a detective had a reasonable and articulable suspicion that the defendant was involved in a drug transaction prior to stopping the defendant.

“After seeing what he believed was an illegal drug transaction, a Danvers police detective stopped the defendant. During the brief exchange that followed, the defendant surrendered a bag containing fifty vials of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and acknowledged ‘[doing] something wrong’ to make extra money. The defendant moved to suppress the THC vials and his statements on the ground that police did not have reasonable suspicion to stop him. After an evidentiary hearing, a District Court judge determined that police did not have reasonable suspicion that what the detective witnessed was a drug transaction and suppressed the evidence. … Concluding that the detective had a reasonable and articulable suspicion that the defendant was involved in a drug transaction prior to stopping the defendant, we reverse. …

“In addition, the detective knew that [Theodore] Combs had a reputation with the Gloucester police as a THC dealer. … The motion judge discounted this as a factor because there was no evidence of ‘specific stops, seizures, arrests, or convictions.’ However, this was not a case in which the information that Combs was a drug dealer came from an anonymous tipster or unnamed confidential informant, whose veracity must be established before the information can be considered. … We are unaware of any precedent requiring such knowledge before an officer may use particularized information about a specific individual obtained from another police officer as a factor in developing a reasonable suspicion. To the contrary, [Commonwealth v. Kennedy, 426 Mass. 703, 709-10 (1998)], frequently has been cited for the proposition that ‘reputation in the community as a drug dealer [is] another factor that can contribute to probable cause.’ … We think it a commonsense proposition that an experienced police officer is not merely repeating local gossip or base rumor when passing specific information about a person’s reputation for criminal behavior to another officer. The Danvers detective thus reasonably could have relied on the information from the Gloucester detective as a factor, albeit not as weighty as his own observations and experience, supporting his reasonable suspicion that the defendant and Combs had engaged in a drug transaction.

“In sum, based on the evidence found by the judge at the motion hearing, we conclude that there were ample specific and articulable facts to support a reasonable suspicion that the defendant had participated in an illegal drug transaction prior to the detective stopping him.”

Commonwealth v. Castillo-Martinez (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-027-24) (10 pages) (Brennan, J.) A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Sarah M. Joss, J., in District Court. Kathryn Leary Janssen for the commonwealth; Mark W. Barry for the defendant (Docket No. 23-P-358) (April 2, 2024).

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