Case Title: Commonwealth v. Teixeira-Furtado

Citation: 

Docket Number: SJC-12010

State: massachusetts

Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Date: 2016-06-20T00:00:00Z

Document:
NOTICE:  All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal 
revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound 
volumes of the Official Reports.  If you find a typographical 
error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of 
Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 
Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557-
1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us 
 
SJC-12010 
 
COMMONWEALTH  vs.  EDDY G. TEIXEIRA-FURTADO. 
 
 
June 20, 2016. 
 
 
Constitutional Law, Search and seizure.  Search and Seizure, 
Threshold police inquiry.  Threshold Police Inquiry. 
 
 
 
The defendant, Eddy G. Teixeira-Furtado, was a passenger in 
a motor vehicle that was pursued and then stopped for traveling 
at a "speed greater than is reasonable."  See G. L. c. 90, § 17.1  
While the vehicle was still in motion, the defendant got out of 
the vehicle, looked uncertainly in the direction of the police 
officers, and grabbed the right side of his waist area.  The 
police officers gave chase.  When the defendant was apprehended, 
he was carrying a firearm.  A complaint issued in the Boston 
Municipal Court charging the defendant with several firearm 
offenses.  Before trial, a Boston Municipal Court judge allowed 
the defendant's motion to suppress the evidence derived from the 
encounter, and denied the Commonwealth's motion for 
reconsideration.  A single justice of this court granted the 
Commonwealth's application for leave to pursue an interlocutory 
                                                          
 
1 General Laws c. 90, § 17, provides in part that "[n]o 
person operating a motor vehicle on any way shall run it at a 
rate of speed greater than is reasonable and proper, having 
regard to traffic and the use of the way and the safety of the 
public. . . .  If a speed limit has been duly established upon 
any way, . . . operation of a motor vehicle at a rate of speed 
in excess of such limit shall be prima facie evidence that such 
speed is greater than is reasonable and proper; but, 
notwithstanding such establishment of a speed limit, every 
person operating a motor vehicle shall decrease the speed of the 
same when a special hazard exists with respect to pedestrians or 
other traffic, or by reason of weather or highway conditions." 
2 
 
appeal.  See Mass. R. Crim. P. 15 (a) (2), as appearing in 422 
Mass. 1501 (1996).  The Appeals Court reversed in an unpublished 
memorandum and order pursuant to its rule 1:28, Commonwealth v. 
Teixeira-Furtado, 87 Mass. App. Ct. 1133 (2015), and remanded 
for further proceedings.  We granted further appellate review.  
We affirm the order allowing the motion to suppress. 
 
 
Background.  The motion judge's findings establish that on 
the evening of November 23, 2012, three officers of the Boston 
police department's youth violence strike force, wearing 
plainclothes and traveling in an unmarked police vehicle, were 
patrolling areas of the city known as "hot spots" -- areas they 
knew to be gang affiliated and where guns had been recovered.  
One officer observed a known gang associate park a vehicle and 
then enter a pizza store with the defendant.2  Approximately 
fifteen minutes later, 
 
"the officers were on Bentham Road close to a stop sign 
facing Mt. Ida Road when they 'observed a car traveling at 
a speed greater than reasonable' on Mt. Ida.  The area is a 
residential one with 'plenty of kids around.'  It was 
nighttime.  The officers recognized the car as the Honda 
Accord that [the gang associate] had been driving earlier.  
They activated the unmarked cruiser's lights and siren and 
went after the Honda Accord.  The car did not stop 
immediately but went about a block and then slowed down as 
if to pull over.  While the car was still in motion, the 
defendant exited the front passenger side.  He came toward 
the cruiser, went forward, turned, and came back again, as 
if he [did not] know where he wanted to go.  He was 
grabbing the right side of his waist area, which made the 
officers -- at least one of them having been trained in the 
characteristics of armed gunmen -- suspect that he might 
have a firearm in his possession.  The unit has rid the 
streets of Boston of numerous illicit firearms. 
 
 
"The officers immediately gave chase.  About [forty] 
yards into the chase an officer caught up to the defendant.  
Un-holstering his firearm, the officer ordered the 
defendant to show his hands.  The defendant stopped and 
said, 'All I have is a gun.'  He was wide-eyed and excited.  
The officers secured his hands and removed a firearm from 
his right side, in the waist area." 
 
                                                          
 
2 There was uncontradicted testimony at the hearing on the 
motion to suppress that the time was about 7:45 P.M. 
3 
 
 
Discussion.  It is established that "[w]here the police 
have observed a traffic violation, they are warranted in 
stopping a vehicle."  Commonwealth v. Bacon, 381 Mass. 642, 644 
(1980).  See Commonwealth v. Santana, 420 Mass. 205, 207 (1995).  
Although operating at a "speed greater than is reasonable" 
provides a basis for a valid stop, a police officer's suspicion 
that a violation has occurred must be supported by articulable 
facts sufficient to warrant a reasonably prudent person in the 
police officer's position in forming that conclusion.  See 
Commonwealth v. Torres, 433 Mass. 669, 672-673 (2001).  "A hunch 
will not suffice."  Commonwealth v. Wren, 391 Mass. 705, 707 
(1984). 
 
 
In this case, the police officer testified to his 
impression that the Honda Accord was "traveling at a speed 
greater than reasonable."  Although the officer's conclusory 
testimony tracked the statutory language, he failed to 
articulate specific facts on which his impression could be 
evaluated.  See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21-22 (1968) ("the 
police officer must be able to point to specific and articulable 
facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those 
facts, reasonably warrant" intrusion).  Cf. Commonwealth v. 
Thomas, 451 Mass. 451, 452 (2008) (officer followed automobile 
for about one mile, and measured its speed as between eighty and 
eighty-four miles per hour); Commonwealth v. Twombly, 435 Mass. 
440, 441-442 (2001) (officer followed defendant's vehicle for 
approximately three miles and estimated speed at fifty to fifty-
five miles per hour in zones where limit was twenty-five and 
thirty-five miles per hour; also observed improper passing); 
Commonwealth v. Whynaught, 377 Mass. 14, 16-17 (1979) 
(judicially noting "radar speedmeter as an accurate and reliable 
means of measuring velocity"; observing that "opinion evidence, 
while admissible, may tend to leave doubts in the minds of 
judges and jurors").  Here, the Commonwealth offered nothing 
that would have permitted the motion judge to evaluate the 
reasonableness of the officer's conclusory statement that the 
speed was unreasonable.  Cf. Selibedea v. Worcester Consol. St. 
Ry., 223 Mass. 76, 79 (1916) (although plaintiff testified that 
vehicle was "going fast and that the speed was uniform," no 
evidence that speed "was unusual or improper").  The 
Commonwealth was not required to identify the vehicle's precise 
speed, but the testifying officer provided nothing on the 
subject of speed beyond his conclusion that it was greater than 
reasonable.  He did not, for example, estimate the vehicle's 
speed; compare its speed to the vehicle in which he was riding 
or to other vehicles; provide any measurement from a radar gun 
or other device; or testify that the vehicle was traveling 
4 
 
faster than the posted speed limit for that particular road and 
location.  Nor was there evidence presented regarding the 
traffic on the road, the use being made of the road at the time 
by pedestrians or others, or other relevant safety 
considerations.  See generally Commonwealth v. Bosworth, 257 
Mass. 212, 217 (1926). 
 
 
Conclusion.  When a motor vehicle is pursued and then 
stopped for a motor vehicle violation, both the passengers and 
the operator are seized for constitutional purposes.  See 
Commonwealth v. Quintos Q., 457 Mass. 107, 110 (2010).  Because 
the Commonwealth did not present evidence of articulated, 
specific, facts to support the officer's opinion that the 
vehicle was being driven at an unreasonable speed, the 
Commonwealth failed to prove that the stop was lawful and the 
evidence seized as a result of the stop must be suppressed.  See 
Commonwealth v. Cruz, 459 Mass. 459, 477 (2011).3 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Order allowing motion to 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  suppress affirmed. 
 
 
 
Sarah Montgomery Lewis, Assistant District Attorney, for 
the Commonwealth. 
 
Rebecca Kiley, Committee for Public Counsel Services, for 
the defendant. 
 
                                                          
 
3 We decline to consider the alternative ground urged by the 
Commonwealth to reverse the suppression ruling.  It contends 
that, regardless of the validity of the vehicle pursuit, the 
defendant's action in alighting from a moving vehicle, clutching 
his waistband, and fleeing from the scene constituted an 
"independent, intervening crime" that broke the chain of 
causation.  Compare Commonwealth v. Thibeau, 384 Mass. 762, 764 
(1981).  The argument was raised by the Commonwealth for the 
first time in its motion for reconsideration, which the motion 
judge denied.  See Commonwealth v. Gilday, 409 Mass. 45, 46 n.3 
(1991) (motion to reconsider not "appropriate place to raise new 
arguments inspired by a loss before the motion judge in the 
first instance").