Case Title: Commonwealth v. Pearson

Citation: 

Docket Number: SJC-12930

State: massachusetts

Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Date: 2021-02-12T00:00:00Z

Document:
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SJC-12930 
 
COMMONWEALTH  vs.  WASHINGTON PEARSON. 
 
 
 
Middlesex.     November 6, 2020. - February 12, 2021. 
 
Present:  Budd, C.J., Gaziano, Lowy, & Kafker, JJ. 
 
 
Constitutional Law, Search and seizure.  Search and Seizure, 
Fruits of illegal search, Probable cause, Warrant.  
Probable Cause.  Evidence, Result of illegal search.  
Practice, Criminal, Motion to suppress, Warrant. 
 
 
 
 
Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court 
Department on October 25, 2012, and December 10, 2013. 
 
 
Pretrial motions to suppress evidence were heard by 
Elizabeth M. Fahey, J., and the cases were tried before Douglas 
H. Wilkins, J. 
 
 
Following review by the Appeals Court, 96 Mass. App. Ct. 
299 (2019), the Supreme Judicial Court granted leave to obtain 
further appellate review. 
 
 
 
Edward Crane for the defendant. 
 
Timothy Ferriter, Assistant District Attorney, for the 
Commonwealth. 
 
 
 
BUDD, C.J.  At the conclusion of two separate jury trials 
in the Superior Court in Norfolk County and Middlesex County, 
2 
 
 
the defendant, Washington Pearson, was convicted of multiple 
offenses arising from a burglary spree in both Brookline and 
Cambridge.  Prior to the trials, the defendant moved in each 
case to suppress evidence seized from his residence during the 
execution of a search warrant, arguing that the warrant was 
tainted by discoveries made during an earlier unlawful entry of 
his residence by police.  Both motion judges agreed that the 
earlier entry was unlawful, but each judge concluded that the 
evidence seized during the execution of the warrant was exempt 
from exclusion as "fruit of the poisonous tree" under the 
independent source doctrine. 
 
The convictions were affirmed by the Appeals Court in 
separate opinions.  See Commonwealth v. Pearson, 96 Mass. App. 
Ct. 299 (2019) (Pearson II) (Middlesex cases);1 Commonwealth v. 
Pearson, 90 Mass. App. Ct. 289 (2016) (Pearson I) (Norfolk 
cases).  We granted the application for further review of the 
Middlesex convictions, 484 Mass. 1104 (2020).  We now vacate the 
Middlesex convictions, with the exception of a conviction of 
intimidation of a witness, and remand the matter to the Superior 
Court for an evidentiary hearing on the motion to suppress.  In 
                     
 
1 There was a dissent to a portion of this opinion.  See 
Pearson II, 96 Mass. App. Ct. at 308-313 (Henry, J., dissenting 
in part).  As we discuss infra, we agree with the dissent. 
3 
 
 
so doing, we provide clarification regarding the application of 
the independent source doctrine. 
 
Background.  1.  Facts.  We summarize the relevant facts 
from the motion judge's findings in the Norfolk cases, which 
were later adopted by the motion judge in the Middlesex cases 
and are supported by the record.  See Commonwealth v. Estabrook, 
472 Mass. 852, 857 (2015).  In early 2012, there was a rash of 
residential burglaries in Brookline and Cambridge, resulting in 
the theft of jewelry, credit cards, electronics, and other 
items.  Aided by, among other things, a driver's license 
belonging to the defendant's wife that was left behind at one of 
the burgled homes, video surveillance footage captured at local 
retail stores of a woman and a man using the stolen credit cards 
to make purchases, and positive photographic identifications 
made by a clerk employed at one of the stores, police officers 
focused on the defendant and his wife as suspects and applied 
for warrants for their arrest. 
 
Without waiting for the warrants to issue, police officers 
proceeded to a house in Lynn where they understood the defendant 
and his wife were residing.  When the defendant's wife opened 
the front door, the officers inaccurately represented that they 
had a warrant for her arrest,2 and took her into custody.  At the 
                     
 
2 The Commonwealth does not contest that the warrants had 
not yet issued at the time the arrests were made.  It is not 
4 
 
 
defendant's wife's direction, the officers then proceeded to a 
second-floor bedroom, where they observed some of the stolen and 
fraudulently purchased items.  Eventually, the officers also 
located the defendant in the third-floor bathroom and placed him 
under arrest. 
 
After the defendant and his wife were booked, they both 
agreed to be interviewed by police.  During her interview, the 
defendant's wife made various inculpatory statements.  
Meanwhile, back at the house in Lynn, which had been secured by 
police, a man identifying himself as the stepfather of the 
defendant's wife and as the owner of the house informed the 
police that his stepdaughter and the defendant had been residing 
there for several weeks.  Later, that same individual alerted 
the officers to several items in a trash can outside the house, 
including a prescription bottle labeled with the name of one of 
the victims of the burglaries. 
 
Thereafter, a Brookline police detective sought and secured 
a warrant to search the Lynn premises.3  According to the 
affidavit filed in support of the warrant, police made the 
decision to seek the warrant after the defendant's wife informed 
                     
clear, however, whether police knew that to be the case at the 
time of the arrests. 
 
 
3 The search warrant also covered two motor vehicles 
connected with the defendant and his wife. 
5 
 
 
them that she could not consent to a search because the house 
belonged to her stepfather.  The affidavit also included 
references to the evidence the police observed when they 
initially entered the home to make the arrests, including the 
stolen and fraudulently purchased items.  Predictably, those 
items were again "discovered" during the execution of the search 
warrant and seized. 
 
2.  Prior proceedings.  In late 2012, the defendant was 
indicted in both Norfolk County and Middlesex County for an 
array of offenses, including multiple counts of breaking and 
entering in the daytime with the intent to commit a felony, 
larceny over $250, identity fraud, and improper use of a credit 
card.  In 2013, he also was indicted in Middlesex County for 
intimidation of a witness, arising from alleged threats made 
against his codefendant wife, who eventually testified for the 
Commonwealth pursuant to a cooperation agreement.  The Middlesex 
and Norfolk cases were not joined for trial, and the Norfolk 
cases proceeded on a faster track. 
 
The defendant filed a motion in the Norfolk cases to 
suppress, among other things, all items seized during the 
execution of the search warrant, arguing that because the 
officers were not in possession of an arrest warrant at the time 
they entered the home to arrest the defendant, the evidence 
observed during that time was the product of an unlawful search.  
6 
 
 
The motion judge agreed that the initial entry was unauthorized; 
however, after excising the information obtained as a result of 
the unlawful entry from the affidavit supporting the warrant 
application, the judge concluded that the remaining information 
was sufficient to establish probable cause for the search.  
Accordingly, pursuant to the independent source rule, the judge 
denied the motion with respect to the evidence recovered at the 
time of the search.4  See Commonwealth v. Tyree, 455 Mass. 676, 
692 (2010) ("Evidence obtained during a search pursuant to a 
warrant that was issued after an earlier illegal entry and 
search is admissible as long as the affidavit in support of the 
application for a search warrant contains information sufficient 
to establish probable cause to search the premises 'apart from' 
observations made during the initial illegal entry and search" 
[citation omitted]).  The defendant subsequently was convicted 
on all counts, and the Appeals Court affirmed.  See Pearson I, 
90 Mass. App. Ct. at 289, 294. 
 
The defendant fared no better in the Middlesex prosecution.  
In deciding the defendant's motion to suppress, which was based 
on the same arguments that the defendant had made in the Norfolk 
                     
 
4 The motion judge in the Norfolk cases also denied the 
motion to suppress with respect to statements the defendant made 
after his arrest, but allowed it as to statements made in the 
course of his arrest.  The motion judge in the Middlesex cases 
followed suit. 
7 
 
 
cases, the motion judge in the Middlesex cases adopted the 
factual findings and legal conclusions reached by the motion 
judge in the Norfolk cases.  The defendant subsequently was 
convicted on all counts in the Middlesex cases; the convictions 
were affirmed on appeal.5  See Pearson II, 96 Mass. App. Ct. at 
300.  We allowed the defendant's application for further 
appellate review, limited to the question whether the 
independent source exception applies to the evidence obtained as 
a result of executing the search warrant. 
 
Discussion.  "[T]he exclusionary rule bars the use of 
evidence derived from an unconstitutional search or seizure."  
Commonwealth v. Fredericq, 482 Mass. 70, 78 (2019), citing Wong 
Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 487-488 (1963).  However, 
there are exceptions to this general rule, including, as 
relevant here, that information "received through an illegal 
source is considered to be cleanly obtained when it arrives 
through an independent source."  Murray v. United States, 487 
U.S. 533, 538-539 (1988), quoting United States v. Silvestri, 
787 F.2d 736, 739 (1st Cir. 1986). 
 
The purpose of the "independent source" doctrine, 
recognized under both the Fourth Amendment to the United States 
                     
 
5 The sentences in the Middlesex cases were enhanced after 
the trial judge found the defendant to be a habitual offender 
under G. L. c. 279, § 25 (a). 
8 
 
 
Constitution and art. 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of 
Rights, has been described by the United States Supreme Court in 
this way: 
"[T]he interest of society in deterring unlawful police 
conduct and the public interest in having juries receive 
all probative evidence of a crime are properly balanced by 
putting the police in the same, not a worse, position that 
they would have been in if no police error or misconduct 
had occurred. . . .  When the challenged evidence has an 
independent source, exclusion of such evidence would put 
the police in a worse position than they would have been in 
absent any error or violation." 
 
Murray, supra at 537, quoting Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 443 
(1984).  See Commonwealth v. DeJesus, 439 Mass. 616, 624 (2003). 
 
1.  The standard.  The Commonwealth bears the burden of 
showing by a preponderance of the evidence that the challenged 
evidence is admissible pursuant to the independent source 
exception to the exclusionary rule.  See Estabrook, 472 Mass. at 
865.  To do so, the Commonwealth must make two showings:  (1) 
the officers' decision to seek the search warrant was not 
prompted by what they observed during the initial illegal entry, 
and (2) the affidavit supporting the search warrant application 
contained sufficient information to establish probable cause, 
"apart from" any observations made during the earlier illegal 
entry.  See DeJesus, 439 Mass. at 625, 627 n.11, citing Murray, 
487 U.S. at 541-543. 
 
We begin by noting that our articulation of the independent 
source test in prior cases appears to have led to some 
9 
 
 
confusion.  In DeJesus, 439 Mass. at 628 n.11, we acknowledged 
the first prong of the standard, but only in a footnote because 
the defendant had not challenged the applicability of that 
prong.  Subsequently, on occasion we have discussed the second 
prong of the test without any mention of the first.  See Tyree, 
455 Mass. at 692, quoting DeJesus, supra at 625. See also 
Estabrook, 472 Mass. at 866, citing Tyree, supra.  We clarify 
that the standard comprises two separate prongs, each of which 
must be analyzed to determine whether the independent source 
exception to the exclusionary rule applies. 
 
a.  First prong.  On its face, the first prong of this 
test, whether the officers' "decision to seek the warrant was 
prompted by what they had seen during the initial [unlawful] 
entry," involves a subjective inquiry.  Murray, 487 U.S. at 542.  
Federal circuit courts, including the United States Court of 
Appeals for the First Circuit, have uniformly concluded as much.  
See, e.g., United States v. Rose, 802 F.3d 114, 123-124 (1st 
Cir. 2015); United States v. Hill, 776 F.3d 243, 252 (4th Cir. 
2015); United States v. Markling, 7 F.3d 1309, 1317-1318 (7th 
Cir. 1993); United States v. Restrepo, 966 F.2d 964, 972 (5th 
Cir. 1992); United States v. Herrold, 962 F.2d 1131, 1141 (3d 
Cir. 1992).  Other jurisdictions also have adopted a subjective 
approach to the first prong.  See, e.g., Evans v. United States, 
122 A.3d 876, 884 (D.C. 2015); Kamara v. State, 205 Md. App. 
10 
 
 
607, 627-628 (2012); State v. Holland, 176 N.J. 344, 363-364 
(2003); State v. Krukowski, 2004 UT 94, ¶¶ 12-13; State v. 
Hilton, 164 Wash. App. 81, 90-91 (2011). 
 
However, on direct appeal from the Norfolk convictions, the 
Appeals Court departed from this approach and determined instead 
that "[t]he appropriate inquiry under State jurisprudence is 
. . . whether it was objectively reasonable for police to seek a 
warrant under the circumstances" (emphasis added).  Pearson I, 
90 Mass. App. Ct. at 291-292.  See id., quoting Commonwealth v. 
Ceria, 13 Mass. App. Ct. 230, 235 (1982).  The Appeals Court 
reasoned that such a departure was appropriate as it provided 
greater protection against searches and seizures under art. 14 
than is provided under the Fourth Amendment.  Pearson I, supra, 
citing Commonwealth v. Blevines, 438 Mass. 604, 607 n.4 (2003).  
We are not convinced.  As the dissenting justice in Pearson II 
pointed out, framing the first prong as an objective inquiry 
"deprives the defendant of the opportunity to challenge whether 
the particular police officers would have sought a warrant had 
they not earlier entered the home illegally" regardless of 
whether it would have been objectively reasonable for them to do 
so.  Pearson II, 96 Mass. App. Ct. at 310 (Henry, J., dissenting 
in part).  As we are persuaded that the objective approach to 
the first prong adopted in Pearson I provides less protection 
than does the inquiry made in connection with a Fourth Amendment 
11 
 
 
analysis, it cannot be permitted to stand.  See DeJesus, 439 
Mass. at 627 n.11. 
 
A purely subjective approach to the first prong, on the 
other hand, could incentivize post hoc attestations from police 
that they intended to seek a search warrant regardless of what 
they discovered in the course of the earlier unlawful conduct.  
The Supreme Court anticipated this concern in Murray, 487 U.S. 
at 540 n.2, noting that "[t]o say that a . . . court must be 
satisfied that a warrant would have been sought without the 
illegal entry is not to give dispositive effect to police 
officers' assurances on the point.  Where the facts render those 
assurances implausible, the independent source doctrine will not 
apply."  The First Circuit has since interpreted this as 
requiring a hybrid approach to the first prong: 
"While the first prong of Murray is articulated as a 
subjective test, nonetheless, it should not be proven by 
purely subjective means.  In making the factual 
determination as to the police officer's intent, the . . . 
court is not bound by after-the-fact assurances of their 
intent, but instead must assess the totality of the 
attendant circumstances to ascertain whether those 
assurances appear 'implausible.'  Murray, 487 U.S. at 540 
n.2; see Restrepo, 966 F.2d at 971-72; see also Devenpeck 
v. Alford, 543 U.S. 146[, 154] (2004) ('Subjective intent 
of the arresting officer, however it is determined [and of 
course subjective intent is always determined by objective 
means] . . . .')." 
 
United States v. Dessesaure, 429 F.3d 359, 369 (1st Cir. 2005).  
See Restrepo, 966 F.2d at 972 (noting that first prong is 
"subjective" inquiry but that "court must infer motivation from 
12 
 
 
the totality of facts and circumstances").  Thus, in order to 
determine whether law enforcement officers would have sought a 
search warrant regardless of the initial illegal entry and 
search, a court objectively must assess the "totality of the 
attendant circumstances" to ascertain whether the officers' 
stated reasons for seeking the warrant are "implausible."6  
Dessesaure, supra, quoting Murray, 487 U.S. at 540 n.2. 
 
Here, in the affidavit supporting the search warrant 
application, a police detective conceded that the decision to 
seek a warrant was made after the initial unlawful entry.  The 
defendant argues, therefore, that the Commonwealth cannot 
demonstrate that police would have sought a search warrant had 
the illegal entry not occurred.  The Commonwealth counters that 
there is no evidence in the record demonstrating that the 
detective would not have sought the warrant had the officers not 
made the initial illegal entry.7  Because the record on this 
                     
 
6 In DeJesus, 439 Mass. at 627 n.11, this court noted that 
in the circumstances of that case, there was "no doubt that the 
police were committed to [the] investigation . . . and would 
have sought the search warrant with or without th[e] 
observation[s]" made during the illegal entry.  We emphasize, 
however, that although being committed to an investigation prior 
to an unauthorized search is a relevant consideration, the 
inquiry must focus on whether police were committed to securing 
a search warrant "even if what actually happened had not 
occurred."  Dessesaure, 429 F.3d at 369, quoting Murray, 487 
U.S. at 542 n.3. 
 
 
7 The Commonwealth additionally contends that the defendant 
waived this argument by failing to raise it at the suppression 
13 
 
 
point is inconclusive, we remand the matter to the Superior 
Court for an evidentiary hearing and determination as to whether 
the first prong of the independent source exception to the 
exclusionary rule applies; that is, whether police would have 
sought a search warrant absent the observations that officers 
made during the initial unlawful entry. 
 
b.  Second prong.  The second prong of the independent 
source test that must be satisfied in order for the exception to 
the exclusionary rule to apply requires a determination whether, 
absent the tainted information, the affidavit nevertheless 
contained probable cause sufficient to issue the search warrant.  
DeJesus, 439 Mass. at 627.  That is, whether the affidavit, so 
modified, provides "sufficient information for an issuing 
magistrate to determine that the items sought are related to the 
criminal activity under investigation, and that the items 
reasonably may be expected to be located in the place to be 
                     
hearing.  We disagree.  It is the Commonwealth's burden to prove 
that the independent source doctrine applies in this case, and 
the Commonwealth has not yet done that, as only one prong of the 
two-prong test has been evaluated.  We further note that the 
Commonwealth failed to raise this argument in the Appeals Court, 
thereby waiving its own waiver claim.  See Commonwealth v. 
LaBriola, 430 Mass. 569, 570 n.1 (2000) (waiver argument not 
considered because Commonwealth did not raise it at its first 
opportunity).  At any rate, as it appears that we have not 
mentioned the first prong of the independent source rule since 
2003, we cannot fault the defendant for failing to raise it 
prior to his appeal. 
14 
 
 
searched" when the search warrant was issued.  Id. at 626, 
citing Commonwealth v. Wilson, 427 Mass. 336, 342 (1998). 
 
Here, after striking references to observations made during 
the initial illegal entry, the motion judge in the Norfolk cases 
determined that the affidavit provided adequate probable cause 
to support a warrant.  The motion judge in the Middlesex cases 
later adopted that determination.  Upon our own review of the 
affidavit excluding the tainted material, we agree.  See 
Commonwealth v. Tremblay, 480 Mass. 645, 654-655 (2018) 
(documentary evidence is reviewed de novo). 
 
Conclusion.  The Middlesex convictions, with the exception 
of the conviction for intimidation of a witness, which stands on 
its own, are vacated.8  The matter is remanded for further 
proceedings consistent with this opinion. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
So ordered. 
                     
 
8 Because our grant of further appellate review was limited 
to the issue whether the search was tainted by the prior illegal 
entry, we do not address the intimidation of a witness 
conviction.  The Appeals Court's affirmance of that conviction 
therefore stands.