Case Title: Commonwealth v. Yusuf

Citation: 

Docket Number: SJC-12989

State: massachusetts

Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Date: 2021-09-10T00:00:00Z

Document:
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SJC-12989 
 
COMMONWEALTH  vs.  ABDIRAHAMAN YUSUF. 
 
 
 
Suffolk.     February 3, 2021. - September 10, 2021. 
 
Present:  Gaziano, Lowy, Cypher, Kafker, Wendlandt, 
& Georges, JJ. 
 
 
Firearms.  Constitutional Law, Search and seizure, Privacy.  
Privacy.  Consent.  Search and Seizure, Consent, Plain 
view, Expectation of privacy, Warrant, Fruits of illegal 
search. 
 
 
 
Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court 
Department on June 28, 2017. 
 
A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Michael 
D. Ricciuti, J., and the cases were heard by Robert N. Tochka, 
J. 
 
The Supreme Judicial Court granted an application for 
direct appellate review. 
 
 
Patrick Levin, Committee for Public Counsel Services, for 
the defendant. 
Elisabeth Martino, Assistant District Attorney, for the 
Commonwealth. 
 
 
WENDLANDT, J.  Responding to a call about a domestic 
disturbance at the defendant's home, a Boston police department 
2 
 
(BPD) officer, who was equipped with a body-worn camera, created 
a digital recording of the encounter; the recording captured the 
intimate details of the parts of the home through which the 
officer traveled as he provided the requested assistance.  The 
resulting video footage was stored by the BPD and then retrieved 
and reviewed, without a search warrant, in connection with an 
independent investigation to confirm a suspicion that the 
defendant was engaged in criminal activity. 
On the basis of that review, a BPD detective obtained a 
search warrant to search the defendant's home; the subsequent 
search yielded, inter alia, a firearm and ammunition.  The 
defendant's motion to suppress the fruits of the search was 
denied by a Superior Court judge (motion judge).  Following a 
jury-waived trial before a different Superior Court judge (trial 
judge), the defendant was convicted of unlawful possession of a 
firearm and possession of ammunition without a firearm 
identification card. 
This case presents two issues of first impression in 
Massachusetts:  first, whether the warrantless use of the body-
worn camera that recorded the interior of the home, the most 
sacred, constitutionally protected area, comprised a violation 
of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution or 
art. 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights; and, second, 
whether the subsequent review of the footage obtained, for 
3 
 
investigative purposes unrelated to the incident giving rise to 
its creation, constituted a warrantless search. 
We conclude that the use of the body-worn camera within the 
home was not a search in the constitutional sense, because it 
documented the officer's plain view observations during his 
lawful presence in the home.  The later, warrantless, 
investigatory review of the video footage, however, unrelated to 
the domestic disturbance call, was unconstitutional.  That 
review resulted in an additional invasion of privacy, untethered 
to the original authorized intrusion into the defendant's home; 
absent a warrant, it violated the defendant's right to be 
protected from unreasonable searches guaranteed by the Fourth 
Amendment and art. 14. 
The record is insufficient to determine whether the 
Commonwealth met its burden to establish that the decision to 
seek the search warrant was not prompted by the unlawful review 
of the video footage.  See Commonwealth v. Pearson, 486 Mass. 
809, 813-814 (2021).  Therefore, the order denying the motion to 
suppress must be vacated and set aside, and the matter remanded 
to the Superior Court for further proceedings. 
1.  Background.  a.  Facts.  We recite the facts found by 
the motion judge, supplemented by our independent review of the 
4 
 
video footage from the body-worn camera.1  See Commonwealth v. 
Ramos, 470 Mass. 740, 742 (2015); Commonwealth v. Clarke, 461 
Mass. 336, 341 (2012) ("we are in the same position as the 
[motion] judge in viewing the videotape" [citation omitted]). 
On February 10, 2017, BPD officers responded to a dispatch 
call regarding a domestic disturbance request for "removal" of 
an individual at the defendant's residence.  Specifically, the 
defendant's sister requested police assistance in removing the 
defendant's girlfriend from the home.  The sister told the 
responding officers that the defendant and his girlfriend were 
"doing too much arguing" and were "punching walls" and that she 
wanted the girlfriend to leave. 
After the first responding officers had entered the 
apartment, another officer arrived who was equipped with a body-
worn camera, which recorded the areas of the home through which 
he moved, as well as his interactions with the defendant, his 
sister, and others in the apartment, including a number of 
police officers.  The video footage obtained shows that when the 
officer arrived at the home, the door was ajar; he entered the 
living room, where at least two other officers were present; 
later, it appears from the footage, at least seven officers were 
 
1 In addition to the video recording, the digital footage 
includes the incorporated audio recording that also was active 
throughout the officer's time in the defendant's home. 
5 
 
present in the small space.  Some of those officers spoke to the 
defendant's sister and another woman.  The women were standing 
at the base of a stairwell, in a narrow hallway on the ground 
floor. 
The sister yelled at the defendant and his girlfriend, who 
were upstairs.  The officer wearing the camera walked past the 
defendant's sister and ascended the stairs.  Standing at the top 
of the staircase, he spoke with the defendant, who was standing 
at the threshold of a bedroom.  Through the open bedroom door, 
the camera captured a woman in the background.  The woman was 
zipping her coat.  Floral-printed curtains adorned the bedroom 
window just behind the area where the woman was dressing. 
The sister shouted from downstairs, and the defendant 
yelled "shut up."  He explained to the officer with the camera 
that the girlfriend could not be rushed, as she was getting 
dressed, but that they would leave shortly.  Once dressed, the 
girlfriend and the defendant moved toward the stairs; they were 
stopped by the officer.  The officer directed the sister, who 
had remained at the bottom of the stairwell, to step aside.  
Other officers escorted the defendant's sister and the other 
woman into the living room, thus clearing the landing at the 
bottom of the stairs.  The defendant and his girlfriend 
descended the stairs and left the house.  Other officers 
6 
 
remained inside to take a report;2 the officer who was wearing 
the camera walked outside and turned it off.  Thereafter, the 
footage from the body-worn camera was uploaded to a BPD-owned 
and -managed computer system where the data were available to 
other officers.3 
 
2 The video footage shows another officer holding a cellular 
telephone on which the camera appears to be active.  The 
defendant made no claim with respect this conduct, and we do not 
address it. 
 
3 The record before us does not include the BPD's policy on 
body-worn cameras that was applicable at the time of the 
domestic disturbance call.  Accordingly, the record is devoid of 
any terms that might have restricted or otherwise governed the 
body-worn camera video footage's collection, storage, or use of 
technological enhancements, or internal or external access to 
it.  At the hearing on the motion to suppress, a detective 
testified that his understanding, from speaking with other 
officers and having read the policy, was that video footage is 
uploaded at the end of a shift and then is viewable through a 
computer program. 
 
The footage itself shows that the officer turned the camera 
on at the beginning of the dispatch call and turned it off once 
he left the premises.  The Commonwealth informs us that this 
procedure was consistent with the then-applicable policy, and 
the defendant does not suggest that the use of the camera during 
the call was arbitrary or targeted at him for reasons other than 
to document the response to the dispatch call. 
 
The Commonwealth submitted a copy of a BPD body-worn camera 
policy in an appendix filed in this court.  That policy 
purportedly was adopted in 2019, after the events in this case.  
See Boston Police Department Rule 405, Body Worn Camera Policy 
§ 4.2(4) (June 3, 2019) (2019 body-worn camera policy).  Even if 
that policy had been in place during the relevant time frame, 
however, we would not consider it, as it was not included in the 
record before the judge who decided the motion to suppress.  See 
Lynch v. Crawford, 483 Mass. 631, 641 (2019); Commonwealth v. 
Eagleton, 402 Mass. 199, 201 n.3 (1988).  In addition, we are 
unable to take judicial notice of the policy as presently 
7 
 
After the BPD's response to the domestic disturbance call, 
an officer downloaded a copy of the body-worn camera footage 
onto a digital video disc (DVD) and placed it in one of his desk 
drawers.4  The officer notified a detective who was assigned to 
the BPD's youth violence strike force (gang unit) that the 
officer was in possession of a copy of the video footage, in the 
event that it should prove useful.  The gang unit had been 
conducting an ongoing, six-month investigation of the defendant 
for firearms offenses, and the detective had been tasked with 
discovering a basis for obtaining a search warrant of the 
defendant's home in connection with the investigation. 
The detective and other members of the gang unit had been 
following one of the defendant's social media accounts over the 
course of their investigation.5  Two weeks after the domestic 
 
submitted.  See Mass. G. Evid. § 202(c) (2021) (taking judicial 
notice is not permitted for municipal ordinances, town bylaws, 
special acts of Legislature, or regulations that are not 
published in Code of Massachusetts Regulations). 
 
4 The record is unclear as to what, if any, process was 
followed to access the footage, and whether saving it onto a DVD 
was permitted by the then-applicable policy.  See note 3, supra.  
The 2019 body-worn camera policy states that BPD "personnel 
shall not copy or otherwise reproduce any [body-worn camera] 
recordings/footage (including using an iPhone, iPad, or other 
electronic or other device)." 
 
5 One social media application through which the detective 
followed the defendant allows users to share video recordings 
and photographs, either live or previously recorded, with their 
"friends."  Recordings may be shared with one "friend," a group 
of "friends," or all "friends."  An icon on the posting 
8 
 
disturbance call, the detective noticed that the defendant had 
posted what the officer believed to be a recently created video 
recording6 of the defendant holding a firearm in a bedroom, with 
floral-printed curtains visible in the background.  After he saw 
the posted recording,7 the detective retrieved the DVD containing 
the body-worn camera footage from his colleague and reviewed it.  
Peering into the defendant's home caught on the body-worn camera 
footage, the detective saw the defendant's girlfriend zipping 
her coat in the defendant's bedroom, while standing next to what 
the detective believed were the same distinctive curtains 
visible in the posted video recording.  This was significant to 
 
indicates whether the images came from an archive or were 
"live."  Video recordings posted in this application generally 
are deleted automatically twenty-four hours after they are 
posted, although one type of post is not deleted until a user 
does so manually or limits access to it. 
 
The detective had sent a "friend" request to the 
defendant's social media account, using a BPD account with a 
fabricated name and profile.  The defendant accepted the 
request, thus enabling the detective to view the defendant's 
posts; the detective saw multiple posts apparently depicting the 
defendant while he was displaying firearms. 
 
 
6 The posted video recording indicated that it had been sent 
"yesterday," and lacked the icon to indicate that it had come 
from an archive.  This suggested to the detective that the 
recording had been created and posted simultaneously, and within 
twenty-four hours of the detective having viewed the post. 
 
7 Because postings generally would be automatically removed 
every twenty-four hours, when the detective watched video 
recordings he believed were of potential investigative value, he 
played them on one cellular telephone and recorded the footage 
being played using another cellular telephone. 
9 
 
the detective because it established the location of the posted 
video recording that had showed the defendant apparently holding 
a firearm. 
Thereafter, the detective sought and obtained a search 
warrant to search the defendant's residence and to seize, inter 
alia, weapons, weapons-associated objects, and identifying 
documents.  The warrant affidavit stated that the detective had 
probable cause to believe weapons would be found at the 
residence, which was known to be the defendant's address.  The 
affidavit asserted that there had been numerous social media 
posts showing the defendant with firearms.  The affidavit 
further explained that the curtains visible in a recent post 
matched those in the bedroom seen in the body-worn camera 
footage of the defendant's home. 
After executing the search warrant, officers found 
narcotics and a firearm in the house, and ammunition and 
marijuana in what they believed to be the defendant's brother's 
bedroom.  The defendant and his brother were arrested at that 
time. 
b.  Prior proceedings.  The defendant was indicted on 
charges of unlawful possession of a firearm, G. L. c. 269, 
§ 10 (h), as an armed career criminal, G. L. c. 269, § 10G (a); 
unlawful possession of a large capacity feeding device, G. L. 
c. 269, § 10 (m); and possession of ammunition without a firearm 
10 
 
identification card, G. L. c. 269, § 10 (h).  He moved to 
suppress the video recording that had been posted on his social 
media account, the video recording from the body-worn camera, 
the fruits of the search warrant, and statements he made during 
booking.8  After an evidentiary hearing, the motion judge denied 
the motion. 
Following a jury-waived trial, the defendant was found 
guilty of unlawful possession of a firearm and unlawful 
possession of ammunition; the Commonwealth entered a nolle 
prosequi on the element that charged the defendant with being an 
armed career criminal.  The defendant was acquitted of unlawful 
possession of a large capacity feeding device. 
 
The defendant appealed to the Appeals Court from the 
decision denying his motion to suppress.  He argued that the 
motion should have been allowed because the use of the body-worn 
camera in his home during the police response to the domestic 
disturbance call, as well as the subsequent investigatory review 
of the video footage, violated his rights under the Fourth 
Amendment and art. 14 to be free from unreasonable warrantless 
searches.  We allowed the defendant's petition for direct 
appellate review. 
 
8 At booking, the defendant told officers not to charge his 
brother with possession of the ammunition because "it was mine," 
and also said that he was glad he "got that sh-t out of there." 
11 
 
 
2.  Discussion.  a.  Standard of review.  "When reviewing a 
ruling on a motion to suppress, we accept the judge's subsidiary 
findings of fact absent clear error but conduct an independent 
review of his ultimate findings and conclusions of law" 
(quotation and citation omitted).  Commonwealth v. Almonor, 482 
Mass. 35, 40 (2019).  We review de novo the "application of 
constitutional principles to the facts as found," Commonwealth 
v. Peters, 453 Mass. 818, 822-823 (2009), quoting Commonwealth 
v. Stoute, 422 Mass. 782, 783 n.1 (1996).  We "leave to the 
judge the responsibility of determining the weight and 
credibility to be given oral testimony presented at the motion 
hearing."  Commonwealth v. Balicki, 436 Mass. 1, 4 n.4 (2002), 
quoting Commonwealth v. Eckert, 431 Mass. 591, 592–593 (2000), 
but review de novo any findings based entirely on a video 
recording, see Commonwealth v. Tremblay, 480 Mass. 645, 656 
(2018) (video recording constitutes documentary evidence for 
which reviewing court is in same position as motion judge). 
 
The defendant maintains that the use of the body-worn 
camera during the response to the domestic disturbance call, as 
well as the subsequent review of the footage in connection with 
an unrelated investigation, violated the protections of the 
Fourth Amendment and art. 14 against unreasonable searches.  To 
establish a violation of these constitutional guarantees, the 
defendant bears the initial burden of showing that the officer's 
12 
 
use of the body-worn camera in his residence, the later 
warrantless review of the footage, or both, constituted a search 
in the constitutional sense.  See Almonor, 482 Mass. at 40; 
Commonwealth v. Leslie, 477 Mass. 48, 53, 58 (2017). 
b.  Use of body-worn camera in defendant's home.  "In its 
most traditional form, a search occurs when 'the [g]overnment 
obtains information by physically intruding on a 
constitutionally protected area.'"  Commonwealth v. Johnson, 481 
Mass. 710, 715, cert. denied, 140 S. Ct. 247 (2019), quoting 
Grady v. North Carolina, 575 U.S. 306, 309 (2015) (per curiam).  
See Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1, 5 (2013).  Accord Leslie, 
477 Mass. at 49 ("analytical framework set out in Jardines" 
applies to art. 14).  Alternatively, a search occurs when the 
government invades a reasonable expectation of privacy.  See 
Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 361 (1967) (Harlan, J., 
concurring); Commonwealth v. McCarthy, 484 Mass. 493, 497 
(2020), quoting Johnson, supra ("An individual has a reasonable 
expectation of privacy where [i] the individual has manifested a 
subjective expectation of privacy in the object of the search, 
and [ii] society is willing to recognize that expectation as 
reasonable"). 
A person's home is among the areas expressly protected 
under both the Fourth Amendment ("right of the people to be 
secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against 
13 
 
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated") and 
art. 14 ("Every subject has a right to be secure from all 
unreasonable searches, and seizures, of his person, his houses, 
his papers, and all his possessions").  Specifically enumerated 
in these constitutional texts, "the home is first among equals."  
Jardines, 569 U.S. at 6.  "The very core of [the constitutional] 
guarantee is the right of a man to retreat into his own home and 
there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion" 
(quotations and citation omitted).  Caniglia v. Strom, 141 
S. Ct. 1596, 1599 (2021).  See Silverman v. United States, 365 
U.S. 505, 511 (1961).  "In view of the 'sanctity of the home,' 
'all details [within it] are intimate details, because the 
entire area is held safe from prying government eyes.'"  
Commonwealth v. Porter P., 456 Mass. 254, 260 (2010), quoting 
Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 37 (2001). 
The defendant contends that a search in the constitutional 
sense occurred in this case because the police used the body-
worn camera to gather information during the domestic 
disturbance call at the defendant's home, physically intruding 
on a constitutionally protected area.  See Silverman, 365 U.S. 
at 506-507, 509-512 ("spike mike" inserted through neighboring 
wall that made contact with heating duct of home, conveying 
conversations, constituted physical intrusion of home that 
triggered Fourth Amendment protection).  See also United States 
14 
 
v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400, 404, 409-410 (2012) (physical 
installation of global positioning system device on vehicle 
triggered Fourth Amendment protection).  Alternatively, the 
defendant contends that the use of a body worn camera in his 
home comprised a search because it invaded the reasonable 
expectation of privacy he had in his residence.  See United 
States v. Karo, 468 U.S. 705, 715 (1984) (search occurred where 
"the Government surreptitiously employ[ed] an electronic device 
to obtain information that it could not have obtained by 
observation from outside the curtilage of the house"); 
Porter P., 456 Mass. at 260 ("the juvenile has a reasonable 
expectation of privacy, because the Fourth Amendment and art. 14 
expressly provide that every person has the right to be secure 
against unreasonable searches and seizures in his home").  In 
the specific circumstances of this case, we disagree that a 
search occurred. 
By contrast with the cases on which the defendant relies, 
here the officer who was equipped with the body-worn camera 
entered the defendant's home, at the defendant's sister's 
request, to render assistance in response to the call to police 
about a domestic disturbance.  Thus, the officer was present 
lawfully in the home, upon an express invitation to enter.  See 
Commonwealth v. Gray, 465 Mass. 330, 343, cert. denied, 571 U.S. 
1014 (2013) (resident who answered door consented to entry of 
15 
 
home).  The sister, as a family member who lived in the home, 
had authority to give such consent.  See Georgia v. Randolph, 
547 U.S. 103, 109 (2006); Commonwealth v. Podgurski, 44 Mass. 
App. Ct. 929, 930 (1998), citing Commonwealth v. Ortiz, 422 
Mass. 64, 70 (1996) ("Family members who live in a home together 
may validly consent to a search of that home"). 
Being lawfully present in the home, the officer's 
observations of the items and locations in his path as he 
effected the purpose of his visit were permissible plain view 
observations.  See Commonwealth v. Blevines, 438 Mass. 604, 609 
(2003) ("police are not required to blind themselves to 
information . . . that declares its nature to anyone at sight" 
[citation omitted]).  See also Commonwealth v. Entwistle, 463 
Mass. 205, 217 (2012), cert. denied, 568 U.S. 1129 (2013) (plain 
view observation of open bill that lay on kitchen table fell 
within scope of lawful search of defendant's home).  So long as 
the officer confined his actions and stayed within the locations 
of the home that were required to perform his duties, such plain 
view observations did not constitute an "independent search" in 
a constitutional sense, because they produced "no additional 
invasion of [the defendant's] privacy interest" beyond that 
resulting from the officer's initial, justified entry into the 
home.  See Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 325 (1987) (merely 
inspecting parts of turntable in plain view was not independent 
16 
 
search because it produced no additional invasion of privacy and 
came into view during lawful search for shooter, but turning 
over equipment to look for serial number was additional invasion 
of privacy).  See also Illinois v. Andreas, 463 U.S. 765, 771 
(1983) ("once police are lawfully in a position to observe an 
item first-hand, its owner's privacy interest in that item is 
lost"); Texas v. Brown, 460 U.S. 730, 738 n.4 (1983) ("mere 
observation of an item left in plain view . . . generally 
involves no Fourth Amendment search").  Cf. Commonwealth v. 
Sergienko, 399 Mass. 291, 294 (1987) (plain view observation 
"does not rise to the level of a search, and Fourth Amendment 
limitations are not triggered"). 
Moreover, where similar plain view observations are made in 
connection with a crime scene, this court has recognized that 
taking photographs of areas of a home to record an officer's 
plain view observations of evidence raises no Fourth Amendment 
or art. 14 concerns, so long as the officer was lawfully present 
in the home.  See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Freiberg, 405 Mass. 
282, 299, cert. denied, 493 U.S. 940 (1989) (where police were 
"legally on the premises [pursuant to a warrant], it was 
permissible for them to take . . . photographs" of areas of home 
where blood was found); Commonwealth v. Young, 382 Mass. 448, 
458-460 (1981) (where police were lawfully in apartment pursuant 
to exigent circumstances, taking photographs of plain view 
17 
 
observations of bloodstained areas was not unconstitutional).  
The same rationale applies to video recordings.  See United 
States v. McCourt, 468 F.3d 1088, 1092 (8th Cir. 2006), cert. 
denied, 549 U.S. 1301 (2007) (video recordings are "a series of 
still [photographic] images shown in rapid succession"). 
Some other State courts similarly have permitted 
photographs and video recordings to document and preserve the 
plain view observations of officers who are lawfully present at 
a crime scene.  See, e.g., State v. Spears, 560 So. 2d 1145, 
1150-1151 (Ala. Crim. App. 1989) (officer who arrived shortly 
after shooting was permitted to photograph, film, and diagram 
premises consistent with police department policy to memorialize 
plain view observations and to preserve scene of homicide); 
People v. Macioce, 197 Cal. App. 3d 262, 268, 276 (1987), cert. 
denied, 488 U.S. 908 (1988) (following emergency entry at scene 
of homicide, seventeen photographs taken of bloodstained 
apartment where body was found "constituted no more than a 
memorialization of what the officers observed"); People v. 
Reynolds, 672 P.2d 529, 532 (Colo. 1983) (following emergency 
response to report of shooting in defendant's apartment and 
discovery of body in bedroom, photographs and measurements 
documenting and preserving scene were permissible); State v. 
Magnano, 204 Conn. 259, 266-267 (1987) (photographs taken of 
plain view observations at scene of homicide following police 
18 
 
entry in response to defendant's call that intruder was in home 
were permissible); Davis v. State, 217 So. 3d 1006, 1014-1015 
(Fla. 2017) (photographs and video recording of items in 
defendant's home did not constitute additional invasion into 
defendant's privacy beyond that occasioned by scope of search 
warrant).  See also 2 W.R. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 4.10(d) 
(6th ed. 2020). 
These courts have reasoned that such photographic 
preservation, like the plain view observations themselves, 
involves neither an additional intrusion nor an additional 
invasion of privacy beyond that incident to the officer's lawful 
entry into the home.  See Spears, 560 So. 2d at 1148; Magnano, 
204 Conn. at 271 n.6; People v. Spencer, 272 A.D.2d 682, 683 
(N.Y. 2000).  Accordingly, such recording is not a search.  See 
Hicks, 480 U.S. at 324, 329 (neither "mere recording" of 
stereo's serial number nor "mere inspection" of portions of 
stereo that were in plain view in apartment where officers 
entered pursuant to exigent circumstances violated Fourth 
Amendment). 
We turn to consider whether the use of body-worn cameras to 
document police-civilian interactions, where, as here, the 
officers are lawfully present in the home, constitutes a search 
in the constitutional sense.  The court's decision in Balicki, 
436 Mass. at 11-13, is instructive.  There, police officers 
19 
 
obtained a warrant to search the defendants' home and to seize 
specific items thought to have been obtained by fraud.  Rather 
than limiting their search to the places where those items might 
be found, however, the officers effectively conducted an 
inventory search of every room in the house.  Id. at 5-7, 11.  
They also recorded their search using photographs and a video 
recording.  Id. at 5-7.  We affirmed a Superior Court judge's 
decision ordering suppression of, inter alia, the photographs 
and video recording, on the ground that the search went beyond 
the bounds of the warrant and, thus, the subsequent seizure of 
items could not be justified under the plain view doctrine.  Id. 
at 11-13.  We stated, however, that "the limited photographic 
preservation of the condition of a search scene (to protect the 
police from allegations of damage), or the photographic 
preservation of evidence, in situ, that the police otherwise 
have the right to seize pursuant to a warrant or any exception 
thereto," are "not offensive to the privacy interests protected 
by art. 14."  Id. at 12-13. 
The United States Supreme Court's decision in Wilson v. 
Layne, 526 U.S. 603, 613 (1999), provides further guidance.  In 
that case, the Court concluded that officers who invited members 
of the media to photograph and record the execution of an arrest 
warrant in a home violated the Fourth Amendment rights of the 
homeowners.  Id. at 614.  Contrasting the "media ride-along" at 
20 
 
issue in that case, the Court noted that "it might be reasonable 
for police officers to themselves videotape home entries as part 
of a 'quality control' effort to ensure that the rights of 
homeowners are being respected, or even to preserve evidence."  
Id. at 613. 
We conclude that, where, as here, the officer was lawfully 
present in the home and the body-worn camera captured only the 
areas and items in the plain view of the officer as he or she 
traversed the home, in a manner consistent with the reasons for 
the officer's lawful presence, the recording is not a search in 
the constitutional sense and does not violate the Fourth 
Amendment or art. 14.  This conclusion follows from our 
jurisprudence regarding the photographic preservation of a crime 
scene.  See Freiberg, 405 Mass. at 299; Young, 382 Mass. at 458-
460.  As with such photographic preservation, the limited 
recording of police-civilian encounters may serve to protect 
police officers from allegations of damage, to memorialize and 
preserve the events as they transpire, and to advance interest 
in police accountability.  See Balicki, 436 Mass. at 11-12; 
Matter of Patrolmen's Benevolent Ass'n of N.Y. v. de Blasio, 171 
A.D.3d 636, 637 (N.Y. 2019).  As is the case in photographing a 
crime scene, the privacy interest of the resident in whose home 
police are lawfully present is diminished with respect to the 
areas and objects in plain view. 
21 
 
This is not to say that police officers can record without 
limit every area of a home when they are called to assist a 
resident, or otherwise are lawfully present inside a home.  See 
Balicki, 436 Mass. at 11 (photography and videography of entire 
house including "everything of potential evidentiary value" 
constituted general search in violation of art. 14).  Plain view 
observation cannot be used as a pretext for a general 
exploratory search of the home.  See Hicks, 480 U.S. at 328, 
quoting Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 466 (1971) 
("the 'plain view' doctrine may not be used to extend a general 
exploratory search from one object to another until something 
incriminating at last emerges").  "[T]he purposes justifying a 
police search strictly limit the permissible extent of the 
search."  Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U.S. 79, 87 (1987).  Compare 
Balicki, supra at 5-7, 11-13 (discussing impermissibility of 
video recording and photography of spaces in home unrelated to 
that authorized by search warrant).  The body-worn camera (like 
the police officer) may intrude only on the places necessary to 
effect the lawful purposes for the officer's presence.  See 
Peters, 453 Mass. at 823 (scope of police conduct upon entry 
justified by emergency must be limited to purpose of entry); 
Commonwealth v. Gaynor, 443 Mass. 245, 255 (2005) (scope of 
warrantless consent search is limited to consent given); 
Balicki, supra at 9, citing Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128, 
22 
 
140 (1990) (scope of warrantless search is limited to exigency 
justifying search). 
Here, based on our review of the footage, the officer 
confined his presence to the places he needed to enter to effect 
the response to the domestic disturbance call.  The camera 
physically intruded only to the extent that the officer himself 
already lawfully had intruded, and the field of view of the 
camera, which was worn on the officer's chest, went no further 
than the officer's own unaided view.  At least as appears on the 
submitted copy of the recording, the footage involved no 
technological enhancements.  Otherwise put, the camera captured 
only the officer's plain view observations of the areas of the 
home where, due to the officer's lawful presence, the 
defendant's expectations of privacy already were diminished.  
Thus, the recording was not a search in the constitutional 
sense. 
c.  Subsequent review of recorded footage.  Having 
determined that the use of the body-worn camera in the home was 
not a search, we next address the constitutionality of the BPD's 
subsequent act of reviewing the video footage for unrelated, 
investigatory purposes.  That subsequent review "requires a 
separate constitutional inquiry."  See Johnson, 481 Mass. at 
720.  See also Entwistle, 463 Mass. at 215-219 (considering 
separately lawfulness of officers' actions in each warrantless 
23 
 
search of defendant's home).  The defendant contends that the 
subsequent review constituted a search because it invaded his 
reasonable expectation of privacy.  See Johnson, supra at 715, 
720.  See also Katz, 389 U.S. at 360-361 (Harlan, J., 
concurring).  We conclude that it did. 
"At the risk of belaboring the obvious, private residences 
are places in which the individual normally expects privacy free 
of governmental intrusion not authorized by a warrant, and that 
expectation is plainly one that society is prepared to recognize 
as justifiable."  Karo, 468 U.S. at 714.  The interior of a home 
can reveal "a highly detailed profile . . . of our 
associations -- political, religious, amicable and amorous, to 
name only a few -- and of the pattern of our professional and 
avocational pursuits."  Commonwealth v. Mora, 485 Mass. 360, 
372-373 (2020), quoting Commonwealth v. Connolly, 454 Mass. 808, 
834 (2009) (Gants, J., concurring). 
Unlike the recording of the plain view observations 
attendant to the initial and lawful entry into the defendant's 
home, this subsequent review for investigatory and unrelated 
reasons cannot be justified as a limited extension of the 
officer's plain view observations.  The home is not a place to 
which the public has access, or where an individual might expect 
a recording made during a lawful police visit would be preserved 
indefinitely, accessed without restriction, and reviewed at will 
24 
 
for reasons unrelated to the purposes of the police visit.  See 
Mora, 485 Mass. at 368, citing Almonor, 482 Mass. at 42 n.10.  
As the court remarked in Balicki, it is one thing to be present 
in a home to assist its resident and "of necessity being in a 
position to cursorily notice many of its contents"; it is quite 
another "to create a permanent record of [the contents of the 
home traversed by the responding officers] for review by police, 
prosecutors, expert witnesses, and others at any time in the 
future."  Balicki, 436 Mass. at 12.  Such a "record can be 
played and replayed as many times as necessary or desired, and 
the images can be focused or enlarged to show each detail of 
every item in that citizen's home."  Id. 
While video recording technology is hardly new, equipping 
officers with body-worn cameras is relatively recent.  The use 
of body-worn cameras to record police-civilian encounters has 
increased in the past decade.  See Chapman, National Institute 
of Justice, Body-Worn Cameras:  What the Evidence Tells Us, NIJ 
Journal, no. 280, Jan. 2019, at 1 ("In 2013, approximately one-
third of U.S. municipal police departments had implemented the 
use of body-worn cameras"); Hyland, United States Department of 
Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Body-Worn Cameras in Law 
Enforcement Agencies, 2016, at 1 (Nov. 2018) (in 2016, forty-
seven percent of general-purpose law enforcement agencies in 
United States acquired body-worn cameras). 
25 
 
Proponents of body-worn cameras tout the utility of these 
devices in protecting the police from false allegations of 
damage, promoting police accountability, and serving as a record 
of police-civilian interactions.  See Blitz, American 
Constitution Society for Law and Policy, Police Body-Worn 
Cameras:  Evidentiary Benefits and Privacy Threats, at 1 (May 
2015) (Blitz) (body-worn cameras support more accurate fact 
finding for police misconduct cases and deter wrongdoing); 
Thomas, The Privacy Case for Body Cameras:  The Need for a 
Privacy-Centric Approach to Body Camera Policymaking, 50 Colum. 
J.L. & Soc. Probs. 192, 200-201 (2017) (Thomas) (benefits of 
body-worn cameras involve, inter alia, deterring police 
misconduct, including illegal searches; increasing public trust 
in law enforcement; and facilitating prosecution for privacy-
infringing crimes). 
Indeed, the motion judge here found that "[o]ne of the 
purposes of the body-worn camera is to ensure that the police 
act in accordance with the law in tense circumstances like" 
those encountered when responding to a situation such as the 
dispatch call at issue.  See, e.g., United States v. Fautz, 812 
F. Supp. 2d 570, 616 (D.N.J. 2011) (videotaping defendant's 
apartment during execution of search warrant to protect officers 
from potential claims of liability for damage or disruption of 
personal property was reasonable); Matter of Patrolmen's 
26 
 
Benevolent Ass'n of N.Y., 171 A.D.3d at 637 ("The purpose of 
body-worn camera footage is for use in the service of other key 
objectives of the program, such as transparency, accountability, 
and public trust-building"). 
Despite these perceived benefits, others wisely caution 
that the unregulated use of such cameras has the potential to 
invade privacy in a manner inconsistent with society's 
reasonable expectations.  See Stanley, American Civil Liberties 
Union, Police Body-Mounted Cameras:  With Right Polices in 
Place, a Win for All, at 2 (updated Mar. 2015) (noting tension 
between potential that body-worn cameras invade privacy and 
"strong benefit in promoting police accountability").  See, 
e.g., Blitz, supra at 1 ("Police body-worn cameras, critics 
point out, threaten privacy in much the same way the [S]tate 
threatens citizens' privacy anytime it records their activities.  
Such a threat is especially worrisome where police cameras 
record details from inside people's homes or other private 
areas"); Thomas, 50 Colum. J.L. & Soc. Probs. at 207 ("With the 
ability to review footage at will comes the power to comb 
through the background for . . . details, noticing or 
reexamining even innocent activity . . . allow[ing] those 
viewing the footage to create intimate and detailed profiles of 
people beyond the level possible by mere real-time 
observation").  See also Freund, When Cameras are Rolling:  
27 
 
Privacy Implications of Body-Mounted Cameras on Police, 49 
Colum. J.L. & Soc. Probs. 91, 130-131 (2015) (If "body-worn 
cameras become a systematic tool for evidence collection, this 
will lead to more distrust of police interactions, hampering 
efforts to build better relationships between police departments 
and citizens" [footnote omitted]); Thomas, supra at 194 ("absent 
the right policies, the technology may be used to tailor 
narratives or gather evidence of routine criminal activity 
instead of ensuring police accountability, thus introducing 
privacy concerns while failing to assure the public that body 
cameras will help to curb abuse" [footnote omitted]). 
In response to these concerns, a number of State 
legislatures have enacted statutes governing the creation, 
retention, and access to body-worn camera footage.9  As noted, 
the record here does not include the policy governing body-worn 
cameras applicable at the time of the domestic disturbance call.  
 
9 See, e.g., Cal. Penal Code § 832.18 (establishing body-
worn camera policy best practices regarding storage of and 
access to video footage); N.J. Stat. Ann. § 40A:14-118.5 
(setting forth when body-worn cameras will be activated or 
deactivated, notice requirements, and storage protocols); Wash. 
Rev. Code § 10.109.010 (requiring law enforcement agencies that 
deploy body-worn cameras to establish policies that address when 
cameras are activated and deactivated, discretion of officers to 
choose when to record, notice of recording, and data storage).  
The Legislature has established a task force to make 
recommendations of regulations for law enforcement agencies 
regarding body-worn cameras by July 31, 2022.  See St. 2020, 
c. 253, § 104. 
28 
 
See note 3, supra.  Whatever its terms, the practice followed 
apparently permitted law enforcement officers unlimited access 
to review, download, share, and use the footage in connection 
with unrelated, investigatory purposes. 
"[B]oth this court and the United States Supreme Court have 
been careful to guard against the 'power of technology to shrink 
the realm of guaranteed privacy' by emphasizing that privacy 
rights 'cannot be left at the mercy of advancing technology but 
rather must be preserved and protected as new technologies are 
adopted and applied by law enforcement.'"  Almonor, 482 Mass. at 
41, quoting Johnson, 481 Mass. at 716.  See McCarthy, 484 Mass. 
at 499 ("advancing technology undercuts traditional checks on an 
overly pervasive police presence because it [1] is not limited 
by the same practical constraints that heretofore effectively 
have limited long-running surveillance, [2] proceeds 
surreptitiously, and [3] gives police access to categories of 
information previously unknowable").  "It is the duty of courts 
to be watchful for the constitutional rights of the citizen, and 
against any stealthy encroachments thereon" (citation omitted).  
Coolidge, 403 U.S. at 454. 
Consistent with these principles, we conclude that while 
the plain view observation doctrine extended to the officer's 
recording of his interactions in the defendant's home in 
response to the domestic disturbance call, that doctrine cannot 
29 
 
be stretched to sanction the subsequent review of the footage 
for reasons unrelated to the call.  The Fourth Amendment and 
art. 14 were enacted, in large part, in "response to the reviled 
'general warrants' and 'writs of assistance' of the colonial 
era, which allowed British officers to rummage through homes in 
an unrestrained search for evidence of criminal activity."  
Mora, 485 Mass. at 370, quoting Carpenter v. United States, 138 
S. Ct. 2206, 2213 (2018).  The ability of police officers, at 
any later point, to trawl through video footage to look for 
evidence of crimes unrelated to the officers' lawful presence in 
the home when they were responding to a call for assistance is 
the virtual equivalent of a general warrant.  See, e.g., Leaders 
of a Beautiful Struggle v. Baltimore Police Dep't, 2 F.4th 330, 
345-347 (4th Cir. 2021) (noting prohibition against general 
warrants, and holding that subsequent warrantless review of 
photographic and location data from aerial camera surveillance 
was search).  A database of body-worn camera footage of the 
places where officers are called upon to assist residents, 
reviewable at will and without a warrant, for unrelated 
investigations, renders "technologically feasible the Orwellian 
Big Brother."  See United States v. White, 401 U.S. 745, 770 
(1971) (Harlan, J., dissenting). 
Moreover, the subsequent review of the footage in 
connection with the unrelated investigation of the defendant 
30 
 
falls outside the rationale justifying the recording in the 
first instance.  Such a review is divorced from protecting 
police officers from false accusations of misconduct, ensuring 
police accountability, or preserving a record of police-civilian 
interaction.  Instead, the use of body-worn camera footage in 
this manner, after the fact, for investigatory purposes 
unrelated to the domestic disturbance call, had the effect of 
allowing the gang unit detective to peer into the defendant's 
home for evidence to support an unrelated criminal 
investigation.  See Florida v. Wells, 495 U.S. 1, 4 (1990), 
quoting Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U.S. 367, 376 (1987) (Blackmun, 
J., concurring) (policy governing inventory search may not 
permit search to be turned into "a purposeful and general means 
of discovering evidence of crime").  Cf. Commonwealth v. 
Buccella, 434 Mass. 473, 485 (2001), cert. denied, 534 U.S. 1079 
(2002) ("It would appear reasonable to expect that a government 
agency, to which a citizen is required to submit certain 
materials, will use those materials solely for the purposes 
intended and not disclose them to others in ways that are 
unconnected with those intended purposes"). 
"The 'basic purpose of [the Fourth] Amendment' . . . 'is to 
safeguard the privacy and security of individuals against 
arbitrary invasions by governmental officials.'"  Carpenter, 138 
S. Ct. at 2213, quoting Camara v. Municipal Court of San 
31 
 
Francisco, 387 U.S. 523, 528 (1967).  The Fourth Amendment and 
art. 14 would afford little protection if they permitted 
officers to return to the police station following a call for 
assistance that was video recorded, store the resulting video 
footage of a home's interior, and then retrieve it in connection 
with an unrelated investigation, "trawl[ing] for evidence with 
impunity" through the recording of the inside of a home.  See 
Leslie, 477 Mass. at 54, quoting Jardines, 569 U.S. at 6.  As 
the United States Supreme Court repeatedly has stressed, the 
home is a "constitutional[ly] differen[t]" location (citation 
omitted).  Caniglia, 141 S. Ct. at 1599.  See id. at 1600, 
quoting Collins v. Virginia, 138 U.S. 1663, 1672 (2018) ("this 
Court has repeatedly 'declined to expand the scope of . . . 
exceptions to the warrant requirement to permit warrantless 
entry into the home'").  Cf. Wilson, 526 U.S. at 611-612 (media 
ride-along was unconstitutional despite search warrant, which 
did not strip residents of home of all Fourth Amendment privacy 
interests in areas of home that were exposed to view).  "[E]ven 
the most law-abiding citizen," as well as an individual merely 
suspected of criminal behavior, "has a very tangible interest in 
limiting the circumstances under which the sanctity of his home 
may be broken by official authority, for the possibility of 
criminal entry under the guise of official sanction is a serious 
32 
 
threat to personal and family security."  Camara, supra at 530-
531. 
Because "[p]rotecting the home from [such] arbitrary 
government invasion always has been a central aim of both 
[Constitutions]," Mora, 485 Mass. at 370, we decline to extend 
the plain view observation doctrine to the subsequent, unrelated 
review of body-worn camera footage of the defendant's home.  The 
review was a search in the constitutional sense and was 
"presumptively unreasonable" under the Fourth Amendment and art. 
14 (citation omitted).  See Commonwealth v. Arias, 481 Mass. 
604, 609 (2019).  See also Katz, 389 U.S. at 357; Commonwealth 
v. Dame, 473 Mass. 524, 536, cert. denied, 137 S. Ct. 132 (2016) 
("Under both the Fourth Amendment . . . and art. 14 . . . , 
warrantless searches 'are per se unreasonable'" [citation 
omitted]).10 
 
10 Moreover, the review of the body-worn camera footage was 
not limited by the same practical constraints as are human sight 
and memory.  See Commonwealth v. Gomes, 470 Mass. 352, 369 
(2015), S.C., 478 Mass. 1025 (2018) ("Human memory does not 
function like a video recording").  See, e.g., Kyllo v. United 
States, 533 U.S. 27, 34-35 (2001) (thermal imaging of home 
constituted "search" because it gathered information on interior 
of home that was not otherwise obtainable without physical 
intrusion); Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 325 (1987) (action 
unrelated to objectives of authorized intrusion into home, and 
which exposed concealed portions of home, produced new invasion 
of respondent's privacy); United States v. Karo, 468 U.S. 705, 
715 (1984) (subsequent review of video footage "reveal[ed] a 
critical fact about the interior of [the defendant's home] that 
the Government [was] extremely interested in knowing and that it 
could not have otherwise obtained without a warrant"). 
33 
 
d.  De minimis search.  The Commonwealth does not argue 
that the subsequent review of the body-worn camera footage was 
permissible under one of the "carefully delineated exceptions" 
to the warrant requirement.  See Entwistle, 463 Mass. at 213.  
See also Caniglia, 141 S. Ct. at 1599; Commonwealth v. Rogers, 
444 Mass. 234, 236-237 (2005) (discussing exceptions to warrant 
requirement, including probable cause, exigent circumstances, 
and consent).  Rather, the Commonwealth contends that the BPD 
review of the body-camera footage was not extensive, and that 
the review was targeted at one specific detail, the floral-
printed curtains in the defendant's bedroom.  But the 
constitutional protection against unreasonable, warrantless 
searches is no less applicable to a targeted search than it is 
to a more extensive one.  See Hicks, 480 U.S. at 325 ("A search 
is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the 
bottom of a turntable"). 
Thus, the portions of the search warrant affidavit drawn 
from the body-worn camera video footage, therefore, should have 
been excised,11 and the motion judge should have allowed the 
motion to suppress the evidence seized from the defendant's 
 
11 As we have stated repeatedly, "[t]he Massachusetts 
Constitution affords greater protections to a person in certain 
circumstances than those provided by Federal decisions 
interpreting the Fourth Amendment."  See Commonwealth v. 
Balicki, 436 Mass. 1, 11 n.11 (2002), citing Commonwealth v. 
Upton, 394 Mass. 363, 372–373 (1985). 
34 
 
home.  See Commonwealth v. Barillas, 484 Mass. 250, 257-259 
(2020) (suppression was proper where evidence was seized as part 
of inventory search, but then was searched for investigatory 
purposes); Commonwealth v. Vuthy Seng, 436 Mass. 537, 554-555, 
cert. denied, 537 U.S. 942 (2002) (exclusion of evidence at 
retrial was required where it was fruit of improper 
investigatory search during inventory search). 
e.  Independent source exception.  "The general rule is 
that evidence is to be excluded if it is found to be the 'fruit' 
of a police officer's unlawful actions."  Balicki, 436 Mass. at 
15, citing Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 484 (1963).  
There are a number of exceptions to that rule, including, as 
relevant here, the so-called "independent source" exception.  
See Pearson, 486 Mass. at 812-813, quoting Murray v. United 
States, 487 U.S. 533, 539 (1988). 
To satisfy the independent source exception, the 
Commonwealth must establish by a preponderance of the evidence 
that (1) the decision to seek the search warrant was not 
prompted by what police observed during the unlawful viewing of 
the body-worn camera footage, and (2) the affidavit submitted in 
support of the application for a search warrant contained 
sufficient information, apart from that gleaned from the 
unlawful viewing, to establish probable cause.  See Pearson, 486 
35 
 
Mass. at 813, citing Commonwealth v. DeJesus, 439 Mass. 616, 627 
n.11 (2003), and Murray, 487 U.S. at 541-543. 
The Commonwealth argues that, absent the ill-gotten 
information, the search warrant affidavit nonetheless 
established probable cause.  As we recently made clear in 
Pearson, 486 Mass. at 813-814, decided after the briefing in 
this case, the Commonwealth must also establish that the 
decision to seek the search warrant was not prompted by the 
unlawful review of the video footage.  The record before us is 
insufficient to determine whether the Commonwealth can meet its 
burden on this issue.  Therefore, the order denying the motion 
to suppress must be vacated and set aside, and the matter 
remanded to the Superior Court for an evidentiary hearing and a 
determination as to whether the Commonwealth can satisfy its 
burden under Pearson.  See id. 
3.  Conclusion.  The order denying the motion to suppress 
is vacated and set aside, and the matter is remanded to the 
Superior Court for further proceedings consistent with this 
opinion. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
So ordered.