Title: Commonwealth v. DeJesus

State: massachusetts

Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Document:

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SJC-13171 
 
COMMONWEALTH  vs.  CHRISTOPHER DeJESUS. 
 
 
 
Bristol.     December 6, 2021. – March 15, 2022. 
 
Present:  Budd, C.J., Gaziano, Lowy, Cypher, Kafker, Wendlandt, 
& Georges, JJ. 
 
 
Firearms.  Constitutional Law, Search and seizure, Standing to 
question constitutionality, Privacy.  Search and Seizure, 
Standing to object, Expectation of privacy.  Privacy.  
Evidence, Firearm.  Practice, Criminal, Motion to suppress, 
Standing. 
 
 
 
Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court 
Department on September 6, 2018. 
 
A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Renee 
P. Dupuis, J., and the cases were tried before Thomas F. 
McGuire, J. 
 
After review by the Appeals Court, the Supreme Judicial 
Court granted leave to obtain further appellate review. 
 
 
Thomas E. Hagar for the defendant. 
Shoshana Stern, Assistant District Attorney, for the 
Commonwealth. 
Patrick Levin, Committee for Public Counsel Services, & 
Katharine Naples-Mitchell, for Committee for Public Counsel 
Services & another, amici curiae, submitted a brief. 
 
 
2 
 
LOWY, J.  The defendant was convicted of possessing a 
firearm without a license and possessing a large capacity 
feeding device.  He contends on appeal that the firearm and the 
attached large capacity feeding device should have been 
suppressed as the fruits of a warrantless search and that there 
was insufficient evidence that he possessed the firearm or the 
feeding device.  We affirm.1 
We also take this opportunity to abolish the separate 
standing requirement in the search and seizure context and 
clarify that under art. 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of 
Rights, as under the Fourth Amendment to the United States 
Constitution, a defendant need show only a reasonable 
expectation of privacy in the place searched to contest a search 
or seizure.  In almost all situations, a defendant contesting a 
search or seizure will need to show his or her own reasonable 
expectation of privacy in the place searched.  In one situation, 
however, a defendant will be deemed to have another's reasonable 
expectation of privacy:  where the defendant has been charged 
with possessing contraband at the time of the search and, also 
at the time of the search, the property was in the actual 
 
 
1 We acknowledge the amicus brief submitted by the Committee 
for Public Counsel Services and the Charles Hamilton Houston 
Institute for Race and Justice. 
3 
 
possession of a codefendant2 or in a place where the codefendant 
had a reasonable expectation of privacy, the defendant may 
assert the same reasonable expectation of privacy as the 
codefendant. 
Nothing in this opinion should be read to impede a 
defendant's ability to litigate his or her own reasonable 
expectation of privacy or to restrict the reach of such an 
expectation of privacy as it exists under our current case 
law.3,4 
 
Background.  The evidence at trial and at the hearing on 
the motion to suppress was as follows.5 
 
2 The term "codefendant" refers in this context to anyone 
who has been or may be charged with the same possessory offense 
with which the defendant was charged. 
 
3 By way of example only, our elimination of the separate 
standing requirement does not change our current jurisprudence 
regarding the reasonable expectation of privacy of overnight 
guests, see, e.g., Commonwealth v. Morrison, 429 Mass. 511, 513-
514 (1999), or vehicle passengers, see, e.g., Commonwealth v. 
Podgurski, 386 Mass. 385, 389-391 (1982), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 
1222 (1983). 
 
4 Additionally, defendants who before this opinion did not 
have to present a reasonable expectation of privacy in his or 
her affidavit pursuant to Mass. R. Crim. P. 13, as appearing in 
442 Mass. 1516 (2004), but who now will have to present a 
reasonable expectation of privacy in such an affidavit, may not 
be impeached with that affidavit at trial. 
 
5 Regarding the motion to suppress, we supplement the 
judge's factual findings with "uncontroverted testimony 
implicitly or explicitly credited by the judge[] in support of" 
the findings.  Commonwealth v. Barillas, 484 Mass. 250, 251 
 
4 
 
A police officer saw video recordings (videos) on a social 
media platform that showed the defendant brandishing a firearm 
with an extended magazine.6  The videos led officers to a 
multifamily dwelling that was not the defendant's home, where 
they found the defendant and others.  Officers went through a 
partially open door in the rear of the house leading to a 
basement that appeared to be where the videos had been filmed.  
There they found a firearm with an extended magazine inside an 
open backpack.  The firearm appeared to be the same one that the 
defendant had been holding in the videos.  The defendant was 
arrested at the scene. 
 
Before trial, the defendant moved to suppress the firearm 
on the ground that it was obtained pursuant to an unlawful 
warrantless entry.  The judge (motion judge) denied the motion 
after an evidentiary hearing.  At the close of the 
Commonwealth's case at trial, the defendant moved for a required 
finding of not guilty.  The trial judge, who was different from 
the motion judge, denied the motion as to the charges of 
possessing a firearm and possessing a large capacity feeding 
device.  A jury then found the defendant guilty of those 
 
(2020), quoting Commonwealth v. Vasquez, 482 Mass. 850, 852 
(2019). 
 
6 The defendant does not challenge the police officer's use 
of social media for an investigatory purpose. 
5 
 
charges.7  The defendant appealed, and the Appeals Court 
affirmed.  Commonwealth v. DeJesus, 99 Mass. App. Ct. 275, 283 
(2021).  We granted the defendant's application for further 
appellate review. 
 
Discussion.  1.  Motion to suppress.  The defendant 
contends that the evidence found in the basement should have 
been suppressed as the fruit of a warrantless search.  We 
conclude that the motion judge did not err in denying the 
defendant's motion to suppress because the defendant did not 
have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the basement.8 
 
a.  Abolishing separate standing requirement.  "Article 14 
and the Fourth Amendment protect individuals from unreasonable, 
governmental searches and seizures."  Commonwealth v. Delgado-
Rivera, 487 Mass. 551, 554 (2021), cert. denied, 142 S. Ct. 908 
(2022).  Under the Fourth Amendment, a defendant may contest a 
search or seizure that violated his or her reasonable 
expectation of privacy.  Id. at 556, citing Rakas v. Illinois, 
439 U.S. 128, 139 (1978).  The art. 14 analysis, in contrast, 
 
7 The trial judge sentenced the defendant to from two and 
one-half to five years in State prison on each indictment, to 
run concurrently. 
 
8 Like us, the motion judge concluded that the defendant did 
not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the place 
searched.  Unlike us, the motion judge also decided that the 
defendant did not have standing to challenge the search.  As 
discussed infra, we abolish the standing requirement in this 
opinion. 
6 
 
has a separate standing requirement.  Under our current art. 14 
jurisprudence, "we determine initially whether the defendant has 
standing to contest the search and then whether she [or he] had 
an expectation of privacy in the area searched."  Delgado-
Rivera, supra at 555, quoting Commonwealth v. Williams, 453 
Mass. 203, 207-208 (2009).  A defendant, therefore, generally 
may challenge the constitutionality of a search or seizure under 
our current art. 14 jurisprudence only if he or she has both 
standing and a reasonable expectation of privacy.  Pursuant to 
this current framework, a defendant "has standing to challenge a 
government search [under art. 14] either [(1)] if he or she has 
a possessory interest in the place searched or in the property 
seized or [(2)] if he or she was present when the search 
occurred" (alterations omitted).  Delgado-Rivera, supra at 555-
556, quoting Williams, supra at 208. 
 
Article 14's separate standing requirement poses a 
potential constitutional dilemma, as it "might lead to the 
untenable result that the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights 
does not protect rights guaranteed by the Federal Constitution 
(i.e., where a defendant has no possessory interest in the area 
or item searched, but does have a reasonable expectation of 
privacy in it)."  Delgado-Rivera, 487 Mass. at 559.  Such a 
situation is most likely to arise in the context of electronic 
data.  A defendant with a reasonable expectation of privacy in 
7 
 
such data might have a difficult time asserting possession of it 
or presence at the time of the search.  See id. at 558-559.  
"For example, a defendant could send a text message using an 
encrypted messaging service, where the message subsequently was 
acquired from the recipient device by law enforcement.  Assuming 
that the defendant could establish a reasonable expectation of 
privacy based on the use of the encryption technology employed, 
the defendant would have standing under the Fourth Amendment to 
contest the search that yielded the text message.  Using the 
two-part analysis under art. 14, however, the defendant likely 
would be unable to establish standing if he or she had no 
possessory interest in the recipient device and was not present 
during the search.  This discrepancy cannot stand."  Id. at 558 
n.6. 
Because the Massachusetts Constitution may not provide less 
protection to defendants than the Federal Constitution, we 
hereby abandon the separate standing requirement and conclude 
that under art. 14, as under the Fourth Amendment, a defendant 
need show only a reasonable expectation of privacy in the place 
searched to contest a search or seizure.  See Wilkins, Judicial 
Treatment of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights in Relation 
to Cognate Provisions of the United States Constitution, 14 
Suffolk U. L. Rev. 887, 889 (1980) ("The state court is bound by 
federal requirements and may invoke the state constitution only 
8 
 
to provide greater safeguards").  Cf. Commonwealth v. Torres-
Pagan, 484 Mass. 34, 36-39 (2020) (clarifying standard for 
patfrisks to ensure Massachusetts Constitution does not provide 
less protection than Federal Constitution). 
In doing so, we follow in the footsteps of the United 
States Supreme Court, which formally abandoned the separate 
standing analysis over four decades ago.  See Rakas, 439 U.S. at 
139 ("the better analysis forth-rightly focuses on the extent of 
a particular defendant's rights under the Fourth Amendment, 
rather than on any theoretically separate, but invariably 
intertwined concept of standing").  See also Minnesota v. 
Carter, 525 U.S. 83, 87 (1998) (United States Supreme Court in 
Rakas case "expressly rejected" "the rubric of 'standing' 
doctrine").9 
b.  Reasonable expectation of privacy.  In almost all 
situations, a defendant contesting a search or seizure will need 
to show his or her own reasonable expectation of privacy in the 
place searched.  See Delgado-Rivera, 487 Mass. at 554 (rights 
 
9 "[S]ince Rakas[,] . . . the United States Supreme Court 
has largely abandoned use of the word 'standing' in its Fourth 
Amendment analyses. . . .  In the future, to avoid confusion 
with the federal high court's terminology, mention of 'standing' 
should be avoided when analyzing a Fourth Amendment claim."  
People v. Ayala, 23 Cal. 4th 225, 254 n.3 (2000), cert. denied, 
532 U.S. 908 (2001).  The term "standing" also should be avoided 
from now on when addressing claims under art. 14 of the 
Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. 
9 
 
secured by art. 14 and Fourth Amendment "are specific to the 
individual").  In one limited situation, however, a defendant 
may rely on another's reasonable expectation of privacy:  where 
the defendant has been charged with possessing contraband at the 
time of the search and, also at the time of the search, the 
property was in the actual possession of a codefendant or in a 
place where the codefendant had a reasonable expectation of 
privacy, the defendant may assert the same reasonable 
expectation of privacy as the codefendant.  Commonwealth v. 
Carter, 424 Mass. 409, 410-411 (1997).  Commonwealth v. Gomes, 
59 Mass. App. Ct. 332, 336 (2003).  See Commonwealth v. Ware, 75 
Mass. App. Ct. 220, 229-230 (2009) (defendant did not need to 
show personal expectation of privacy in codefendant's home).  
"Such a defendant and his confederate are treated, in effect, as 
one for the purpose of deciding whether there was a reasonable 
expectation of privacy, otherwise the person who carried the 
contraband might go free (because of suppression of the 
evidence) and the defendant confederate would not."  Carter, 
supra at 411.10 
 
10 To the extent that we suggested in dicta in Commonwealth 
v. Mubdi, 456 Mass 385, 392-393 (2010), that a defendant charged 
with illegally possessing drugs or firearms that were seized 
during a search without constitutional justification could 
succeed in suppressing evidence as long as "someone had a 
reasonable expectation of privacy in the place searched," we now 
clarify that, consistent with our holding in Carter, 424 Mass. 
 
10 
 
c.  Application to the present case.  Because the defendant 
here did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the 
basement, his motion to suppress properly was denied. 
As a preliminary matter, the defendant must assert his own 
reasonable expectation of privacy.  As the trial judge made 
clear in his final jury instructions, the defendant was not 
charged with possessing the firearm and magazine at the time of 
the search, but rather when the videos were filmed.11  And 
although it seems that another individual was charged in 
connection with the videos that resulted in the charges against 
the defendant, there is no evidence that the codefendant 
actually possessed, at the time of the search, the firearm that 
the defendant was charged with possessing.  Nor is there any 
suggestion that the codefendant had a reasonable expectation of 
 
at 410-411, the defendant generally must assert his or her own 
reasonable expectation of privacy.  We reiterate that there is 
one exception to this principle -- where the defendant has been 
charged with possessing contraband at the time of the search 
and, also at the time of the search, the property was in the 
actual possession of a codefendant or in a place where the 
codefendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy, the 
defendant may assert the same reasonable expectation of privacy 
as the codefendant. 
 
11 The trial judge instructed that "the [d]efendant is not 
charged with possession of a firearm and a large-capacity 
feeding device at the time the police entered the basement and 
seized certain objects.  The [d]efendant is charged with 
possession of a firearm and large-capacity feeding device at the 
time the video recording was made." 
11 
 
privacy in the basement.  The defendant must, therefore, rely on 
his own reasonable expectation of privacy in the place searched. 
"To establish a reasonable expectation of privacy, a 
defendant must prove both a subjective and an objective 
expectation of privacy. . . .  The defendant bears the burden of 
demonstrating that he or she personally has an expectation of 
privacy in the place searched, and that this expectation is 
reasonable . . ." (quotation, citation, and alterations 
omitted).  Delgado-Rivera, 487 Mass. at 556.  The only record 
evidence here of a connection between the defendant and the 
basement is that the defendant was in the basement when the 
videos were filmed.  Thus, any subjective expectation of privacy 
that the defendant had in the basement was unreasonable.  See 
Williams, 453 Mass. at 209 ("mere presence on the property does 
not create a reasonable expectation of privacy"). 
Because the defendant did not have a reasonable expectation 
of privacy in the basement, the motion to suppress the evidence 
properly was denied. 
 
2.  Sufficiency of the evidence.  The defendant argues that 
the trial judge should have allowed his motion for a required 
finding of not guilty because he had only momentary possession 
of the firearm and attached large capacity feeding device.  We 
disagree. 
12 
 
 
"To sustain a conviction under G. L. c. 269, § 10 (a), the 
Commonwealth must prove[, among other elements,] that the 
defendant knowingly possessed a firearm . . . ."  Commonwealth 
v. White, 452 Mass. 133, 136 (2008).  "[P]ossession does not 
depend on the duration of time elapsing after one has an object 
under his [or her] control so long as, at the time of contact 
with the object, the person has the control and the power to do 
with it what he or she wills."  Commonwealth v. Hall, 80 Mass. 
App. Ct. 317, 330 (2011), citing Commonwealth v. Harvard, 356 
Mass. 452, 457-458 (1969). 
Here, as the Appeals Court observed, the videos showed "the 
defendant holding the firearm and posturing with it, pointedly 
displaying the attached feeding device, and mimicking the action 
of aiming and firing the weapon."  DeJesus, 99 Mass. App. Ct. at 
282-283.  This evidence was sufficient to show that the 
defendant had the power to handle the firearm, with its attached 
magazine, as he wished.  Cf. Harvard, 356 Mass. at 458 
(sufficient evidence of possession of illegal narcotics where 
"[a]t the moment the defendant received the drug he had the 
control and power to do with it what he willed.  In this case he 
chose to hand it immediately to [a third party] rather than hold 
it longer, keep it himself, or otherwise deal with it"). 
The defendant points to cases interpreting an earlier 
version of G. L. c. 269, § 10 (a), which penalized carrying, 
13 
 
rather than possessing, a firearm.  See Commonwealth v. Harris, 
481 Mass. 767, 776 n.12 (2019), citing St. 1990, c. 511, §§ 2, 3 
(describing change in statutory language).  These cases are 
inapposite, because the crime of carrying requires movement and 
"more than momentary possession."  Commonwealth v. Seay, 376 
Mass. 735, 737 (1978).  See Commonwealth v. Wood, 398 Mass. 135, 
137 (1986) (recognizing distinction between "carrying" and 
"possession" of firearm).  There was sufficient evidence here 
that the defendant possessed the firearm in question, regardless 
of whether there was sufficient evidence that he carried it.12 
Conclusion.  Because the defendant's arguments are without 
merit, we affirm the judgments. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
So ordered. 
 
12 The defendant also argues that there was insufficient 
evidence that he intended to exercise dominion and control over 
the firearm "as a firearm" rather than as a movie prop.  This 
argument fails, as the statute does not consider the purpose for 
which an individual possesses a firearm.