Source: http://masscases.com/cases/app/76/76massappct173.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 02:51:32+00:00

Document:
COMMONWEALTH vs. GERALD EDDINGTON (and six companion cases [Note 1]).
Present: KAFKER, KATZMANN, & RUBIN, JJ.
Further appellate review granted, 456 Mass. 1106 (2010).
Search and Seizure, Motor vehicle, Inventory, Impoundment of vehicle. Constitutional Law, Search and seizure. Motor Vehicle, Firearms. Practice, Criminal, Motion to suppress.
James C. Orenstein, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.
search of a vehicle driven by the defendant Gerald Eddington, in which the defendant Jessica Cappas was a passenger, after the vehicle was pulled over by the police. The Commonwealth appeals from the suppression of evidence discovered during the search. The only question before us is the propriety of the police decision to impound the vehicle.
1. Facts. The motion judge found that in the early morning of April 29, 2007, Springfield police Officers David Martin and Matthew Vickery took a surveillance position to observe activities at an after-hours party taking place in a Springfield residence. The residence, located near the corner of Colonial Avenue and Wilbraham Road, was well known to them as the scene of regular after-hours parties. Such parties frequently involved criminal activities and a police response thereto. These criminal activities had included two murders, shootings, fighting, public drinking outside the residence, and illegal parking problems. The organizer of these parties was well known to the police department.
At about 4:15 A.M., the officers saw two persons, the defendants here, coming out of the residence carrying clear glass "long neck" bottles, from which both drank as they walked across Wilbraham Road to a parking lot across the street. The officers believed the bottles were beer bottles, specifically Corona brand beer bottles. Each officer was familiar with the distinctive design and the painted label of Corona beer bottles. Officer Vickery was able to see the label; Officer Martin was not. Officer Martin had been present at many after-hours parties in the area, including parties at this same residence, and knew that Corona was the beer of choice at such parties.
the driver, Eddington, for his license and the vehicle's registration. Two open bottles of Corona beer were in plain view in the cupholders on the console between the front seats. Officer Martin began to prepare citations for the defendants for the open containers of beer in the car.
Eddington advised Officer Martin that he did not have a license. The officers determined that his license had been suspended, and he was removed from the vehicle and arrested. Eddington also could not produce the vehicle registration. The officers ran a check of the vehicle's license plate number and determined that the vehicle did not belong to either Eddington or the passenger, Cappas, but was registered to a Jessica Rodriguez.
As it was about 4:30 A.M., the officers decided that they would not attempt to contact the vehicle's owner to request that she take control of the vehicle from the scene. The judge found that the officers knew Suffolk Street near Wilbraham Road to be a high-crime area, and that the officers were concerned that if they left the vehicle at the curb it would be vulnerable to theft and damage. Accordingly, the officers decided to have the vehicle towed from the scene. It was at this point that Cappas was ordered from the vehicle.
Officer Vickery and a newly-arrived officer, Roland Gonzalez, performed an inventory search of the vehicle pursuant to the written policy of the Springfield police department. Officer Vickery discovered a loaded revolver under the passenger seat. Cappas was then arrested and charged with possession of the firearm and ammunition. Eddington, who had already been arrested, was also charged with possession of the firearm and ammunition.
The motion judge granted the defendants' motion to suppress the firearm and ammunition. He concluded that the Commonwealth had presented insufficient evidence that the vehicle was at risk of theft or vandalism because "[t]he nature of the crimes" that rendered the location of the stop a high-crime area "was not described." A single justice of the Supreme Judicial Court allowed this interlocutory appeal.
an inventory search, "the propriety of the impoundment of the vehicle is a threshold issue in determining the lawfulness of the inventory search." Commonwealth v. Garcia, 409 Mass. 675 , 678 (1991).
Police impoundment of a stopped vehicle is an appropriate response to a risk of theft or vandalism considered "together with the need to protect the police from false claims of loss," where "specific evidence . . . point[s] to a 'danger that the vehicle left unattended' . . . might 'be vandalized or stolen.' " Commonwealth v. Ellerbe, 430 Mass. 769 , 775 (2000) (Ellerbe), quoting from Commonwealth v. Dunn, 34 Mass. App. Ct. 702 , 704 (1993) (Dunn). See Commonwealth v. Daley, 423 Mass. 747 , 750 (1996) ("The impoundment of a vehicle for noninvestigatory reasons is generally justified if supported by public safety concerns or by the danger of theft or vandalism to a vehicle left unattended").
The Brinson decision did not alter the long-standing rule that impoundment of a car pulled over may be justified by specific evidence of a danger that the car left unattended might be vandalized or stolen when that danger is combined with a need to protect the police from false claims of loss. Ellerbe, supra at 775. Brinson, which applied that rule, demonstrates that whether the specific evidence of a risk of theft or vandalism is sufficient to render an impoundment reasonable and therefore permissible under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is something that must be determined on a case-by-case basis in light of all the facts and circumstances. See Brinson, supra at 614 (relying on Ellerbe, supra, and distinguishing Ellerbe, supra, and Dunn, supra, on their facts).
was not present at the scene, and no one else at the scene was authorized to drive or move the vehicle. Cf. Commonwealth v. Caceres, 413 Mass. 749 , 752 & n.3 (1992). Given the hour, it was impractical to contact the owner, and the police therefore were not constitutionally required to do so. See Commonwealth v. Henley, 63 Mass. App. Ct. 1 , 5-6 (2005). Absent impoundment, the car thus would have been left unattended on a public street in a high-crime area for an indefinite period of time.
[Note 1] Three against Gerald Eddington, and three against Jessica Cappas.
[Note 2] This is the only issue before us. The defendants do not contend that the motion judge erred in concluding that the initial stop of the motor vehicle was justified.
[Note 3] In Brinson, supra at 615 n.6, there was "a considerable distance between the place of the arrest and the location of the parked car," which location was known to the police only because of their prearrest surveillance of the defendant. In light of the court's conclusion that none of the circumstances was present that might otherwise have justified the impoundment, the court did not address whether the arrest could serve as the basis for the impoundment given the distance between the arrest and the car. Ibid.
[Note 4] Impoundments are permissible only under "standardized criteria." See Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U.S. 367, 375-376 (1987). See also Commonwealth v. Alvarado, 420 Mass. 542 , 553 (1995) ("inventory searches of automobiles must be conducted pursuant to standard police procedures, and . . . those procedures must be in writing"). The defendants do not contend that there was an absence of a constitutionally adequate policy in this case, or that the police policy inadequately constrained police discretion. Cf. Commonwealth v. Daley, 423 Mass. at 751.
[Note 5] The Supreme Judicial Court routinely cites Federal caselaw in its decisions concerning vehicle impoundment and has not suggested that the test for the propriety of such impoundments under the Massachusetts Constitution and Declaration of Rights is any stricter than that under the Federal Constitution. Cf., e.g., Ellerbe, 430 Mass. at 773 & n.8 (noting differences in the scope of protection provided by the Fourth Amendment and art. 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights).
[Note 6] Although the motion judge took notice of certain facts not in the record about the location in which the stop occurred, his decision did not depend upon them. Because, even if we accept these facts as true, they do not change our conclusion, we need not address the Commonwealth's argument that those facts were not proper for judicial notice.

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