Court Opinion

ID: 9518978
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:06:06.087343+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:39:49.919701
License: Public Domain

Nolan, J.
(dissenting). This opinion supports the classical rule of logic that a faulty premise leads to an erroneous conclusion. The premise on which the court relies today, i.e., that the police officers had no probable cause to believe that Bottari had a gun with him, compels suppression. However, the premise is faulty.
An examination of facts to determine whether there was probable cause implicates “factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act.” Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 175 (1949). The court’s appraisal today reflects exclusively the legal technician at work (and in error at that).
The judge found that the informer on a prior occasion had supplied information to the police which had resulted in an arrest. Also from the judge’s findings we learn that the informer identified a person as Joseph Bottari, and said that Bottari “has a big gun and it looks like a Magnum and he’s got no license, and he’s at the Assembly Mall.” The informer went further and identified the motor vehicle which Bottari had — a 1978 Oldsmobile automobile bearing a registration number 112DET. Ten minutes after receiving this information from the dispatcher, police officers saw this vehicle at the Assembly Mall. Forty-five minutes to an hour later (the judge finds), the officers observed four individuals approach this vehicle.
The information from this informer constituted sufficient probable cause to do precisely what the officers did. They blocked the vehicle to prevent its escape. They conducted a pat-frisk of the individuals and asked Bottari for evidence of ownership of the vehicle. If this conduct is permissible, the evidence should not have been suppressed.
The language of Commonwealth v. Ballou, 350 Mass. 751, 756 (1966), cert. denied, 385 U.S. 1031 (1967), in which we upheld an arrest for possession of a weapon when the informer *787was anonymous, is particularly appropriate to the instant case. “Any mild indignity or interference with privacy which the defendant experienced was trifling in comparison with the sensible means taken to safeguard human life. An individual in the defendant’s position is guaranteed against undue interference by the requirement that the police officer’s belief of the existence of danger must be reasonable.”
In the instant case, the preliminary pat-frisk and request for evidence of ownership of the vehicle was not only permissible but was dictated by the nature of the information as to the gun. Because the information was sufficiently specific and because the reliability of the informer had been demonstrated on an earlier occasion, the officers were warranted as reasonable men in believing that Bottari had a gun. This reasonable belief authorized the minimal and reasonable force encompassed in a pat-frisk. See Draper v. United States, 358 U.S. 307, 313 (1959). Once the officers found the mace on Tanso and the dirk knife in the glove compartment which Bottari opened (not the police), the officers then had a right to search the trunk. See United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 809 (1982). In all, the conduct of the police was entirely consistent with good, sound, and constitutional police practice. For these reasons, I dissent.