Court Opinion

ID: 9523424
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:41:52.514553+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:05:33.027681
License: Public Domain

Liacos, J.
(concurring). I write separately to indicate my reasons for joining in the result the court reaches in this case. Also, I think it important to express my disagreement with some of the reasons given by the court for its decision. First, I agree with the court’s conclusion that both random testing and testing on “reasonable suspicion,” as provided in the regulations of the State Racing Commission, are barred by art. 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. My agreement is based on my concurrence with the view that “[Requiring an individual to submit a urine specimen, under the supervision of a monitor, and subjecting that specimen to chemical analysis constitutes a search and seizure for constitutional purposes under art. 14.” Ante at 699. I believe, further, for the reasons *707stated in my separate opinion in Commonwealth v. Shields, 402 Mass. 162, 169 (1988), that the reason that such drug specimen searches, whether on “reasonable suspicion” or at random, are unlawful is that they are not based on probable cause. See id.1 Thus, I eschew the court’s unnecessary reliance in this case on “balancing” public interests against privacy interests to justify its result. As I pointed out in Shields, such an approach is fundamentally flawed. Additionally, if such an approach was “sui generis,” as the court said it was in Shields, supra at 167, the resurrection of this concept in this case portends the accuracy of my concerns in Shields that to engage in a balancing approach is dangerous to fundamental art. 14 values. See Shields, supra at 174, 176 (Liacos, J., dissenting). It is enough, I think, to conclude that, absent some type of probable cause (and perhaps a warrant or an exigency excusing its absence), general searches of individuals are barred by our State Constitution.

 agree with the court’s reasoning and rejection of Justice Nolan’s reliance on the “closely regulated industry” approach and also with the rejection of Justice Lynch’s claim that racetrack personnel have no reasonable expectation of privacy.