Commonwealth v. Arias, 

Massachusetts Court of Appeals, 

Decision Issued:  February 28, 2012, 

Subject(s):  Consent, Reliability of Informants.  

In this case the Defendant, Henry Arias, appealed his conviction on the basis that his Motion to Suppress was improperly denied and that the trial court failed to provide him an evidentiary hearing on the voluntariness of his statements to police.  The Court of Appeals reversed the lower court’s judgment.

The facts of this case are as follows:  Police received information from the Defendant’s supervisor claiming to have ‘”received information” from an unnamed source or sources that “there was a contract cleaner, [defendant], who works at North Station [in Boston] that was carrying a gun while working on the property and possibly, that he may have two guns and he was known to carry one in the … small of his back and possibly one in his car.”’  He stated that the Defendant drives a silver and blue BMW with no license plate.

Officers responded to North Station, observed the Defendant for a couple of hours and ultimately saw him approach his vehicle.  Officers made no observations of any firearms during their surveillance.  When the Defendant approached his BMW, police approached, conveyed their suspicions to the Defendant, frisked him for weapons and requested consent to enter the vehicle.  Defendant assented to the search of the car and police found a gun hidden under the floor mat on the driver’s side of the vehicle.  Defendant then stated that he had found the gun.

The Judge who heard the motion denied the Motion to Suppress on the basis that the Defendant had consented to the search.  On appeal the court reversed indicating that that when the Defendant was frisked, he had been impermissibly stopped in the constitutional sense.  The information forming the basis of the stop had been supplied by unknown individuals without sufficient police corroboration, thus the Commonwealth failed to meet their burden in showing a permissible stop.  Once the stop was adjudicated illegal, the Commonwealth was required to show the Defendant’s consent to search was free from the taint of the prior illegality.  The Commonwealth failed to show sufficient attenuation of the illegal stop and the illegal search to warrant a finding that consent was an act of free will, unaffected by the taint of the illegality.

With respect to the issue of voluntariness, the Court of Appeals determined that the trial judge should have held an evidentiary hearing on the voluntariness of his statements.  The Court suggested that if the case is retried voluntariness of those statements remains a live issue, the voluntariness should be explored and a humane practice instruction given.

For the full opinion, please reference the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court website: http://www.massreports.com/slipops/

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