Commonwealth v. McLeod

22 Mass. L. Rptr. 10
CourtMassachusetts Superior Court
DecidedDecember 19, 2006
DocketNo. 06228
StatusPublished

This text of 22 Mass. L. Rptr. 10 (Commonwealth v. McLeod) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Superior Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Commonwealth v. McLeod, 22 Mass. L. Rptr. 10 (Mass. Ct. App. 2006).

Opinion

Lu, JohnT., J.

INTRODUCTION

The defendant, Devon McLeod (McLeod), moves to suppress items seized when Worcester Police executed a search warrant at 13 Douglas Street, Apt. #1 in Worcester on January 25, 2006. McLeod claims that the information in the search warrant application was stale, that the application for the search warrant did not establish probable cause, and that the items sought by police were not described with particularity. The Commonwealth responds that the information was not stale due to the nature of the items, that the magistrate made reasonable inferences based on the information in the affidavit, thus properly finding probable cause, and that the items were described as specifically as circumstances allowed.

Finding that the affidavit supporting the application for the search warrant established probable cause but failed to identify the jewelry sought with particularity, or to excuse this shortcoming, the court allows the motion to suppress as to the jeweliy and denies the motion as to all other items.

[11]*11THE AFFIDAVIT

On January 25, 2006, Worcester Police Officer Mark Sawyer (Sawyer) submitted an application for a search warrant to the Worcester District Court that included the following information.

On November 21, 2005, a shooting and armed robbery occurred at the A-1 Pawn Shop at 240 Shrews-bury Street in Worcester during which the owner was shot three times; he remained hospitalized at the time of the application. A store clerk was shot twice but had been released from the hospital. A large amount of jewelry and several hundred dollars in cash were taken, detectives from the Crime Scene Unit processed the scene and recovered several .380 caliber shell casings and .380 shell projectiles.

Later that day, Nathan Benson (Benson) was arrested for the shooting and robbery at the pawn shop. Benson confessed to the shooting and implicated two other persons that he said participated in the robbery, one as a lookout and the other as a getaway driver. Benson said that the two individuals got jewelry and cash in return for their assistance.

The driver of the vehicle used in the robbery was later identified as Ricardo Maisonet (Maisonet). Benson said that he did not know the name of the person that acted as the lookout because he had only been introduced to him one or two hours before the robbery. Maisonet knew him and contacted himbecause he had access to firearms. Before the robbery, Benson and Maisonet picked him up at the comer of Grand and Southgate Streets because he did not want to be picked up at his house. Benson said that he was a black male with dark skin, in his late teens to early twenties, with braided hair, and that he wore a dark blue hooded sweatshirt. He entered the vehicle with two handguns, one black and one chrome, handed one to Benson and kept one for himself. He called the guns “the twins.” He stayed outside the front door of the pawn shop while Benson was inside committing the robbery.

On December 7, 2005, Maisonet was arrested and charged with robbery. On January 5, 2006, Sawyer and Detective Lieutenant Thomas Gaffney interviewed Maisonet. Maisonet said that the third individual involved in the robbery was a male named Devon. Maisonet also said that when he and Benson picked up Devon, he got in with two handguns, one chrome and one black. Maisonet looked at a photo array, consisting of eight black and white photos of men with similar physical characteristics; he selected the photo of Devon McLeod (McLeod) as the person who assisted with the robbery.

On January 20, 2006, a named witness provided a detailed, signed statement to police regarding the robbery. The witness’s name was kept confidential due to the violent nature of the crime and for the witness’s safety. The witness said that he saw McLeod with Benson and Maisonet dividing up a large amount of jewelry, within an hour of the robbery.

Four years before the robbery, on February 4, 2002, a shooting occurred on North Street in Worcester and McLeod was arrested and charged. Statements from named witnesses indicated that McLeod had two .380 caliber handguns, one chrome, and one black. McLeod served jail time for that case and is on parole until December 23, 2006.

McLeod’s parole officer conducted several contact visits with him at 13 Douglas Street, Apt. #1 in Worcester. The parole officer also had a scheduled visit with McLeod on January 26, 2006 at the same address. Wendy’s Restaurant in Worcester employed McLeod and the address he listed with Wendy’s was 13 Douglas Street, Apt. #1. This address is within two blocks of where Benson and Maisonet picked up the lookout.

DISCUSSION

I. Probable Cause

“To establish probable cause to obtain a search warrant, the affidavit must ‘contain enough information for the issuing magistrate to determine that the items sought are related to the criminal activity under investigation, and that they may reasonably be expected to be located in the place to be searched.’ ” Commonwealth v. O’Day, 440 Mass. 296, 300 (2003), quoting Commonwealth v. Cefalo, 381 Mass. 319, 328 (1980).

a. Staleness

McLeod argues that the information supporting the issuance of the warrant was stale because the length of time between the robbery and the search was more than two months. In considering staleness in the context of a probable cause determination, the “affidavit need not demonstrate that the items sought are in fact on the defendant’s premises at the time, but need only provide the issuing magistrate with a substantial basis for concluding that any of such articles is probably there.” Commonwealth v. Blye, 5 Mass.App.Ct. 817 (1977), further app. rev. denied, 372 Mass. 872 (1977) (four-month delay acceptable where the items were chainsaws and there was evidence of a continuing criminal enterprise). Although the lapse of time involved is important, it is not necessarily the controlling factor. Commonwealth v. Fleuran, 2 Mass.App.Ct. 250, 254-55 (1974). Courts must also look to the consumability and incriminating nature of the stolen properly. Id. at 255.

The items described in the search warrant were handguns, ammunition, jewelry, and a sweatshirt. These are all durable items that were likely to be retained by McLeod. The sweatshirt and jewelry are not incriminating in themselves such that one would want to dispose of them quickly in order to escape prosecution. Gun owners usually keep them on their person or in their homes. Massachusetts courts have [12]*12distinguished cases concerning one-time observations of drugs where the information will quickly become stale with those involving guns. “Unlike drugs or liquor, a collection of weapons is not likely to be consumed or destroyed.” Id. at 255.

McLeod used guns in the pawn shop robbery that looked like the guns he used in a 2002 shooting, for which he served time and was still on parole. He called the guns “the twins”; his use of a nickname suggests that he had an unusual attachment to them. If he had affection for his guns, and did not dispose of them after using them in a shooting for which he did time and was on parole, he was not likely to dispose of them after the most recent robbery, one for which he likely thought he had evaded prosecution.

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Bluebook (online)
22 Mass. L. Rptr. 10, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-mcleod-masssuperct-2006.