“My pleasure!” I love Chick-fil-A Restaurants. Everyone does. Even would-be murderers. And in this case, we have the evidence.
I’ll warn you at the outset: this story is missing some parts. Reading the appellate court’s opinion left me feeling like I showed up to a movie about 15 minutes late. And a bad movie, at that.
When I entered the theater, two women were just pulling up to a house to retrieve a purse. All of a sudden, with no explanation, a man jumps from his parked car and starts shooting at them! Fourteen rounds he fired, and though their car was shot up, they were not hit.
He then tossed the keys to his dad. (I picture it like how a smug rich kid would drop off his Ferrari to a valet—“Don’t scratch her, sport!”). Then the man fled the scene on foot.
ShotSpotter detected the gunfire and notified police, who responded quickly. They found the shooter’s car parked on the street, still running. (Which seems like a continuity error. You just told me he threw the keys to the dad! This movie is terrible.)
At any rate, there were fired cartridge casings scattered around the ground outside the car, so police searched the car to look for the gun. (Maybe he tossed it in there, the same way he chucked the keys to pops.)
They found instead a Chick-fil-A cup with a mobile order sticker bearing the defendant’s name. They also found his driver’s license in the console and some crack cocaine in a Louis Vuitton bag. And more crack in a Costco bag. (Sounds like someone spent the day at the mall.)
Eventually they found and charged the defendant with a litany of offenses, including drug trafficking. He objected and didn’t think the police should have searched the bags where the drugs were hidden. The trial court agreed and suppressed the evidence.
Not so fast, said the Massachusetts Appeals Court yesterday. You must have forgotten the motor vehicle exception. (I’ve written about it several times before, like here (https://lnkd.in/guyV9fQT) and here (https://lnkd.in/gTkeSib9).)
This was a straightforward application of that principle. Police could search the car and all the containers in it. At first they were searching for evidence of the shooting, and they could search anywhere ammo might be (not just a gun) but after they found the first drugs, they could search for further evidence of trafficking, too.
So the evidence comes back in. At least this movie had a happy ending.
I’ll warn you at the outset: this story is missing some parts. Reading the appellate court’s opinion left me feeling like I showed up to a movie about 15 minutes late. And a bad movie, at that.
When I entered the theater, two women were just pulling up to a house to retrieve a purse. All of a sudden, with no explanation, a man jumps from his parked car and starts shooting at them! Fourteen rounds he fired, and though their car was shot up, they were not hit.
He then tossed the keys to his dad. (I picture it like how a smug rich kid would drop off his Ferrari to a valet—“Don’t scratch her, sport!”). Then the man fled the scene on foot.
ShotSpotter detected the gunfire and notified police, who responded quickly. They found the shooter’s car parked on the street, still running. (Which seems like a continuity error. You just told me he threw the keys to the dad! This movie is terrible.)
At any rate, there were fired cartridge casings scattered around the ground outside the car, so police searched the car to look for the gun. (Maybe he tossed it in there, the same way he chucked the keys to pops.)
They found instead a Chick-fil-A cup with a mobile order sticker bearing the defendant’s name. They also found his driver’s license in the console and some crack cocaine in a Louis Vuitton bag. And more crack in a Costco bag. (Sounds like someone spent the day at the mall.)
Eventually they found and charged the defendant with a litany of offenses, including drug trafficking. He objected and didn’t think the police should have searched the bags where the drugs were hidden. The trial court agreed and suppressed the evidence.
Not so fast, said the Massachusetts Appeals Court yesterday. You must have forgotten the motor vehicle exception. (I’ve written about it several times before, like here (https://lnkd.in/guyV9fQT) and here (https://lnkd.in/gTkeSib9).)
This was a straightforward application of that principle. Police could search the car and all the containers in it. At first they were searching for evidence of the shooting, and they could search anywhere ammo might be (not just a gun) but after they found the first drugs, they could search for further evidence of trafficking, too.
So the evidence comes back in. At least this movie had a happy ending.
You can read the decision here: https://lnkd.in/gJaNihPA.
Photo credit: Me. I had Chick-fil-A yesterday.