Superior Court Judge Orders Suppression Of Gun And Related Evidence Following Motion To Suppress Evidence

If you are looking for an experienced and successful defense attorney for any drug crime, firearm offense or violent crime Our Attorney will bring good results and hard work to your case. She recently successfully litigated a motion to dismiss and suppress evidence in a Massachusetts Superior Court. The defendant was initially charged with being a career criminal, illegal possession of a firearm and improper storage of a firearm as the result of a search of a motor vehicle in which the defendant was a passenger. Our Attorney filed a number of pre-trial non-evidentiary motions including a motion to dismiss the career criminal portion of the indictment. She argued that the grand jury was not presented with the requisite number of previous offenses to charge the defendant as a career criminal. A superior court judge agreed and allowed the motion without a hearing. This eliminated the mandatory minimum state prison sentence that the defendant faced. This, however, was not the end of the case.

The defendant was still facing the illegal possession of a firearm charge that carried a mandatory committed sentence of eighteen months in jail if convicted. Our Attorney conducted a thorough pre-trial investigation and filed a motion to suppress evidence based on the illegal search of the car that the defendant was a passenger in.

The Commonwealth claimed that local police officers responded to a local street after receiving a report that there was a “suspicious” car idling outside one of the buildings. During an evidentiary hearing Our Attorney established that when the police arrived there was no car “idling.” The police officers approached the car that the defendant was in and questioned the driver. Apparently, the driver did not have a valid driver’s license and was arrested. The defendant, passenger in the vehicle, was allowed to go the nearby police station to bail out the driver. In the meantime the police conducted what they claimed was an inventory of the car and found a firearm and two ski masks.

Successful defense attorneys file these motions to zealously defend their clients. The motions usually assert that the evidence should be suppressed for the following reasons:
• said evidence was not seized pursuant to a lawful arrest;
• it was not in plain view;
• there was no probable cause;
• there was no warrant;
• there were no exigent circumstances;
• the search was not pursuant to a lawful stop-and-frisk;
• the search was not consented to;
• the search, stop and/or inquiry of the defendant was conducted without probable cause, reasonable suspicion or exigent circumstances;
• the search was a “pretextual search”;
• the search was not done in conformity with written police inventory policy;
• the stop of the defendant was unlawful;
• the search of the defendant and the car was unlawful;
• the stop and search was in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, Article 14 of the Declaration of Rights of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and G.L. c. 276.

In Massachusetts, individuals have an expectation of privacy in their homes, person and in appropriate circumstances a motor vehicle. Our Attorney filed a motion to suppress claiming that he police had no right to tow the car because it was parked in a private area and the owner of the building, or anyone for that matter, did not call requesting that the car be towed. Following an evidentiary hearing the superior court judge agreed with Our Attorney and allowed the defendant’s motion. Thus, the Commonwealth will not be allowed to introduce the gun and masks into evidence. The result is that the government does not have a case.


Our Attorney represents defendants charged with crimes in the district and superior courts. If you have been charged with a crime in any local district courts including Lowell, Lawrence and Peabody and want experience and hard work on your side contact Our Attorney on-line or and she will get to work on your case immediately.