Commonwealth vs. Quintos Q., a juvenile, June 15, 2010
Delinquent Child, Resisting Arrest
Facts
In 2006, officers commenced pursuit of a vehicle in which the juvenile was the only passenger besides the driver. When the officers turned on his lights and attempted to stop the car the driver did not stop and instead tried to drive away. The brief chase ended when the vehicle turned into the parking lot of a condominium complex and crashed into some bushes. Both occupants left the vehicle and ran through the bushes. One officer exited his cruiser but did not have time to say anything to the fleeing pair before he tripped and fell in the bushes, losing sight of them. A second officer who had joined the chase drove his cruiser to another part of the parking lot and saw the pair running. He commenced a chase on foot and yelled, "Stop, police. Stop, police." The officer followed the juvenile eventually trapping him between a building with a locked door, a fence, and the officer. The juvenile offered no resistance to his apprehension once he was cornered, which supports an inference that, at that point, the juvenile cooperated with his arrest.
Resisting Arrest
The SJC began its discussion by stating that the evidence was reviewed in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth to determine whether "any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt." In order for a person to resist arrest they must prevent or attempt to prevent an officer from effecting an arrest. An arrest is effected when there has been a seizure of the defendant, either constructive or actual, coupled with an officer’s intent to arrest about which a reasonable defendant would have known. The juvenile argued and the court agreed that the arrest did not occur until he was trapped. The Court stated it was a seizure when one of the officers activated his lights and siren, thus satisfying the first element of effecting an arrest, however because there was no evidence presented about the officers intent to arrest the juvenile when the lights and siren were activated, and because the officers never communicated a clear intention to arrest to the juvenile during their pursuit an arrest had not been effected until the juvenile was trapped.
The Commonwealth argued that an intent to arrest could have been inferred from the “intensity of pursuit” however as the Appeals court noted, and the SJC agreed, the lights and pursuit of the vehicle could not have objectively indicated anything more than an intent to stop the vehicle for a traffic violation. The court stated that even if intent to arrest could be inferred, a reasonable passenger, innocent of any crime, would assume that it was the driver that the police intended to arrest. The court further stated that, "Stop, police," was not enough to communicate to the juvenile an intent to arrest to him as opposed to communicating that the officer wanted him to stop. For all these reasons the SJC concluded that the juvenile was not resisting arrest but merely running from the police and because his running prevented the officers from effecting a stop rather than an arrest it was not covered by the statute. The SJC reversed the adjudication of delinquency and stated the complaint shall be dismissed.
- Prepared by AEK
