Facts: This is an appeal by defendant arguing that he
was unduly prejudiced by the joinder of thirty-two charges against him and that
the charges should have been severed because they involved different crimes,
times, location and victims, and were not planned together. Furthermore, the
defendant argues that inculpatory evidence discovered in a search of his bags
violated his rights under the U.S Constitution and the Massachusetts
Declaration of Rights.
Between June and August of 2007, the city of Pittsfield
experienced a string of robberies. Suspecting the defendant was involved in the
thefts, police placed him under surveillance. In August, 2007, a team of
officers and detectives followed him and two companions. During this time, they
observed the defendant and his companions as the three walked a mile-long loop
through residential and commercial streets. The defendant briefly entered and
left a number of stores, staying only briefly. On August 9, 2007, surveillance
was in place when the defendant approached an automobile parked in front of a
drug store. With his accomplices acting as lookouts, the defendant reached through
an open window and opened an interior compartment. At that point, the defendant
and his companions were arrested.
After the defendant’s arrest, police came to believe
evidence linking him to the crimes was located in an apartment where he was
staying. Without securing a warrant, two officers visited the apartment. The
tenant gave the officers oral and written consent to enter and search the
premises. The tenant directed the officers’ attention to two bags, located in a
corner of her bedroom that she identified as belonging to the defendant. She
told the officers that the defendant was no longer welcome at her apartment (a
development of which the defendant may not have been aware of) because she
suspected him of having stolen her air conditioner. The officers seized the
bags and took them to the police station where, again without a warrant, police
opened the bags and examined their contents. The items they found linked the
defendant to several of the charged offenses.
Issue 1: Whether
the charges for each of the crimes should have been severed because they
“involved different crimes, times, locations, and victims.”
No. The determination whether joinder is appropriate is
committed to the sound discretion of the trial judge. Where a defendant faces
charges on related offenses, the judge shall join the charges for trial unless
he determines that joinder is not in the best interest of justice. Offenses are
related where the evidence in its totality shows a common scheme and pattern of
operation that tends to prove all indictments. In light of factors supporting a
conclusion that the offenses constituted a larger plan or scheme, the judge
permissibly concluded that they were related offenses appropriate for joinder.
Issue 2: Whether
the police search and seizure of the defendant’s bags was a violation of the
Fourth Amendment or article 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights.
Yes. The crucial question is whether the defendant had a
reasonable expectation of privacy in his bags that were left in the tenant’s
bedroom with whom he was staying. It is well settled that overnight guests
maintain an expectation of privacy in luggage stored in a host’s dwelling.
There is no reasoned basis for drawing a legal distinction between a guest’s
containers as luggage based on the materials from which they are made, their
shape, or the mechanism by which they are closed. Because the defendant may not
have known at the time of the search that he was no longer welcome in the
tenant’s residence, that fact could not have had any impact on his privacy
expectations. If the defendant had recognized his unwelcome status in the home,
he may have lost that reasonable expectation. However, the record gives no
indication that the defendant knew or should have known at the time of the search
that his status as the tenant’s guest had changed and therefore me maintained
his reasonable expectation of privacy. Because the bags were not lawfully
subject to search, the evidence in the bags should have been suppressed. The
defendant is entitled to a new trial on the charges where the improperly
obtained evidence recovered from the bags was used at trial. (JT)
