MA: Nervousness, evasive answers about travels, coming from a source city, and criminal history all not RS

Defendant’s stop for a traffic offense had to end when there was no reasonable suspicion. Here, the government’s arguments for reasonable suspicion are all unavailing: Nervousness, evasive answers about his travels, coming from a source city, and criminal history all not enough. Commonwealth v. Cordero, 2017 Mass. LEXIS 370 (June 1, 2017):

The Commonwealth’s arguments that the trooper had reasonable suspicion of drug activity so as to justify further investigation are unavailing. First, the Commonwealth notes that the defendant was “extremely nervous, making no eye contact and stuttering his speech in answering questions,” and offering unrelated information to the trooper. That the defendant exhibited signs of nervousness and evasiveness in the context of an involuntary police encounter cannot, without more, generate reasonable suspicion. …

Second, the defendant’s evasive answers about where he had come from and where he was going did not give rise to a reasonable suspicion of illegal drug activity. … That the defendant had driven past a building housing one chain restaurant en route to another such restaurant is innocuous, not sinister, and the inference to the contrary was unreasonable. …

Third, the trooper’s opinion that Holyoke was a “major drug source city” and that a “good percentage of the drugs coming into Berkshire County” came from there did not give rise to reasonable suspicion. The introduction in evidence of the trooper’s opinion raises the same concerns that we have addressed in the context of “high crime” neighborhoods. We have held that a “high crime” neighborhood may be a proper factor in the reasonable suspicion analysis, see Commonwealth v. Johnson, 454 Mass. 159, 163, 908 N.E.2d 729 (2009), but “[j]ust being in a high crime area is not enough to justify a stop.” Commonwealth v. Grandison, 433 Mass. 135, 139, 741 N.E.2d 25 (2001). We repeatedly have urged caution in the use of this consideration, pointing out that “many honest, law-abiding citizens live and work in high-crime areas. …

Similarly, a suspect’s connection to a location that is called a drug “source city” cannot, standing alone, support reasonable suspicion. Those travelling from a “source city” comprise “a very large category of presumably innocent travelers … who would be subject to virtually random seizures” were the “source city” consideration to justify a seizure. …

Lastly, here, the defendant’s prior convictions, without further specific and articulable facts indicating that criminal activity was afoot, could not create reasonable suspicion. …