MA: Consent to search for firearms and drugs “in the vehicle” wasn’t notice that the officer would search under the hood; no consent for that search

The trial court properly granted defendant’s motion to suppress because his consent to a search for drugs or firearms “in the vehicle” did not authorize an officer to search under the vehicle’s hood and to remove the air filter, since a reasonable person would have understood the scope of such consent to be limited to a search of the interior of the vehicle, including the trunk. Under the Fourth Amendment and the state constitution, unless it was reasonably clear that the consent to search extended beyond the interior of the vehicle, the police had to obtain explicit consent before a vehicular search could extend beneath the hood; where such consent was not reasonably clear at the outset, the defendant’s silence when the police opened the hood cannot be an adequate substitute for consent. Commonwealth v. Ortiz, 2018 Mass. LEXIS 26 (Feb. 12, 2018).