{"id":30112,"date":"2017-11-12T13:31:47","date_gmt":"2017-11-12T18:31:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=30112"},"modified":"2017-11-12T13:31:47","modified_gmt":"2017-11-12T18:31:47","slug":"ma-trial-judges-omission-of-significant-facts-made-finding-of-no-exigency-error","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=30112","title":{"rendered":"MA: Trial judge’s omission of significant facts made finding of no exigency error"},"content":{"rendered":"

The trial judge\u2019s finding that there were no exigent circumstances is reversed. Her findings of fact omitted serious facts in support of exigency, and thus was clearly erroneous. Commonwealth v. Arias<\/a>, 2017 Mass. App. LEXIS 148 (Nov. 9, 2017):
\n<\/p>\n

Moreover, in this case, there was significantly more evidence than that mentioned by the judge, that supplied objectively reasonable grounds for the police to believe that a home invasion was in progress, or that some type of safety risk was posed to potential victims inside the apartment. The urgent nature of the officers’ concern was demonstrated by the 911 caller’s report that one of the three men \u201crack[ed]\u201d (i.e., loaded) a \u201csemiautomatic\u201d weapon outside of a multifamily residential building before entering, the caller’s knowledge and fear of the \u201crash\u201d of recent armed robberies (home invasions) in the area, and the officers’ observation of the defendant, who matched the caller’s description, as well as the defendant’s \u201cshocked\u201d expression and hasty reentry into the building, locking the door behind him after the police shouted, \u201cLawrence Police\u201d and \u201c[s]how me your hands.\u201d In these circumstances, the defendant’s flight was appropriately considered to be inculpatory by the police, and the Lawrence police department’s recent investigation of a \u201crash\u201d of home invasions within the same \u201carea\u201d and \u201ctime frame\u201d as the 911 call further provided objectively reasonable grounds for the police to believe that a home invasion was in progress. See Commonwealth v. Samuel, 80 Mass. App. Ct. 560, 562-563, 954 N.E.2d 557 (2011). See also Entwistle, 463 Mass. at 214, quoting from Michigan v. Fisher, 558 U.S. 45, 49, 130 S. Ct. 546, 175 L. Ed. 2d 410 (2009) (\u201c\u2018Officers do not need ironclad proof of \u201ca likely serious, life-threatening\u201d injury to invoke the emergency aid exception.\u2019 \u2026 It suffices that there are objectively reasonable grounds to believe that emergency aid might be needed\u201d). Cf. Commonwealth v. Whitehead, 85 Mass. App. Ct. 134, 141, 6 N.E.3d 557 (2014).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The trial judge\u2019s finding that there were no exigent circumstances is reversed. Her findings of fact omitted serious facts in support of exigency, and thus was clearly erroneous. Commonwealth v. Arias, 2017 Mass. App. LEXIS 148 (Nov. 9, 2017):<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-emergency-exigency","category-standards-of-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30112"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30113,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30112\/revisions\/30113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}