{"id":27429,"date":"2017-06-03T00:01:19","date_gmt":"2017-06-03T05:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=27429"},"modified":"2017-06-02T12:00:04","modified_gmt":"2017-06-02T17:00:04","slug":"ma-nervousness-evasive-answers-about-his-travels-coming-from-a-source-city-and-criminal-history-all-not-rs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=27429","title":{"rendered":"MA: Nervousness, evasive answers about travels, coming from a source city, and criminal history all not RS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Defendant\u2019s stop for a traffic offense had to end when there was no reasonable suspicion. Here, the government\u2019s 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<\/a>, 2017 Mass. LEXIS 370 (June 1, 2017):
\n<\/p>\n

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 \u201cextremely nervous, making no eye contact and stuttering his speech in answering questions,\u201d 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. …<\/p>\n

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. \u2026 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. …<\/p>\n

Third, the trooper’s opinion that Holyoke was a \u201cmajor drug source city\u201d and that a \u201cgood percentage of the drugs coming into Berkshire County\u201d 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 \u201chigh crime\u201d neighborhoods. We have held that a \u201chigh crime\u201d 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 \u201c[j]ust being in a high crime area is not enough to justify a stop.\u201d 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 \u201cmany honest, law-abiding citizens live and work in high-crime areas. …<\/p>\n

Similarly, a suspect’s connection to a location that is called a drug \u201csource city\u201d cannot, standing alone, support reasonable suspicion. Those travelling from a \u201csource city\u201d comprise \u201ca very large category of presumably innocent travelers \u2026 who would be subject to virtually random seizures\u201d were the \u201csource city\u201d consideration to justify a seizure. …<\/p>\n

Lastly, here, the defendant’s prior convictions, without further specific and articulable facts indicating that criminal activity was afoot, could not create reasonable suspicion. …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Defendant\u2019s stop for a traffic offense had to end when there was no reasonable suspicion. Here, the government\u2019s arguments for reasonable suspicion are all unavailing: Nervousness, evasive answers about his travels, coming from a source city, and criminal history all … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reasonable-suspicion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27429"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27432,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27429\/revisions\/27432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}