COMMONWEALTH v. ALFRED FLORES (2026)

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 23.0

This memorandum and order solely addresses the question whether the defendant was subjected to custodial interrogation in violation of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444-445 (1966). In a prior unpublished memorandum and order, see Commonwealth v. Flores, 106 Mass. App. Ct. 1120 (2026), this panel agreed with the defendant that the judge's findings of fact were insufficient to support his rulings on the defendant's motion to suppress, stayed this appeal, and remanded the matter for further factual findings.¹ We retained jurisdiction to decide whether there was error in the denial of the motion. On July 3, 2026, a second judge issued further findings of fact.² Discerning no error in the denial of the motion to suppress, we affirm the defendant's convictions.³

Background. After an evidentiary hearing, the second judge found the following facts. On July 2, 2017, at approximately 1 A.M., Malden police officer Michael Polston responded to a domestic disturbance. On arrival, Polston spoke with a woman who reported that her boyfriend, the defendant, was around the corner from her home. Polston went around the corner and saw a man placing a bag into the second row of a pickup truck that was parked on the street; after confirming that the man was the defendant, Polston explained that he was responding to a call “about a woman screaming.” The defendant said that he was leaving because he and his girlfriend had an argument, and that she had tried to keep him from leaving.⁴ He explained that he was living in New Hampshire and had been staying at his girlfriend's home two or three nights per week.⁵ At some point Polston pat frisked the defendant and found no weapons. Their conversation was casual and the defendant was polite and respectful.

Polston went back to the house to speak with the girlfriend and directed the defendant to wait on the covered porch with another officer who had arrived on scene. The defendant was not handcuffed.⁶ Speaking with the girlfriend, Polston learned that the defendant had kicked her and thrown a remote control at her. He also learned that the defendant might have a gun.

Polston returned to the porch with the intent to arrest the defendant for assault and battery. He did not tell the defendant of his intention or convey that the defendant was suspected of committing a crime. In a nonaggressive manner, Polston asked the defendant, “Where's the gun?” The defendant responded by asking, “What are you talking about?” Polston said, “She said you may have a gun.” The defendant insisted that “she has never seen a gun.” Polston asked if the gun was in the house or in the truck; the defendant said that it was in the truck. Polston asked the defendant if he had a license to carry; the defendant said that he did not.

The defendant was arrested and placed in a police cruiser. Polston then searched the truck for the gun.⁷ He found three loaded magazines on the front passenger seat but no gun. Polston asked the defendant where the gun was located; the defendant said that it was in the glove compartment. Polston retrieved the gun from the glove compartment and asked if there were any more weapons in the truck. The defendant stated that there were two more guns in the bag in the back seat, which Polston recovered.

The second judge concluded that the defendant was not in custody when he stated that he had a gun in his truck and did not have a license to carry, and that Miranda warnings were therefore not required.⁸ She also found that Polston's questioning “was pointed, but not aggressive or coercive.”

Discussion. 1. The defendant's statements prior to arrest. The defendant argues that his statements -- that he had a gun in the truck and did not have a license to carry -- and the fruits thereof should have been suppressed because he was subjected to custodial interrogation without Miranda warnings. “In reviewing a decision on a motion to suppress, we accept the judge's subsidiary findings absent clear error but conduct an independent review of [the] ultimate findings and conclusions of law” (quotation and citation omitted). Commonwealth v. Jones-Pannell, 472 Mass. 429, 431 (2015). “Miranda warnings are required only when a suspect is subject to custodial interrogation.” Commonwealth v. Amaral, 482 Mass. 496, 500 (2019). Their purpose is to “protect suspects from police-dominated environments that were ‘created for no purpose other than to subjugate the individual to the will of his examiner.’ ” Commonwealth v. Cawthron, 479 Mass. 612, 617 (2018), quoting Miranda, 384 U.S. at 457.

“An interview is custodial where a reasonable person in the suspect's shoes would experience the environment in which the interrogation took place as coercive” (quotation and citation omitted). Amaral, 482 Mass at 500-501. In determining whether a defendant was subjected to custodial interrogation, we consider

“(1) the place of the interrogation; (2) whether the officers have conveyed to the person being questioned any belief or opinion that that person is a suspect; (3) the nature of the interrogation, including whether the interview was aggressive or, instead, informal and influenced in its contours by the person being interviewed; and (4) whether, at the time the incriminating statement was made, the person was free to end the interview by leaving the locus of the interrogation or by asking the interrogator to leave, as evidenced by whether the interview was terminated with an arrest.”

Commonwealth v. Groome, 435 Mass. 201, 211-212 (2001). “Rarely is any single factor conclusive” (citation omitted). Cawthron, 479 Mass. at 618.

Here, Polston asked the defendant questions on his girlfriend's porch in a nonaggressive and noncoercive manner. Cf. Commonwealth v. Lavendier, 79 Mass. App. Ct. 501, 504-505 (2011) (no custodial interrogation where defendant was questioned in neutral site of relative's home and questions were investigatory and not coercive). The defendant was not handcuffed or restrained in any way. See id. at 505. While the defendant was not free to leave, the conversation was casual, polite, and respectful, and at no point did Polston convey that the defendant would be arrested or that he was a suspect.⁹ See Amaral, 482 Mass. at 501; Commonwealth v. Kirwan, 448 Mass. 304, 311 (2007). Contrast Commonwealth v. Coleman, 49 Mass. App. Ct. 150, 153-156 (2000) (custodial interrogation where police aggressively questioned defendant in small room with door closed and conveyed belief defendant was suspected of crime). Thus, Polston had not “through words or conduct, objectively communicated that [he] would use his ․ police power to coerce [the defendant] to stay.” Commonwealth v. Palmer, 498 Mass. 117, 123 (2026), quoting Commonwealth v. Matta, 483 Mass. 357, 362 (2019). Taken together, a reasonable person in the defendant's position would not have believed that he was in custody, see Groome, 435 Mass. at 211-212, and Miranda warnings were not required. See Amaral, supra at 502. The defendant's motion to suppress was therefore properly denied.¹⁰

2. The defendant's statements after arrest. The defendant also argues that the statements that he made following his arrest and the fruits thereof should have been suppressed because he was subjected to custodial interrogation without Miranda warnings. Specifically, the defendant contends that the firearms and magazines should have been suppressed because Polston learned of their location, in part, from the defendant.

Here, discovery of the firearms was inevitable. See Commonwealth v. O'Connor, 406 Mass. 112, 118 (1989). Once Polston learned that the defendant had a gun in the truck and did not have a license to carry, he had probable cause to search the truck for evidence of criminal activity, see G. L. c. 269, § 10 (a) (unlawful to possess firearm without license to carry), including the glove compartment and the bag in the back seat. He also located three magazines on the passenger seat. And, as the defendant had already permitted Polston to search the truck, the scope of that consent extended to the bag and glove compartment. See Florida v. Jimeno, 500 U.S. 248, 251-252 (1991); Commonwealth v. Ortiz, 478 Mass. 820, 824-825 (2018).

Moreover, the automobile exception “applies to situations where the police have probable cause to believe that a motor vehicle parked in a public place and apparently capable of being moved contains contraband or evidence of a crime” (citation omitted). Commonwealth v. Guardado, 491 Mass. 666, 674 (Guardado I), S.C., 493 Mass. 1 (2023), cert. denied, 144 S. Ct. 2683 (2024). To establish probable cause, the Commonwealth must show “that the information possessed by police, at the time of the proposed warrantless search, provide[d] a substantial basis for the belief that there [was] a timely nexus or connection between criminal activity, a particular person or place to be searched, and particular evidence to be seized” (quotation and citation omitted). Guardado I, supra. “Probable cause does not require an absence of uncertainty; rather, we ask whether a ‘reasonable and prudent’ person could have acted on such a belief” (citation omitted). Id. at 675.

“Where there is probable cause to search a vehicle, ․ a valid search is limited to any area, place, or container reasonably capable of containing the object of the search” (quotation and citation omitted). Guardado I, 491 Mass. at 678. This includes glove compartments and open and closed containers. See Commonwealth v. Davis, 481 Mass. 210, 221-222 (2019); Commonwealth v. Bostock, 450 Mass. 616, 624 (2008). There was no error.

Judgments affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1.   All other issues in this appeal were previously decided in the prior unpublished memorandum and order issued pursuant to Appeals Court Rule 23.0. See Commonwealth v. Flores, 106 Mass. App. Ct. 1120 (2026).

2.   The judge who originally heard this matter (first judge) has since retired.

3.   The defendant was convicted of three counts of carrying a firearm without a license and three counts of possessing a large capacity feeding device.

4.   The defendant's arms had scratches on them.

5.   At that time, the defendant and his girlfriend had been having discussions about his moving into her home.

6.   Polston testified that the defendant was not free to leave, and the defendant testified that he believed that he was not free to leave.

7.   The first judge found that the defendant had consented to the search, based on Polston's testimony that, when he asked if he could retrieve the guns from the truck, the defendant said, “Go ahead.”

8.   The defendant was not Mirandized until he arrived at the police station.

9.   In this context, the fact that Polston spoke with the defendant in the presence of another officer did not render the questioning custodial. See Commonwealth v. Tejada, 484 Mass. 1, 8-10, cert. denied, 592 U.S. 976 (2020).

10.   For the same reason, we reject the defendant's argument that the search could not have been a valid consent search because his expression of consent was in response to custodial interrogation.