COMMONWEALTH v. BRUCE BENNETT (2026)

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 23.0

The defendant was indicted in the Superior Court for trafficking thirty-six or more grams but less than one hundred grams of fentanyl in violation of G. L. c. 94C, § 32E (c) (2). The alleged drugs were found after the police, acting in a community caretaking capacity, offered the defendant a “courtesy ride”; then asked for the defendant's identification; held his identification while they ran a warrant check; learned that he had a warrant and arrested him; and conducted a warrantless inventory search of his backpack. The Commonwealth appeals from an order allowing the defendant's motion to suppress evidence of the alleged drugs. We affirm.

1. Background. Late in the afternoon on January 11, 2025, a Tewksbury police officer was dispatched to Main Street in response to a 911 caller's report of a pedestrian who was walking unsteadily and falling. When the officer arrived, he saw the elderly defendant walking on the sidewalk hunched forward with an unsteady gait. It was cold and dark, and the weather was inclement. The officer could see that the defendant's pants were wet, and inferred that the defendant had fallen on the snowy sidewalk.

The officer got out of the cruiser and spoke with the defendant, who confirmed that he had fallen but declined medical attention. The defendant had no apparent injuries, was responsive to the officer's questions, and did not appear to be intoxicated. A Tewksbury police sergeant arrived less than a minute after the officer.

The officer offered the defendant a courtesy ride to the motel in which the defendant was staying, and the defendant accepted. The sergeant then asked the defendant, “Do you mind if I just see your ID? Just something we've got to do.” The defendant then handed the officer his Massachusetts identification card. While holding the defendant's identification, the officer contacted a dispatcher for “a warrant check” and provided the defendant's name and identification number. The officer then returned the identification card to the defendant after holding it for approximately twenty seconds. Within a few minutes, the dispatcher told the officer that the defendant had an active warrant for his arrest. There was no evidence that the officer received any other information from the dispatcher about the defendant. The police immediately arrested the defendant and brought him to the police station.

At the station, the police conducted an inventory search of the backpack the defendant was wearing at the time of his arrest. During the search, they found a clear baggie containing a light brown, powdery substance that they suspected was fentanyl. As we have noted, the defendant was subsequently indicted for trafficking thirty-six or more grams but less than one hundred grams of fentanyl in violation of G. L. c. 94C, § 32E (c) (2).

The defendant moved to suppress the evidence obtained as a result of the warrantless stop and seizure. After an evidentiary hearing at which only the officer testified, the judge allowed the defendant's motion to suppress. The Commonwealth sought and was granted leave to pursue this interlocutory appeal.

2. Discussion. a. Standard of review. “In reviewing a decision on a motion to suppress, we accept the judge's subsidiary findings of fact absent clear error but conduct an independent review of [the] ultimate findings and conclusions of law” (citation omitted). Commonwealth v. Carrasquillo, 489 Mass. 107, 116-117 (2022).

b. Seizure. We discern no error in the judge's determination that the defendant was unlawfully seized when the officer held his identification and called in the warrant check. When we consider whether an individual is seized by the police, we ask “whether an officer has, through words or conduct, objectively communicated that the officer would use his or her police power to coerce that person to stay.” Commonwealth v. Matta, 483 Mass. 357, 362 (2019).

Here, the officer's taking the defendant's identification card and holding it while requesting a “warrant check” would have communicated to a reasonable person that he required the defendant to stay, at least until the dispatcher responded to the warrant check request. See Matta, 483 Mass. at 362; Commonwealth v. Lyles, 453 Mass. 811, 815-816 (2009) (defendant seized where officer requested and took possession of defendant's identification and called in warrant check). Regardless of the calm tone of the interaction and its brevity, the defendant was seized when the officer took possession of his identification card and called in the warrant check. See Lyles, supra at 815-816. Because at the time the police seized the defendant, they did not have reasonable suspicion to believe that he “ha[d] committed, [was] committing, or [was] about to commit a crime,”¹ Commonwealth v. Palmer, 498 Mass. 117, 122 (2026), quoting Commonwealth v. Robinson-Van Rader, 492 Mass. 1, 8 (2023), the seizure was unlawful.

c. Community caretaking. We are likewise satisfied that the judge correctly determined that the seizure was not justified under the community caretaking doctrine. “Local police officers are charged with ‘community caretaking functions, totally divorced from the detection, investigation, or acquisition of evidence relating to the violation of a criminal statute.’ ” Commonwealth v. Evans, 436 Mass. 369, 372 (2002), quoting Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433, 441 (1973). “In carrying out this function, ․ [a]n officer may take steps that are reasonable and consistent with the [caretaking] purpose of his inquiry, even if those steps include actions that might otherwise be constitutionally intrusive” (citation omitted). Commonwealth v. Knowles, 451 Mass. 91, 94-95 (2008). “[W]here an officer reasonably obtains evidence of a crime while in the proper exercise of community caretaking duties, that evidence need not be suppressed, even in the absence of a warrant, probable cause, or even reasonable suspicion” (quotation and citations omitted). Commonwealth v. Demos D., 497 Mass. 78, 83 (2026).

We agree with the parties and the judge that the police were acting within the scope of their community caretaking functions when they approached the defendant and asked if he needed assistance or medical attention. However, “[a] noncoercive inquiry initiated for a community caretaking purpose may ripen into a seizure requiring constitutional justification.” Commonwealth v. Mateo-German, 453 Mass. 838, 842 (2009). That is what happened here when the officer took the defendant's identification card and held it while he called in the warrant check.

The Commonwealth argues that the seizure was a reasonable safety measure for the police to take as they performed a community caretaking function, and so was a reasonable intrusion on the defendant's rights. See Demos D., 497 Mass. at 82 (“An officer's exercise of his or her community caretaking function is bound by the reasonableness standard articulated in the Fourth Amendment and art. 14, which in this [context] are coextensive” [quotation and citation omitted]). While there is facial appeal to this position -- it is beyond dispute that “[t]he public interest in ensuring an officer's safety when transporting an individual is strong,” Demos D., supra at 87 -we are not persuaded that in this case the Commonwealth adduced adequate facts to show that the seizure furthered officer safety, see id. at 82. (“The Commonwealth has the burden of demonstrating that the community caretaking doctrine applies”).

The Supreme Judicial Court has recently rejected a blanket rule allowing a patfrisk, which is more closely related to furtherance of officer safety than a warrant check, before transporting a person in a police car as a matter of community caretaking. Rather, it is permitted only where there is a “reasonable basis” for the patfrisk. Demos D., 497 Mass. at 86. Here, the Commonwealth did not present any evidence that the police called in the warrant check because of specific safety concerns with respect to the defendant. Instead, the officer testified that he called in the warrant check pursuant to an unwritten Tewksbury Police Department policy aimed at promoting officer safety broadly. The officer testified that the “cage” separating the front and back seats of his cruiser alleviated any concerns that a person being transported in the cruiser would injure him. Finally, and significantly, the Commonwealth did not offer any detail about what information, if any, bearing on the defendant's potential dangerousness the police reasonably expected the warrant check to reveal.²

Where the officer had no specific safety concerns regarding the defendant, we conclude that the warrant check did not sufficiently promote that safety interest such that it outweighed the defendant's right to be free from the governmental intrusion of a seizure for a warrant check. See Commonwealth v. Quezada, 67 Mass. App. Ct. 693, 695 (2006), S.C., 450 Mass. 1030 (2008) (pursuing and ordering impaired and possibly injured defendant to stop went beyond community caretaking function). See also State v. Ellis, 57 Kan. App. 2d 477, 485 (2019), aff'd, 311 Kan. 925 (2020) (“Practically speaking, when an officer retains a person's identification in order to run a records check for warrants, he or she is no longer looking into the person's wellbeing, but rather is investigating potential criminal activity. And when the officer exceeds the scope of the welfare check or safety stop, the encounter becomes an investigatory detention”). Thus, the community caretaking doctrine does not justify the seizure of the defendant. Cf. Knowles, 451 Mass. at 95-96, 99-100 (rejecting argument that seizure of defendant was justified under community caretaking doctrine where defendant did not pose risk to safety of officer, public, or himself). Because the discovery of the warrant, the defendant's resulting arrest, and the later search of the defendant's backpack were all the result of the impermissible seizure of the defendant, the evidence of the suspected fentanyl found during the search of the backpack was properly suppressed. See Lyles, 453 Mass. at 817.

Order dated September 3, 2025, allowing motion to suppress affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1.   Indeed, the officer testified that before finding out that the defendant had a warrant, he did not suspect him of criminal activity.

2.   When the officer was asked to explain “the purpose of reading the [defendant's] identification card number to dispatch,” he answered, “That was just his identity attached to his name through the state.” Asked what the dispatcher did with the information the officer provided, the officer responded that “they ran [the defendant] through CJIS.” There was no evidence explaining what information could be or was obtained by the CJIS inquiry, other than the existence of the warrant that was the reason for the defendant's arrest.