Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court· 6/26/2009

Commonwealth v. Johnson

Citations

454 Mass. 159
908 N.E.2d 729
2009 Mass. LEXIS 324

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

patfrisk of defendant proper where he was with person being arrested for trespassing and he made furtive movements
officers legitimately in presence of group because one individual was trespassing, had the right to conduct patfrisk where defendant disregarded specific instruction to take his hands out of his pockets
officers investigating possible trespass in high crime area “not required to accept risk of . . . ambiguity” posed by defendant who disregarded command to take his hands out of his pockets
“The term ‘high crime area’ is itself a general and conclusory term that should not be used to justify a stop or a frisk, or both, without requiring the articulation of specific facts demonstrating the reasonableness of the intrusion”
“Two questions arise in connection with a determination whether a police officer had a sufficient, reasonable basis to conduct a patfrisk: . . . and (2) did the officer have a reasonable basis to suspect that this party was likely to be armed and dangerous.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Judges: Botsford

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16 cases in this archive cite this case.

Cites

14 cases in this archive are cited by this case.

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