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MA: Pushing officer's hands away to avoid a frisk was not independent assault; it was a fruit of the unjustified stop

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Defendant’s stop and frisk was unjustified by any articulable suspicion. When the officer started the frisk the defendant pushed his hands away saying “Don’t touch me.” The act of pushing the officer’s hands away was not a new crime of assault rending the exclusionary rule inapplicable. “Thus, whatever acts may have intervened, they did not influence the decision to seize the defendant, and accordingly the acts cannot have dissipated the taint of the original unlawful seizure. By the same reasoning, the renewed patfrisk was not an arrest for assault and battery on a police officer.” Commonwealth v. Martin, 2010 Mass. LEXIS 296 (May 27, 2010), revg 73 Mass. App. Ct. 526, 529, 899 N.E.2d 869 (2009). Defendant used a false ID and credit card to rent a hotel room...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on June 01, 2010 (boomark / email).