Background
On June 9, 2019, a pedestrian was struck and killed on Washington Street in Duxbury, Massachusetts, by a black pickup truck whose driver fled the scene. Before the collision, a separate driver—referred to in the opinion as the “identifying witness”—had nearly been sideswiped by the same truck at a nearby intersection. He followed the truck into a gas station, approached to within ten feet of the driver, and observed a white woman in her thirties to fifties with dark hair. He chose not to confront her and left; he did not alert police of the encounter.
Police pieced together that a black Dodge Ram was likely involved. One officer recalled that the prior year, defendant Kristina Blackmore had been charged with leaving the scene of an accident while driving that exact vehicle. Officers visited Blackmore’s home, where the truck was parked nose-in on a driveway fifty feet from the street. A state trooper walking past the truck observed damage to the front right headlight, hood, grille, and bumper, along with red-brown stains near the hood. Blackmore told officers she had struck a boat trailer in the driveway the prior evening. Police blocked the truck in and obtained a search warrant before touching the interior. The warrant-authorized search uncovered Blackmore’s wallet, a McDonald’s receipt time-stamped minutes before the collision, and gas station receipts from June 9. After Blackmore’s arrest, police issued a public bulletin announcing it and including her photograph. The identifying witness’s daughter sent him the photo; he immediately recognized the woman as the driver from the gas station. He later picked Blackmore from a formal photographic array and testified at trial. A Superior Court jury convicted Blackmore of motor vehicle homicide by negligent operation and leaving the scene of a collision causing death.
The Court’s Holding
Affirmed. A panel of Massing, Singh, and Grant, JJ. upheld both convictions and the denial of both suppression motions.
On the vehicle seizure, the court held that police had probable cause to seize the truck and were entitled to maintain full control over the vehicle and its contents—including the wallet and receipts—while they diligently pursued a search warrant. Citing Commonwealth v. Gentile, 437 Mass. 569, 573 (2002), and Commonwealth v. Taylor, 426 Mass. 189, 195 (1997), the court confirmed that officers with probable cause “may seize property to prevent destruction or removal of evidence during the relatively short period of time needed to obtain a search warrant.” No immediate inventory search was required, and the fact that the truck sat on private property was no barrier: the seizure was lawful the moment probable cause attached, and police could assert full control pending the warrant. See Commonwealth v. Holness, 93 Mass. App. Ct. 368, 372–374 (2018).
On the identification, the court applied the common-law fairness standard governing out-of-court identifications made without police wrongdoing. The identifying witness’s exposure to Blackmore’s photograph came through his daughter, not through police action, and the court found no police manipulation. Under Commonwealth v. Colon-Cruz, 408 Mass. 533, 542 (1990), “simple exposure to the media is not sufficient ground to suppress an identification.” Because the identifying witness had observed the driver face to face, from close range, in a moment of heightened attention—and because his subsequent recognition was immediate and unequivocal—the motion judge properly found the identification sufficiently reliable. The trial judge’s admission of an in-court identification was likewise upheld as within the range of reasonable alternatives.
Key Takeaways
- Police with probable cause to believe a vehicle contains evidence of crime may seize it and retain exclusive control over its contents pending a search warrant—even when the vehicle is parked on private property. No immediate inventory search is required and officers need not return items inside the vehicle to its occupants.
- Post-arrest media bulletins that circulate to an eyewitness through third parties do not automatically require suppression of a subsequent photographic-array identification. The test under Massachusetts common-law fairness principles is police suggestiveness; accidental media exposure without police orchestration falls short.
- An eyewitness’s original opportunity to observe a suspect—close range, face to face, under focused circumstances—provides an independent reliability basis that can survive intervening media exposure for purposes of admissibility at trial.
- The defendant bears the burden of proving undue suggestiveness by a preponderance of the evidence. Where the witness’s in-person observation was close and attentive, that burden is difficult to carry.
Why It Matters
Blackmore addresses two recurring issues in Massachusetts vehicle-crime prosecutions. The vehicle-seizure holding confirms that the temporary-seizure doctrine extends to private driveways: a lawful seizure supported by probable cause allows police to preserve all of the vehicle’s contents for warrant-authorized search, without opening the vehicle prematurely or returning items to the owner. Defense counsel challenging evidence obtained from seized vehicles should examine whether the underlying probable cause was solid, not whether police were required to distribute the contents before the warrant issued.
On identification, the case is a useful data point for practitioners navigating social-media exposure and eyewitness reliability. The pivotal variable remains whether police arranged the pre-identification exposure. A news bulletin announcing an arrest—even one that reaches an eyewitness through a family member—does not constitute a police-engineered showup because officers are not attempting to elicit an identification at that stage. Where the witness already had a strong independent basis for recognition, the suppression argument faces a steep climb regardless of how the bulletin circulated.