Background
On the morning of December 16, 2021, a Haverhill police officer received a BOLO (be-on-the-lookout) for Robert Blanchette following a domestic violence report. The BOLO named Blanchette, described his vehicle, stated there was probable cause to arrest him, and warned that he likely had a firearm. When the officer located and stopped Blanchette’s car, backup arrived before any approach. Because the BOLO identified Blanchette as likely armed and the stop arose from a violent crime, officers approached with weapons drawn. Blanchette was ordered out of the vehicle, patfrisked, and arrested for domestic assault and battery. During the patfrisk, officers seized keys from Blanchette’s pocket. The passenger was simultaneously arrested on outstanding warrants.
The vehicle was partially blocking a busy road with both occupants arrested and no driver available, so police ordered it towed and conducted an inventory search under the Haverhill police department’s written inventory policy. That policy directed officers to inventory the passenger compartment — including the glove box — and expressly permitted opening “a locked, attached container, glove box, or trunk . . . if there is a key available or the opening can be obtained without causing damage to the vehicle.” An officer used the key seized from Blanchette’s pocket to unlock the glove box, where he found a loaded firearm.
Blanchette moved to suppress, arguing that the officers’ approach was excessive, the seizure of the keys was unlawful, and even if the keys were properly seized, they were not “available” for the inventory search within the meaning of the policy. The District Court denied the motion, and Blanchette entered a conditional guilty plea, preserving his right to appeal the suppression ruling and a separately denied speedy trial motion.
The Court’s Holding
Affirmed. The court addressed four issues and upheld the suppression denial on each.
On the drawn-gun approach, the court applied the settled rule that approaching with weapons drawn is generally excessive “in the absence of any suggestion that the defendant is armed or other circumstances suggesting the possibility of violence.” Commonwealth v. Santiago, 93 Mass. App. Ct. 792, 795 (2018). Here, both circumstances were present: a violent crime had just been reported, and the BOLO expressly warned Blanchette likely had a firearm.
On the seizure of keys, the court relied on Commonwealth v. Blevines, 438 Mass. 604 (2003), which held that keys discovered in an arrestee’s pocket during a lawful patfrisk may be seized as potential weapons without the officer expressly articulating that concern — it is “self-evident” that a hard object like keys may be used to resist arrest or escape. Blanchette’s contention that a plastic key fob would be different was unsupported by any evidence at the suppression hearing; the officer testified to keys, not a key fob.
On the “available key” question, the court held that keys lawfully seized from an arrestee during a patfrisk are “available” for purposes of an inventory policy that permits opening locked glove boxes with available keys. The lawfulness of the seizure — as a search incident to lawful arrest — placed the keys in the officers’ possession and within the ordinary meaning of the policy’s term. Blanchette offered no authority for reading the policy to exclude keys obtained via a patfrisk, and the court declined to adopt such a narrow construction.
On the speedy trial claim, the court applied the four-factor Barker v. Wingo test: the 386-day delay was presumptively prejudicial, but twenty-three days were attributable to Blanchette; there was no evidence of intentional Commonwealth delay (at worst, negligence in obtaining a ballistician report); Blanchette had not pressed for trial; and he demonstrated no actual prejudice to his ability to prepare his defense. All four factors weighed against a constitutional violation.
Key Takeaways
- Keys seized from an arrestee during a lawful patfrisk are “available” to open a locked vehicle compartment under a departmental inventory policy that permits opening such compartments with available keys — the lawfulness of the patfrisk seizure is what matters, not the manner in which police came to possess the key.
- Under Commonwealth v. Blevines, an officer need not articulate that keys could be used as a weapon to justify seizing them during a patfrisk incident to arrest — that utility is self-evident, and any hard object found in the pocket may be retrieved.
- A BOLO that expressly warns a suspect is likely armed provides sufficient justification for an approach with drawn weapons, even without additional on-the-scene observation of a weapon.
- Defense challenges to inventory searches of locked vehicle compartments should focus on (a) the adequacy and scope of the written policy, (b) whether the decision to tow was pretextual, and (c) whether the search was conducted for administrative rather than investigatory purposes — not on how the police obtained the key used to open the compartment.
- A one-year pretrial delay that is attributable in part to the defendant, unaccompanied by intentional prosecutorial delay or demonstrated prejudice to trial preparation, does not establish a Barker speedy trial violation under art. 11 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights.
Why It Matters
The “available key” question is a recurring fact pattern in Massachusetts suppression litigation: a suspect is arrested near a vehicle, keys are seized, and the vehicle is towed and inventoried. Some departments’ inventory policies limit searches to unlocked compartments; others, like Haverhill’s, permit opening locked compartments with available keys. Blanchette settles that where the policy authorizes it and the key was lawfully seized, the resulting search of a locked glove box is constitutional. Defense attorneys challenging these searches in the future will need to focus on the content and application of the specific department policy — arguing, for example, that the particular inventory policy did not contemplate keys obtained by arrest, or that the totality of circumstances showed the search was investigatory rather than administrative.
The decision also reinforces a practical point for officers and prosecutors: the chain of lawfulness matters. A patfrisk that itself was unlawful would have tainted the key seizure and potentially the subsequent inventory search. Blanchette arose in the clean posture where both the arrest and the patfrisk were concededly lawful — the BOLO established probable cause to arrest, and the domestic violence report plus the firearms warning justified the weapons-drawn approach. Cases with contested probable cause or a challenged patfrisk will require the additional analysis that this case did not.