(Download) "Commonwealth v. Wing Ng" by Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Commonwealth v. Wing Ng
- Author : Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
- Release Date : January 04, 1995
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 59 KB
Description
Constitutional Law, Search and seizure. Search and Seizure, Threshold police inquiry, Protective frisk. WILKINS, J. This case, here on further appellate review, concerns the circumstances in which a companion of a person who is arrested pursuant to a warrant lawfully may be subjected to a ""pat frisk."" The Appeals Court rejected the idea that the police have an automatic right to pat frisk a companion in the company of one who has been lawfully arrested. Commonwealth v. Wing Ng, 37 Mass. App. Ct. 283, 287, 639 N.E.2d 398 (1994). It concluded that opinions favoring such a bright-line rule were not consistent with the Fourth Amendment principles of Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889, 88 S. Ct. 1868 (1968), under which the frisk of a person is constitutionally permissible if the arresting officer can point to specific, articulable facts that warrant a reasonable suspicion that the particular individual might be armed and a potential threat to the safety of the officer or others. 1 Id. at 21, 27. We agree with the Appeals Court's Conclusion, which is supported by opinions that reject an automatic right to search a companion. 2 We add that, under art. 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, we reach the same Conclusion as an independent matter. See Eldridge v. State, 848 P.2d 834, 838 (Alaska Ct. App. 1993) (rejecting automatic companion rule under Alaska Constitution).
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