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SJC agrees with ruling that police can't stop and frisk simply for guns
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
SJC agrees with ruling that police can't stop and frisk simply for guns By Associated Press, 9/28/2001 14:17 BOSTON (AP) An anonymous tip alone is not grounds for police to stop and frisk people, the Supreme Judicial Court affirmed Friday. The court upheld a Massachusetts Appeals Court ruling from last year that threw out the conviction of a Brockton man who was stopped based on anonymous information and found to be carrying a loaded handgun. Justice Francis X. Spina wrote in the opinion that the tip that Rui M. Barros, then 17, was carrying a gun, his suspicious behavior when stopped, and his refusal to answer questions did not justify his detention. ''An anonymous tip that someone is carrying a gun goes not, without more, constitute a reasonable suspicion to conduct a stop and frisk of that individual,'' Spina wrote. ''...It was the defendant's right to ignore the officer.'' Brockton police stopped Barros in Brockton in 1998 after an anonymous informant told police that a man matching Barros' description was seen taking a gun from his waistband and showing it to others. Last year, the appeals court overturned Barros' convictions of carrying a gun without a license and possessing ammunition without a license, stating that ''In a free society, the balance between the public interest and individual freedom from governmental interference tilts in favor of individual freedom.'' Prosecutors appealed the ruling to the Supreme Judicial Court. Justice Martha Sosman wrote in a concurring opinion that the court's conclusion was inevitable and regrettable. ''...our reversal now terminates a meritorious prosecution of an underage youth who was carrying a loaded handgun concealed on his person as he and his young friends proceeded along the streets of Brockton,'' she wrote. ''I thus join in the result reached by the court, but note that it is a regrettable result that was probably avoidable.'' http://www.boston.com/dailynews/271/region/SJC_agrees_with_ruling_that_po:.shtml