# Commonwealth v. Borges

> Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · August 28, 1985 · 395 Mass. 788

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9519002

## Case

- **Full name:** Commonwealth vs. Leon Borges
- **Court:** Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
- **Decided:** August 28, 1985
- **Citations:** 395 Mass. 788; 482 N.E.2d 314; 1985 Mass. LEXIS 1721
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Nolan
- **Judges:** Hennessey, Wilkins, Liacos, Abrams, Nolan, Lynch, O'Connor
- **Cited by:** 152 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9519002

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- finding that the search was beyond the scope of Terry where there was no evidence that officers feared for their safety before asking defendant to remove his shoes
- finding "close temporal proximity between the illegal arrest and the defendant's response"

## Opinion text

Nolan, J.
(dissenting). I dissent. If ever a fact pattern came within the boundaries of Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), it is this case. If ever police officers had the right (if not the obligation) to stop and frisk a person, it was here, armed as they were with specific information as to name, place, and particulars of the location of the drugs (“left pants pocket”). One police officer, the judge found, had known Borges for many years. In Terry, supra at 5-6 , it should be recalled, the detective was not acquainted with either man suspected of *799 planning a robbery and the detective had received no information about them. The Court in Terry acknowledged the “seizure” of the men whose suspicious conduct the detective had observed and insisted that the test was one of reasonableness. Terry v. Ohio, supra at 19, 30-31 . For some reason which the opinion has failed to disclose, the court today decides that it was unreasonable for the officers to require the defendant to remove his shoes to prevent his escape. Would it have been “more reasonable” to keep a gun pointed at his head to prevent his escape?
This is but another example of the extent to which the exclusionary rule has led to a travesty of good order and common sense.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9519002. Public record. Not legal advice.