# Commonwealth v. Amendola

> Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · February 8, 1990 · 406 Mass. 592

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9713141

## Case

- **Full name:** Commonwealth vs. Alfred L. Amendola, Jr.
- **Court:** Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
- **Decided:** February 8, 1990
- **Citations:** 406 Mass. 592; 550 N.E.2d 121; 1990 Mass. LEXIS 60
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Nolan
- **Judges:** Liacos, Wilkins, Abrams, Nolan, Lynch, O'Connor
- **Cited by:** 85 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/9713141

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that rule applies when a defendant is charged with a crime in which possession of the seized evidence at the time of the search is an essential element of guilt
- holding that a defendant charged with a crime in which possession of seized evidence is an element of the crime is “deemed to have standing to contest the legality of the search and the seizure of that evidence”
- establishing automatic standing under art. 14 because without this doctrine, defendant charged with possessory offense must either assert ownership over contraband, thereby violating right against self-incrimination, or remain silent and waive right to challenge search and sei…

## Opinion text

Nolan, J.
(dissenting, with whom Lynch, J., joins). Once again, the court has invoked the Massachusetts Constitution to depart from settled Federal constitutional law without so much as a suggestion of authority. Absolutely nothing in art. 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights suggests a rule of automatic standing. In fact, the language of art. 14 is substantially the same as the language of the Fourth Amend *603 ment to the United States Constitution from which the Federal rule of standing is derived.
I am apprehensive about the direction which this court is taking in proclaiming that the Massachusetts Constitution is more zealous in protection of a defendant’s rights than the United States Constitution. This trend is far more serious than the decision in this case to adopt the rule of automatic standing of Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257 (1960), in preference to the rule of reasonable expectation of privacy of United States v. Salvucci, 448 U.S. 83 (1980), after the United States Supreme Court has rejected Jones . It seems that, whenever we wish to expand the rights of defendants in criminal cases, we simply invoke the Massachusetts Constitution without so much as a plausible argument that the Massachusetts Constitution requires the expansion. The court decides on the result that it wants and simply declares, if the result sought is more favorable to a criminal defendant than Federal law permits, that the Massachusetts Constitution compels such a result without the faintest suggestion of authority either in the language of the Massachusetts Constitution or elsewhere.
Perhaps the court has silently adopted the view that, if we say something frequently enough, it must be so. Descartes postulated: Cogito, ergo sum. We dictate: Dicimus, ergo ito est. I dissent.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9713141. Public record. Not legal advice.