finding defendant had standing to contest search of cellphone where Commonwealth consistently attributed telephone account to defendant despite account in fictitious name and defendant implicitly claimed ownership of cellphone account
How later courts described this case
- finding defendant had standing to contest search of cellphone where Commonwealth consistently attributed telephone account to defendant despite account in fictitious name and defendant implicitly claimed ownership of cellphone account
- identifying information on fingerprint cards admissible under business records exception given "officers' duty to ensure that the ... cards are created with accurate information, and the arrestees' legal obligation to provide accurate information"
- possessory interest established standing to challenge search of cell phone even though defendant did not own cell phone searched
- “Although the fact that [the victim and the defendant] may have used their cellular telephones to communicate with each other on the day of the murders elevated their relationship to a matter of importance in the investigation, it did not, without more, justify intrusion [to search Defendant’s cellphone]”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Lowy, J.
(concurring, with whom Gants, C.J., joins). I agree that the ten-print card qualifies for the business record exception to the rule against hearsay. However, I write separately because the card in this case involves two levels of hearsay: the ten-print card itself and the information provided by the individual to fill out the card. I believe the court does not precisely address each level.
The business records exception to the rule against hearsay allows information recorded for a business purpose and contained in a business record in evidence for its truth. See Mass. G. Evid. § 803(6)(A) (2017). This rule includes out-of-court statements: if the statement is recorded for a business purpose and the individual making the statement does so for a business purpose, the statement is admissible for its truth. See id. If an out-of-court statement contained in a business record is not made pursuant to a business purpose, it still may be admissible if the out-of-court statement is recorded for a business purpose and the statement falls within another hearsay exception or exclusion. As the court points out, an arrestee’s legal obligation does not equate with a business purpose.
However, I believe that the information provided to fill out the ten-print card fell within the hearsay exclusion for an opposing party’s statement. Mass. G. Evid. § 801(d)(2)(A) (2017). For the reasons stated by the court, including the defendant’s legal obligation to provide identifying information, the totality of the circumstances established a more than adequate basis for the judge to conclude — as a preliminary question of fact on which admissibility depends and as a matter of conditional relevance — that Corbin was the individual who provided the information. See Mass. G. Evid. § 104(a), (b) (2017). The ten-print card was properly admitted because the information in the ten-print card was admissible under an exclusion from the rule against hearsay, and the ten-print card was admissible as a business record. Mass. G. Evid. §§ 801(d)(2)(A), 803(6)(A).