Erin Knight, arguing for the Commonwealth, asked the Appeals Court to reverse a lower-court ruling that suppressed evidence after police used a knife to pry open a locked glove compartment during a traffic stop arising from a 911 report. “the officer's use of the knife to pry open the locked glove box 1 eighth to 1 fourth, inches,” Knight said, was minimally necessary to address the officer safety concern and should not have led to suppression. Defense counsel James McKenna told the panel the judge “got it right,” arguing the search became “a hunt for evidence” that exceeded a permissible protective sweep.
The dispute centers on whether the officer's action was a lawful, narrowly tailored protective search for weapons or an investigatory search unsupported by the reasonable-suspicion standard. The judge below credited the officer's testimony about the tint and the video evidence but concluded that prying the glove box went beyond protective measures and therefore suppressed the resulting evidence. The Commonwealth contends the totality of circumstances — a 911 caller describing a vehicle that alarmed a pedestrian, the officer's familiarity with the defendant's record, a locked glove box, a recently separated key, and a passenger who leaned toward the dash when officers approached — supported the officer's safety-based actions.
Both sides pressed the panel on sequencing and legal labels. McKenna emphasized that the officers searched the car thoroughly before prying the glove box and that prying before securing the key was constitutionally problematic: “they did the illegal search before getting the key,” he said. Knight replied the officer reasonably believed the glove box could contain a weapon and that earlier cases allow opening a locked compartment when officer safety is implicated. Counsel agreed the car sweep and discovery of a weapon on the driver were not contested; the appellate issue is whether the later glove-box entry was permissible.
The argument cited precedent (disputedly analogized to Graham and Daniels in the Commonwealth's presentation) and focused on whether the judge’s fact findings could support a different legal conclusion on the search’s scope. The case was submitted to the court after argument.