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Appeals court weighs whether officer’s bag-search during traffic stop exceeded inventory limits
Summary
The Massachusetts Appeals Court considered whether a police officer’s search of a passenger’s fanny pack during a traffic stop was a permissible inventory search or an unlawful investigatory search.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court heard argument over whether a search of a passenger’s fanny pack during a traffic stop was a permissible inventory search or an impermissible investigatory search. Defense counsel Kevin DeMello argued officers moved beyond a mechanical inventory when an officer asked “what’s in it?” and then opened the bag without giving the passenger a realistic chance to remove it from the vehicle.
DeMello described a pre-dawn stop at about 2 a.m. in which an officer, alone on the scene, pulled a vehicle with a headlight out, discovered mismatched plates and incomplete identification, and ordered both…
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