Defense says Lowell police used Snapchat to target nonwhite users; Commonwealth urges higher proof

At oral argument before the Supreme Judicial Court, defense attorney Nancy Dolberg asked the court to allow Nathaniel Rodriguez’s motion to suppress evidence, alleging Lowell police used Snapchat surveillance in a racially discriminatory way.

Dolberg argued the officer “went out of his way to create a profile that was non white. He created an, a cartoon image, a racialized cartoon image, and he chose a profile name that was non white,” and that the composition of the account’s friend network supports an inference of selective enforcement because the officer employed “an investigatory scheme targeting people who were not white.”

Dolberg told the justices the Commonwealth produced no rebuttal at the suppression hearing and said the pattern of contacts identified in police reports justified the inference. She said the record shows seven incident reports related to the Snapchat monitoring and asserted that the Lowell Police Department does not keep data or written rules governing the practice.

The Commonwealth, through Assistant District Attorney Aaron Staudinger, urged the court to affirm the trial judge’s denial of suppression. Staudinger said the “mere creation of a Bitmoji that depicted a non white username and or a non white Bitmoji and non white username is not enough” on its own to satisfy the first-step burden under the state’s Long framework and that additional evidence would be required to rebut a race-based intent inference.

Both sides debated procedure. Dolberg argued no remand was necessary because the defendant met the initial burden and the Commonwealth offered nothing in rebuttal; Staudinger said remand to allow the Commonwealth to introduce race-neutral justifications — for example, evidence that the gang unit surveilled particular criminal groups concentrated in certain neighborhoods — would be an appropriate remedy if the court found the defendant met step one of Long.

The justices pressed counsel about discovery and the scope of the friend network the officer used to build the undercover account. Counsel acknowledged limitations in the record: the officer’s testimony did not establish that he knew Rodriguez’s race when friending him, and the trial judge found the officer could not have known the individual defendant’s race from that profile.

No final ruling was made at argument. The court heard competing requests for suppression and for remand to develop additional factual findings; the decision is pending.