Supreme Judicial Court weighs suppression after race-based traffic stop in Commonwealth v. Diaz

The Supreme Judicial Court heard argument in SJC-13635, Commonwealth v. Diaz, over whether evidence of drugs recovered after a traffic stop must be suppressed as the fruit of an unlawful, race-based stop.

John Warren, attorney for the defendant Diaz, told the court that the stop lacked any lawful basis and was motivated by race, arguing that both the Article 14 and equal-protection violations “required suppression of the drugs.” He told the justices the case “is the case to put into action what Chief Justice Gantt said concurring in Long, which is that the prohibition against racial profiling must be given teeth.”

Warren urged the court to apply the three-factor attenuation test and said those factors weigh in favor of suppression here. He emphasized the brevity of the vehicular flight — the defendant drove off and entered the woods 36 seconds after leaving the stop — and argued that the short duration and direct relationship between the stop and the flight meant the intervening act did not sufficiently attenuate the initial illegality.

Travis Lynch, arguing for the Commonwealth, asked the court to affirm the trial court’s denial of the defendant’s motion to suppress and its denial of reconsideration. Lynch acknowledged the court treats attenuation in the equal-protection context, but stressed that a number of events occurred between the initial stop and the discovery of contraband, including reckless driving, a crash, and an organized police search for the defendant, and that those intervening events bear on attenuation.

Several justices questioned how to apply the three-factor attenuation framework when the intervening act is vehicular flight that endangered the public. They pressed both sides on (1) how to identify point A (the initial illegal police conduct) and point B (the discovery of the evidence), (2) the significance of the brief 36-second flight versus the unknown interval between flight and the discovery of the drugs, and (3) whether public-safety considerations weigh against suppression when a defendant’s intervening conduct is dangerous.

Warren noted gaps in the Commonwealth’s record about how and when the drugs were found, who recovered them, and the precise timing; he argued those gaps are the Commonwealth’s burden to overcome. Lynch acknowledged the record does not specify the exact interval between the flight and discovery and said the defendant “gets the benefit of that,” while contending the sequence of intervening events supports a finding of attenuation.

Both advocates and the justices referenced the court’s intervening-act precedent (Borges, Martin, King) and several appellate decisions (O’Loughlin, Alston, Coleman and others) as points of comparison. Warren argued this case is closer to avoidance/flight cases where courts have found suppression appropriate; Lynch pointed to precedent that has sustained suppression denials where intervening conduct was substantial or dangerous.

The court did not issue a decision during argument. The appeal turns on how the court balances the factors for attenuation — flagrancy/purpose of the initial unlawful stop, the temporal and causal relationship between the police illegality and the discovery of evidence, and the nature of the intervening conduct — when the initial stop has been found racially motivated and the intervening act involved brief, dangerous vehicular flight.

Votes at a glance: no formal votes or dispositions were announced at oral argument; the matter is under submission to the court.