Appeals court hears challenge to warrantless search of backpack after hotel-room robbery report

Boston — The appeals court on Tuesday heard argument in Commonwealth v. Papadis Torres over whether police lawfully searched a backpack seized from a woman who exited a crowded hotel room after officers responded to a reported robbery.

Attorney Joseph Smith, representing Ms. Papadis Torres, told the three‑judge panel that the officers intended a search, not a minimally intrusive pat‑frisk, and that the record contains virtually no descriptive testimony about the bag or any individualized suspicion linking the defendant to the reported robbery. “They expressly testified during the motion to suppress they were gonna search everyone’s belongings,” Smith said, arguing the record does not support the judge’s finding that officers decided only to pat‑frisk bags and that there was no probable cause or exigent circumstances to open the backpack.

The Commonwealth, represented by Assistant District Attorney Timothy Farroder, urged the court to view the encounter under an objective totality‑of‑the‑circumstances standard. He pointed to the victim’s report, officers’ testimony that the backpack contained a pair of sneakers and felt‑bottom construction likely to mask its contents, and an officer’s account that they were told people in the room were “staying at the hotel” and that someone in the room said, “I’m strapped.” Farroder said those facts supported a reasonable inference that a backpack could conceal a firearm and that limiting the encounter to an officer safety pat‑frisk could have been futile.

The justices pressed both sides on the difference between probable cause to arrest and reasonable suspicion to search or pat‑frisk, and asked whether hearing a male voice that said, “I’m almost 17 and I’m strapped,” together with a report that two assailants were black males, sufficed to justify searching all occupants’ bags. Justice Rubin asked whether the officers could simply have obtained a search warrant; defense counsel replied the officers never intended to seek one and instead treated left‑behind items as abandoned property. Counsel debated the applicability of state precedents the parties invoked, including decisions about when a pat‑frisk of a bag is futile and when exigent circumstances permit a warrantless entry.

Both sides cited case law (including Pagan and Paniagua in the hearing record) and offered competing hypotheticals to illustrate limits on sweeping searches of multiple people in crowded settings. The court took the case under advisement after counsel completed argument and the panel indicated it had read the briefs.

The court did not announce a ruling at the argument; a decision will issue after the panel considers the briefing and oral argument.