Commonwealth v. Sheridan

In the early morning hours of June 21, 2011, police officers stopped the defendant, Matthew J. Sheridan, for driving a minivan with an unilluminated headlight. During the stop, the officers saw in the vehicle a portion of what an officer identified as “about a [one]-ounce bag” of marijuana, protruding from under a rumpled T-shirt lying on the floor between the vehicle’s two front seats. The officers ordered the defendant out of the vehicle, handcuffed him, and conducted a search of the minivan. Lifting the T-shirt, an officer found, in addition to the bag previously partially seen, another…