Commonwealth v. Cabral

Raul Cabral, suspected by a family of raping their mentally challenged daughter, expectorated on a public sidewalk. A private investigator, on sick leave from the New Bedford police department (department) — who had been hired by the family to surveil the suspect covertly and to attempt to obtain deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) evidence — retrieved the saliva and sent it for DNA testing. Ultimately, the results provided the basis for a court-ordered DNA test, which implicated the *69defendant (who had been unaware that the observant investigator had been on the case and was surveilling him).

After a…