Commonwealth v. Vitale

This is the defendant’s appeal from a District Court judge’s refusal to grant a pretrial motion for dismissal of a complaint charging him with possession of female egg-bearing lobsters in violation of G. L. c. 130, § 41A. On May 13, 1994, environmental police boarded the defendant’s ship, F/V Stella Del Mare, and inspected her catch. Out of 1,968 lobsters in the hold, 1,833 were female and thirty-one of them had their eggs unlawfully removed. Nothing happened thereafter until May 31, 1995, when a clerk-magistrate of the Gloucester District Court conducted a show cause hearing on the officer's…