Commonwealth v. Eddington

I agree with the court that, under our controlling case law, the impoundment of the vehicle in this case was reasonable because the owner was not a driver or passenger in the vehicle, the driver could not produce the vehicle’s registration, and it was not clear that the driver had the owner’s authorization. Therefore, even though public safety was not at risk by leaving the vehicle locked on the public street where it was lawfully parked at the time of the stop, and even though there was no reason to believe that the vehicle contained dangerous or expensive personal property, and even though…