Commonwealth v. Chown

I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion and begin by observing that

“[i]t is well settled that a police inquiry in a routine traffic stop must end on the production of a valid license and registration unless the police have grounds for inferring that ‘either the operator or his passengers were involved in the commission of a crime ... or engaged in other suspicious conduct’ (citations omitted).”

Commonwealth v. Robie, 51 Mass. App. Ct. 494, 497 (2001). See Commonwealth v. Torres, 424 Mass. 153, 158 (1997).

The incident we are considering was a routine traffic stop in which the defendant…