Commonwealth v. Bloom

The defendant was the subject of clandestine observation by the Barnsta-ble police in a public rest room. Prosecuted under G. L. c. 272, § 35, he moved for pretrial suppression of the evidence obtained by those observations . The judge allowed the motion, and the Commonwealth has appealed.

*952The cases on this subject apply, without perfect consistency, principles enunciated in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967), which held that use of an electronic listening device attached to the outside of a public phone booth constituted a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment of the…