Commonwealth v. Pearson, 58 N.E.3d 375

Between Jan. 31 and Feb. 8, 2012, Brookline police investigated multiple residential break-ins and identified stolen credit-card purchases on surveillance video showing a Hispanic woman and a dark-skinned black man.
A Cambridge burglary yielded a driver's license belonging to Jenell Johnson; police matched booking photos of Johnson and Washington Pearson to the surveillance images and a store employee identified them from a photo array.
On Feb. 9, 2012, officers went to the apartment where Johnson and Pearson lived, purported to have arrest warrants, arrested Johnson (who was Mirandized) and Pearson, and saw items in plain view in a second‑floor bedroom.
After transporting the arrestees to headquarters, officers secured the premises and spoke with the homeowner (Johnson’s stepfather), who told them Pearson had been staying there and pointed to a shopping bag in outside trash containing items tied to a burglary victim.
Police then obtained a search warrant based on an affidavit that included information from the investigation and the homeowner’s statements; the subsequent search produced evidence later used at trial.
The motion judge suppressed statements made at the time of the arrests (finding the arrests were not supported by physically possessed warrants) but ruled the search-warrant-based evidence admissible as an independent source. The jury convicted Pearson of multiple breaking-and-entering and larceny counts.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether evidence seized under the search warrant was tainted by the prior warrantless arrest (independent-source/Murray inquiry)	Commonwealth: warrant was supported by probable cause independent of the illegal entry; objectively reasonable to seek a warrant	Pearson: officers’ decision to seek the warrant was influenced by observations from unlawful entry and arrest, so the warrant was tainted	Court: applied objective test; warrant was supported by probable cause independent of illegal arrest and thus an independent source; denial of suppression affirmed
Whether homeowner’s statements to police were fruit of the illegal arrest and therefore inadmissible	Commonwealth: homeowner’s statements were voluntary, occurred while premises were lawfully secured, and were an intervening act supplying probable cause	Pearson: homeowner’s statements flowed from and were prompted by the unlawful entry/arrest and thus are tainted fruit	Court: statements were sufficiently attenuated and an independent, intervening act; no flagrantly egregious police misconduct; statements could be relied upon for probable cause

Commonwealth v. Tyree, 455 Mass. 676 (discusses admissibility of evidence obtained under warrant after earlier illegal entry when affidavit contains independent probable cause)
Commonwealth v. DeJesus, 439 Mass. 616 (probable cause in warrant affidavit must link items to place to be searched)
Murray v. United States, 487 U.S. 533 (establishes independent-source doctrine)
Commonwealth v. Brandwein, 435 Mass. 623 (third‑party disclosures to police not suppressed absent police provocation or egregious misconduct)
Commonwealth v. Estabrook, 472 Mass. 852 (attenuation analysis for third‑party statements as fruit of illegal police action)