## Facts

- James Blood and Ernest Lorenzen were implicated in a plan to break into a Lynn, Massachusetts smelting business and steal gold bars worth about $3 million.
- Charles Hudson, an alleged participant, became a police informant after seeking favorable treatment on unrelated criminal matters.
- Hudson agreed to wear a concealed transmitter that allowed police to monitor and record conversations with the defendants and others.
- The recorded conversations occurred inside private homes.
- Police obtained no warrant for the monitoring/recording and relied on a statutory provision permitting certain one-party-consent interceptions in organized crime investigations.
- At trial, the Commonwealth introduced the recordings and evidence derived from them; Hudson also testified about the conversations from his personal knowledge.
- Blood and Lorenzen were convicted of conspiracy to break and enter a building and conspiracy to commit larceny.
- The trial court denied suppression motions as to the challenged surveillance evidence; the Supreme Judicial Court took direct appellate review.

## Issues

1. Whether warrantless, one-party-consent electronic monitoring and recording of conversations occurring in private homes violates art. 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights absent exigent circumstances.
2. Whether the recordings and derivative evidence must be excluded if the surveillance violates art. 14, even if authorized by statute.
3. Whether the live testimony of a participant to the unlawfully recorded conversations is admissible at a retrial.

## Decision

- The court held that the warrantless electronic monitoring and recording of in-home conversations, even with one-party consent, violated art. 14 absent exigent circumstances.
- The recordings and their evidentiary fruits were improperly admitted, despite statutory compliance; the convictions were reversed and the matter remanded.
- The court ruled that a participant’s live testimony about the conversations is admissible at retrial, even though the electronic recordings and their fruits are excluded.

## Legal Principles

- Art. 14 can provide broader protection than the Fourth Amendment, including stricter limits on electronic surveillance.
- Individuals speaking in a private dwelling have a reasonable expectation that their words will not be secretly transmitted or recorded by the government without judicial authorization.
- The “assumption of risk” that a confidant may later reveal a conversation does not equate to consenting to state-enabled electronic interception and recording inside a home.
- Warrantless electronic interception of in-home conversations constitutes a search under art. 14 and generally requires a warrant supported by probable cause, unless exigent circumstances are shown.
- Statutory authorization cannot validate evidence obtained through an unconstitutional search; suppression is required for the recordings and their direct fruits.
- The exclusionary rule does not bar a participant-witness from testifying from personal knowledge about the same conversations, even if the conversations were unlawfully recorded.

## Conclusion

The Supreme Judicial Court reversed conspiracy convictions because police, without a warrant and without exigency, used a consenting informant to electronically record conversations inside private homes in violation of art. 14; the recordings and their fruits must be suppressed, but the informant’s live testimony remains admissible at retrial.


Commonwealth v. Blood, 400 Mass. 61, 507 N.E.2d 1029 (Mass. 1987)