Law360 (September 30, 2026, 2:59 PM EDT) -- Gun charges against a minor must be thrown out because Boston police did not have justification to search the minor for weapons after ordering him out of a vehicle, a Massachusetts appellate panel ruled Wednesday.

In a published opinion authored by Justice Marguerite T. Grant, the Appeals Court said a judge in the Suffolk County Division of the Juvenile Court Department erred when he denied the minor's motion to suppress the gun that police found in a so-called patfrisk.

The minor had been sitting in the same car as a person who matched the description of an armed man police were looking for, but that fact alone was not enough to justify a lawful search, the panel said.

"Because the Commonwealth did not establish that the police had 'a reasonable suspicion, based on specific articulable facts, that the juvenile was armed and dangerous,' the patfrisk of the juvenile was unlawful and the evidence should have been suppressed," Justice Grant wrote, quoting the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's decision Commonwealth v. Torres-Pagan.

The minor, identified by the pseudonym Vihaan V. in the opinion, was searched on May 16, 2021, after a woman called the police to report "three guys with guns" in the backyard of her home in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood, according to the ruling.

The police who responded searched several people who were congregated in the area and didn't find any weapons, the ruling said. The police then pulled four people out of a nearby vehicle because one of the passengers matched the caller's description of a Black man wearing black Nike Air Force shoes and all black clothing, according to the opinion.

Vihaan did not match the caller's description of any of the men with guns, but he was also ordered to step out of the vehicle and searched, the ruling said. Officers found a gun in his waistband, and he was charged in a delinquency complaint with unauthorized possession of a gun and ammunition, according to the decision.

The panel did not determine whether it was reasonable for the officers to order Vihaan out of the vehicle.

But "even assuming it was reasonable," the police did not meet the "more stringent" burden for searching Vihaan, Justice Grant wrote.

The panel said the SJC's Torres-Pagan decision made clear that to search someone for weapons after a traffic stop, officers must have specific facts to support a belief that the person is carrying a weapon.

"Neither of the police witnesses who testified at the suppression hearing articulated any basis for believing that the juvenile was armed and dangerous," Justice Grant said.

The court said the "mere fact" that Vihaan was in the same car as someone who matched the caller's description was not enough to create reasonable suspicion that he was armed, nor was the fact that police had responded three days earlier to an unconnected report of gunshots fired in the same area.

The commonwealth argued, according to the opinion, that the person matching the description of the armed man could have passed a gun to one of the other occupants of the vehicle, including Vihaan.

But the panel rejected the idea that "the hypothetical possibility that a firearm could be transferred from one person to another" could create grounds for a search, "absent some indication that a transfer actually occurred here."

The dark blue clothes Vihaan was wearing did not justify the search either, the panel said "given the vagueness of the descriptions in the 911 calls," which described the armed men as wearing all-black outfits, and "the commonness of the clothing described."

The commonwealth's argument that police hadn't found any guns after searching several people near the caller's home, giving them reason to keep searching, "comes perilously close to saying that everyone in the area should be subject to police search," Justice Grant wrote.

Vihaan was adjudicated delinquent for carrying a firearm without a license and possession of ammunition without a firearm identification card after the trial judge denied his motion to suppress the gun and other evidence from the patfrisk.

The appeals court set aside the delinquency findings and ordered the complaint to be dismissed.

The minor's attorney, Taylor Henley of the Committee for Public Counsel Services, thanked the panel for its "careful consideration" of the case.

"Patfrisks are serious intrusions into bodily autonomy, and Massachusetts law is clear that police can't frisk someone unless they have specific, articulable facts suggesting that he is armed and dangerous. The commonwealth didn't have any here," Henley said in a statement provided to Law360.

The Suffolk County District Attorney's Office, which prosecuted the case, declined to comment. 

Justices Joseph M. Ditkoff, Kathryn E. Hand and Marguerite T. Grant sat on the panel for the Appeals Court.

The commonwealth is represented by Lindsey Conkey of the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office.

Vihaan is represented by Taylor Henley of the Committee for Public Counsel Services.

The case is Commonwealth v. Vihaan V., case number 25-P-500, in the Appeals Court for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

--Editing by Patrick Reagan.

Update: This article has been updated with a comment from counsel for the minor defendant.

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