Commonwealth v. T.D.

State Parole Agents were conducting a routine visit with T.D. outside of his residence where they observed him take a blue schoolbag out of the trunk of his car. Agents told him to stay still and went to retrieve the bag from him. T.D. yanked the bag away and fled from the area. He returned 15 minutes later without the bag and told agents he ran because he had a little bit of weed on him. Based on his flight and admission to being in possession of marijuana, a parole search was conducted at T.D.’s house approximately one week later. During the search, agents recovered the blue bag which contained a firearm and identification in the name of T.D. He was subsequently arrested. The defense filed a motion to suppress challenging the parole agent’s authority to attempt to seize T.D.’s bag, and argued that the parole search was tainted by their illegal actions. A judge agreed with the defense, forcing the District Attorney to withdraw charges. In addition, because the judge ruled that the parole agents acted unconstitutionally, State Parole will be unable to violate his parole and attempt to give him “back time” or street time”.