Commonwealth v. Grimaldi: The SJC Allows Checkpoint Bodycam Recordings of Field Sobriety Tests

By Attorney Joe Serpa | Georgetown University Law Center | Massachusetts Criminal Defense Since 1995

On June 2, 2026, the Supreme Judicial Court decided Commonwealth v. Grimaldi, SJC-13842. The court addressed whether the Commonwealth can use bodycam recordings of a driver’s field sobriety tests when no one told the driver he was being recorded. Defendants in Massachusetts sobriety checkpoint cases have raised that question since troopers began wearing body cameras. The court held that the Commonwealth can use the recordings so long as the police did not intend to record secretly.

The court reversed a suppression order. Under the decision, prosecutors can use bodycam video in DUI checkpoint cases. Defense counsel still has a narrower but real set of recording challenges. Defense counsel can also raise the questions that the court declined to decide.

The Checkpoint on Page Boulevard

On the night of March 14, 2024, the State Police ran a sobriety checkpoint on Page Boulevard in Springfield. At about 11:30 P.M., the defendant pulled his pickup truck into the checkpoint. A trooper noticed the smell of alcohol, slurred speech, and glassy eyes, and directed the defendant to the checkpoint pit. The pit was the secondary screening area in a parking lot off the roadway, lit by floodlights and staffed by at least twelve uniformed troopers.

Near the entrance to the pit stood a large, highly reflective orange or yellow sign reading, in substance, checkpoint, video and audio recording. The motion judge found no evidence that the defendant ever saw the sign. No trooper told him he was being recorded.

Two troopers wearing body cameras administered the nine-step walk and turn and the one leg stand. The cameras were mounted at chest level and showed red lights while recording. During the walk and turn, one trooper took his camera off his jacket, held it in his hand, and pointed it at the defendant’s feet for the roughly forty seconds of the test. The defendant was arrested for operating under the influence of liquor, G.L. c. 90, § 24 (1) (a) (1), and learned of the recordings only at the barracks.

The Wiretap Statute and the Suppression Order

The Massachusetts wiretap statute, G.L. c. 272, § 99, makes it a crime to willfully intercept an oral communication. The statute defines an interception as secretly recording a communication without prior authority from all parties. G.L. c. 272, § 99 B 4, C 1. A body-worn camera is an intercepting device under the statute. Commonwealth v. Rainey, 491 Mass. 632, 637 (2023).

A defendant whose communications were intercepted in violation of the statute may move to suppress them, G.L. c. 272, § 99 P. A judge must suppress both the audio and the video of an audio-visual recording made in violation of the statute. Commonwealth v. Du, 495 Mass. 103, 104 (2024). The District Court judge found that the defendant was not reasonably put on notice of any recording and suppressed the footage. A single justice allowed the Commonwealth’s interlocutory appeal. The Supreme Judicial Court then took the case on its own motion.

Willfulness Requires an Intent to Record Secretly

The court reversed. Writing for a unanimous bench, Justice Gaziano held that suppression requires a willful interception. The court also held that willfulness requires not merely an intent to record but an intent to record secretly, an intent to record someone without their knowledge. The court held that the record could not support a finding that the troopers intended to record secretly. The reflective roadside sign showed that the troopers intended to notify motorists that they were being recorded, whatever this driver noticed.

The cameras were worn openly with visible red lights, the pit was brightly lit, and a trooper held his camera in plain view and pointed it at the defendant’s feet. Police who record in plain view are not recording secretly. An open recording does not become a willful interception because the driver did not notice it.

The court relied on an analogy to its jail telephone cases, Commonwealth v. Ennis, 439 Mass. 64 (2003), and Commonwealth v. Boyarsky, 452 Mass. 700 (2008). In those cases, a recorded warning played for the person who answered the call. A third person who later joined the call never heard the warning. The court declined to suppress the recordings in those cases because the facilities had made affirmative efforts to give notice. Like the recorded warning, the sign at the checkpoint was an affirmative effort to tell the people being recorded that recording was underway.

A Policy Violation Is Not a Suppression Ground

The State Police body camera policy, General Order No. ADM-35, directs troopers to make every effort to tell civilians they are being recorded, with suggested language to use. No trooper told this defendant that he was being recorded.

The court held that even a failure to follow the policy would not change the outcome, because a violation of a written police policy is not an independent ground for suppression under § 99 P. The court contrasted the inventory search and strip search settings, where compliance with written procedures is part of the constitutional analysis. The court explained that the wiretap statute is not a constitutional inquiry that depends on a reasonable expectation of privacy. Commonwealth v. Jackson, 370 Mass. 502, 506 (1976).

Questions the Court Left Open in Grimaldi

The court decided the case entirely on willfulness and expressly declined to decide whether the troopers secretly recorded the defendant at all. The question of secret recording remains open. Defense counsel can still argue that a recording made without effective notice is a secret one. The defense therefore still examines the notice facts of each checkpoint. The notice facts include where the sign stood, whether it was lit and legible at the point of decision, what the officers said, and whether the cameras were visible to a driver focused on a roadside test at midnight.

The court in Grimaldi also did not change the holding of Du, where the Supreme Judicial Court suppressed the audio and video of an undercover drug purchase recorded without any notice at all. Under Grimaldi and Du, a court admits a recording made openly with affirmative notice efforts and suppresses a covert recording. Defense counsel bases a suppression motion on a record of the order in which the notice facts developed at a particular checkpoint.

What Grimaldi Means for a Pending Checkpoint OUI

The decision has practical consequences for both the prosecution and the defense. Prosecutors will offer checkpoint bodycam video more freely. Defense counsel should demand the complete video, because the video that shows the walk and turn also shows how the test was instructed, how the pavement sloped, and how a nervous, sober driver can look at midnight under floodlights.

The recording challenge is narrower after Grimaldi. Defense counsel can still raise the challenge where the police made less extensive notice efforts than the troopers on Page Boulevard. The older checkpoint defenses remain available after the decision. Police must follow the written checkpoint guidelines in full. Officers also need reasonable suspicion before they send a driver to the secondary screening area. The checkpoint requirements and the court decisions on them are covered on the firm’s page on Massachusetts sobriety checkpoints and DUI roadblocks.

Related Serpa Law Office resources

The firm’s pages on OUI and DUI defense, field sobriety test defense, and the Massachusetts wiretap law cover the legal background of this decision. The DUI checkpoint FAQs answer the questions drivers ask about roadblocks. The wiretap and secret recording FAQs address recording law more broadly. The page on breath test and blood alcohol science covers the breath test that police usually offer after a checkpoint arrest.

The related challenges are collected on the pages on traffic stops and exit orders and illegal searches and seizures, in the OUI FAQs, and in the post on the breath test exclusion after Ananias. For a checkpoint arrest anywhere in Greater Boston, call 617.936.0201 for a confidential consultation.