Vehicle Impoundment and Inventory Searches in Massachusetts: The Appeals Court Decision in Commonwealth v. Beechman

By Attorney Joe Serpa | Georgetown University Law Center

September 28, 2026

At about 1 A.M. on September 2, 2024, Boston police officers on patrol in Dorchester saw that the registration on an Acura sport utility vehicle had expired. The officers confirmed through their database that the registration was expired and non-renewable, activated their lights, and stopped the vehicle. The driver, Lorenzo Beechman, was the only person in the vehicle, and he pulled off the road into a gasoline station as directed. The vehicle belonged to his girlfriend. One officer testified that he intended to tow the vehicle the moment he stopped it, because his commanding officer had instructed him to impound, tow, and inventory any vehicle with an expired registration. The officers had the vehicle towed and searched the passenger compartment. Under the front passenger seat they found a loaded firearm. The Commonwealth then charged Beechman with unlawful possession of a firearm and related offenses under G. L. c. 269.

Read the full decision: Commonwealth v. Beechman, No. 25-P-1082 (Mass. App. Ct. Sept. 21, 2026).

The motion to suppress and what the Superior Court judge decided

A motion to suppress asks a judge to exclude evidence that the police obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution or Article 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. Beechman filed a motion to suppress the firearm, and a Superior Court judge held an evidentiary hearing. The judge allowed the motion and ordered the firearm excluded from evidence. The judge found that impounding the vehicle was not reasonably necessary and that the officers had acted against their own department policy. The judge found that the vehicle was not obstructing traffic, was not on a public way, and could have been parked to await a tow truck in a number of locations. The judge also found that the officers never asked Beechman or his girlfriend whether either of them wished to arrange an alternative to a police tow.

What the Appeals Court decided

The Appeals Court affirmed the Superior Court judge’s order allowing the motion to suppress. The court decided the appeal through an unusual procedure. The appeal began before a three-justice panel, and after the panel circulated a proposed majority opinion and a proposed dissent, all of the justices of the Appeals Court decided to participate under G. L. c. 211A, § 11. The justices then split evenly. When the Appeals Court divides equally, the court affirms the lower court’s order in the case before it, but the decision does not create binding precedent that other courts must follow. Eleven justices, in an opinion by Justice D’Angelo, concluded that the firearm was properly suppressed. Eleven justices, in an opinion by Justice Meade, would have reversed the suppression order and allowed the firearm into evidence.

Because the appeal was an interlocutory appeal, meaning an appeal the Commonwealth took before trial, the Superior Court will now try the case without the suppressed firearm.

When Massachusetts law allows the police to impound and inventory a vehicle

An inventory search is a warrantless search that the police conduct to catalog the contents of a vehicle they have taken into custody. The lawfulness of an inventory search depends on whether the police lawfully impounded the vehicle in the first place. Impoundment happens when the police take custody of a vehicle and arrange to have it towed and stored.

The Supreme Judicial Court has held that an impoundment must serve a legitimate, non-investigatory purpose, and it must be reasonably necessary based on the totality of the circumstances. See Commonwealth v. Goncalves-Mendez, 484 Mass. 80, 83 (2020). See also Commonwealth v. Oliveira, 474 Mass. 10, 13 (2016). The concurring justices identified the recognized purposes that can justify impoundment. The police may impound a vehicle to protect the vehicle and its contents from theft or vandalism, to protect the public from dangerous items inside the vehicle, to protect public safety where the vehicle as parked creates a dangerous condition, or to spare a private property owner the burden of a vehicle left behind after the driver is arrested. See Oliveira, 474 Mass. at 13-14.

The concurring justices held that the Commonwealth did not meet its burden to justify the impoundment under any of these purposes. Beechman was not under arrest when the officers decided to impound the vehicle. The vehicle sat in a gasoline station lot, not on a public way, and it created no hazard. Under Goncalves-Mendez, when a passenger or another person is available to take custody of a vehicle, the police must consider that practical alternative before impounding the vehicle. The officers here never asked Beechman or his girlfriend whether she wished to retrieve her own vehicle. On these findings, the concurring justices concluded that the impoundment was not reasonably necessary, so the inventory search that produced the firearm was unlawful.

What the decision means for a driver stopped in Massachusetts

A traffic violation, including an expired registration, does not by itself give the police authority to impound and search a vehicle. The Commonwealth must prove that the impoundment served a legitimate, non-investigatory purpose and that impounding the vehicle was reasonably necessary under the circumstances. Where the driver is not under arrest, where the vehicle is parked safely off the roadway, and where another person is available to take the vehicle, a Massachusetts judge can find the impoundment unreasonable and suppress whatever the inventory search produced.

The equal division of the Appeals Court also shows that experienced judges disagree about how these rules apply to a stopped vehicle. A defendant charged after a vehicle search should expect the Commonwealth to defend the impoundment, and the specific facts of the stop, the location of the vehicle, and the available alternatives to a police tow will shape the outcome of a motion to suppress.

Key Takeaways

• An inventory search of a vehicle is lawful only when the police lawfully impounded the vehicle first.
• The Commonwealth must prove that an impoundment served a legitimate, non-investigatory purpose and was reasonably necessary under the totality of the circumstances.
• When another person is available to take custody of the vehicle, the police must consider that alternative before impounding it. See Commonwealth v. Goncalves-Mendez, 484 Mass. 80 (2020).
• In Commonwealth v. Beechman, an equally divided Appeals Court affirmed the suppression of a firearm found during an inventory search after officers impounded a lawfully parked vehicle without asking whether the owner wished to retrieve it.
• A decision by an equally divided Appeals Court affirms the order in that case, but it does not create binding precedent for later cases.

Related Serpa Law Office resources

• Illegal Searches and Seizures in Massachusetts: Motions to Suppress
• Massachusetts Criminal Defense of Firearms Offenses
• Massachusetts Criminal Law Updates