Commonwealth v. Laqwon Brooks.

NOTICE: Summary decisions issued by the Appeals Court pursuant to M.A.C. Rule
23.0, as appearing in 97 Mass. App. Ct. 1017 (2020) (formerly known as rule 1:28,
as amended by 73 Mass. App. Ct. 1001 [2009]), are primarily directed to the parties
and, therefore, may not fully address the facts of the case or the panel's
decisional rationale. Moreover, such decisions are not circulated to the entire
court and, therefore, represent only the views of the panel that decided the case.
A summary decision pursuant to rule 23.0 or rule 1:28 issued after February 25,
2008, may be cited for its persuasive value but, because of the limitations noted
above, not as binding precedent. See Chace v. Curran, 71 Mass. App. Ct. 258, 260
n.4 (2008).

COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS

APPEALS COURT

25-P-621

COMMONWEALTH

vs.

LAQWON BROOKS.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 23.0

After a December 2023 trial by jury in the Superior Court,

the defendant was convicted of possession of a firearm without a

firearms identification (FID) card and possession of ammunition

without an FID card. The defendant appeals, arguing that the

Commonwealth's evidence was insufficient to prove that the

defendant did not have a firearm license. The Commonwealth now

concedes that the evidence at trial was insufficient to sustain

the defendant's convictions. Based on the clear Supreme

Judicial Court case law, see Commonwealth v. Smith, 496 Mass.

304, 315-318 (2025), we agree that there was insufficient

evidence to sustain the defendant's convictions. We accordingly
reverse the judgments, set aside the verdicts, and remand for

entry of judgments in favor of the defendant.

To convict the defendant of the firearm and ammunition

charges, the Commonwealth was required to establish that the

defendant did not have a license to carry or an FID card. See

Commonwealth v. Guardado, 491 Mass. 666, 690-693 (2023), S.C.,

493 Mass. 1 (2023), cert. denied, 144 S. Ct. 2683 (2024). As to

this element, the Commonwealth relied on the testimony of Phil

Dowd, an employee of the Department of Criminal Justice

Information Services, whose role is to "run queries [of the

firearms licensing database] . . . and testify in firearms

trials throughout the state." Dowd testified that he ran a

search of the firearms licensing database using a name

pronounced as "Laqwon Brooks" and a birth date of March 3, 1990

-- this search, as testified to by Dowd, did not produce any

licensing records. Dowd, however, did not testify as to how he

spelled the name he searched. Moreover, the Commonwealth did

not adduce evidence that established that the defendant's

birthdate was March 3, 1990.

At trial, the defendant moved for a required finding of not

guilty after the Commonwealth rested its case. The judge denied

the motion. The jury found the defendant guilty of the firearm

possession charges, as described above. Prior to the trial on

the sentencing enhancements, the defendant filed a renewed

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motion for a required finding of not guilty, arguing that the

Commonwealth failed to introduce sufficient evidence of the

defendant's lack of licensure. The judge denied the defendant's

motion, and thereafter, the defendant pleaded guilty to the

armed career criminal sentencing enhancements that correlated

with his convictions. The parties agreed to a sentencing

recommendation of from three to four years in State prison,

which the judge adopted. The defendant filed a timely notice of

appeal.

On appeal, the Commonwealth submitted a letter to this

court on October 9, 2025, which stated the following:

"After reviewing the defendant's brief, the transcript of
the trial underlying the above-referenced case and the
exhibits admitted at trial, the Commonwealth is constrained
to concede that the evidence at trial was insufficient to
sustain the defendant's convictions of possession of a
firearm without a firearms identification card and
possession of ammunition without a firearms identification
card. Accordingly, the Commonwealth agrees that the
defendant's convictions must be vacated and the charges
against him dismissed."

We agree with the defendant and the Commonwealth that there

was insufficient evidence to sustain the defendant's

convictions. The Supreme Judicial Court's recent decision in

Smith, 496 Mass. at 304, which examined the same evidentiary

issues that are at issue here, is directly on point. In Smith,

Phil Dowd, the same witness as in the case before us, testified

that he ran a licensing search using a name pronounced as

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"Quentin Smith," and a birth date of June 23, 2002. Id. at 307,

316. The Commonwealth, however, failed to produce any evidence

that June 23, 2002, was, in fact, the defendant's birth date.

Id. at 316-317. Based on this omission, the court concluded

that the evidence was insufficient to prove the defendant's lack

of licensure. Id. at 318. The court reasoned that, because the

"probative value of Dowd's testimony . . . depended on the birth

date used to search the database," the absence of any

substantive evidence of the defendant's birth date made the

probative value of Dowd's testimony "vanishingly slight"

(quotation and citation omitted). Id. at 317. The court based

its decision on the observation that "even if a person does have

a firearm license, a search for that person's name will return

no result if the person's birth date is entered incorrectly."

Id.

As noted above, here the Commonwealth failed to produce any

evidence proving that the defendant's birth date was March 3,

1990. As in Smith, without this evidence Dowd's testimony that

his search failed to produce a firearm license lacked probative

value as to whether the defendant was licensed. See Smith, 496

Mass. at 317.

As Smith indicates, the lack of evidence regarding the

spelling of the name inputted into the firearm database also

raises issues regarding the sufficiency of the Commonwealth's

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evidence. The probative value of Dowd's testimony here depends,

in part, on whether Dowd spelled the defendant's name correctly

in his search of the database, especially given the various ways

the defendant's name could be spelled. See Smith, 496 Mass. at

307, 317. Here, there was no evidence of how Dowd spelled the

defendant's name when he conducted his search of the database.

The judgments are reversed, and we set aside the verdicts

and remand for entry of judgments in favor of the defendant.

So ordered.

By the Court (Ditkoff,
Englander & D'Angelo, JJ.1),

Clerk

Entered: October 31, 2025.

1 The panelists are listed in order of seniority.

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