Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog

Many cities across the country use unreliable measures to justify racially motivated, unconstitutional, stops and searches disguised as a traffic stop. In Commonwealth v. Bailey-Sweeting, the Supreme Judicial Court has the opportunity to make one of these incidents right. Despite the Black population of New Bedford making up just 7%…

Circuit Split Arises Concerning the Legality of Video-Recording Law Enforcement Civilian recordings of police officers are a relatively new concept. The entire world viewed the cell phone video footage of George Floyd. This video was the focal point of the incident and sparked mass protests around the nation. The prosecution…

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Decides Parent-Child Testimony Privilege In Massachusetts evidence law, there are limits on who may give testimony in various civil and criminal proceedings. One set of limitations is found in a Massachusetts statute that applies to the testimony of a parent or minor child against another in…

Prison Medical Abuse Case Pending Before the United States Supreme Court The United States unfortunately has one of the highest prison populations in the entire world. With our large prison population, especially in the midst of the COVD-19 pandemic, health issues in prison are very common. But what happens when…

Massachusetts Court of Appeals Decides a Classroom Death Threat Case  In the years following the 1999 Columbine shootings, the United States has seen approximately 284 mass shootings in schools across the country. Due to this tragic fact, threats of violence in schools are taken very seriously.  In a recent decision…

Circuit Split Arises Over Transgender Prisoner Rights It is well known that the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution prevents cruel and unusual punishment.  However, what constitutes cruel and unusual punishment is a decision that is left to the court’s’ discretion.  There is a deep divide as to whether core issues…

Massachusetts Appellate Court Decides Text Message Restraining Order Case A typical restraining order prohibits contact between two people, typically in a domestic violence or stalking situation. But what qualifies as contact? Are text messages from a certain phone number considered “contact” even though there is no way to prove who…

Massachusetts Appellate Court Decides Sex-Crimes Case With No Sexual Offense Is it possible to be labeled as a sex offender when no sexual assault ever occurred? The Massachusetts Court of Appeals decided this question in the case of John Doe v. Sex Offender Registry Board. What happened in the Doe…

The Sixth Amendment promises the right to confront an adverse witness. However, when the witness is on the other end of a 911 call, this can lead to tricky constitutional issues. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court will soon decide a confrontation clause issue in Commonwealth v. Rand. Hopefully, the SJC…

The Massachusetts Court of Appeals held that pretextual inventory searches do not comport with the Fourth Amendment in the case of Commonwealth v. Lek. In the Lek case from Lowell the police detective conceded that he was using traffic infractions in order to detective gang activity.  In other words, traffic…