{"id":1681,"date":"2018-08-28T12:47:38","date_gmt":"2018-08-28T16:47:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/?p=1681"},"modified":"2018-08-29T10:20:15","modified_gmt":"2018-08-29T14:20:15","slug":"oui-drugs-in-massachusetts-how-are-these-case-prosecuted-in-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/oui-drugs-in-massachusetts-how-are-these-case-prosecuted-in-court\/","title":{"rendered":"OUI drugs in Massachusetts:   How the District Attorney prosecutes these cases in Court"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided the case of <em>Commonwealth v. Gerhardt<\/em>, many wondered how the Commonwealth would prove OUI Marijuana cases in Court. \u00a0Charges involving OUI drugs, including marijuana are difficult to prove. \u00a0However, these cases are still being prosecuted in the court.<\/p>\n<p>The SJC in <em>Gerhardt<\/em> did not exclude field sobriety tests, now referred to as assessments from being offered into evidence in Court. \u00a0It placed limitations on how this evidence can be presented to the jury and what its ultimate weight should be in assessing whether the Commonwealth has proven the case beyond a reasonable doubt. \u00a0 OUI marijuana cases\u00a0will be prosecuted based on the observations of the driving, the field tests, admissions of the person consuming marijuana, the smell of marijuana, evidence of drugs found in the car.<\/p>\n<p>This case was the first case to hold that field sobriety tests are not scientific tests of impairment by marijuana and that a jury should get a cautionary instruction when presented with this evidence.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>The Court also held that officers could not testify as lay witnesses that someone was impaired by marijuana.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/oui-drugs-in-massachusetts-how-are-these-case-prosecuted-in-court\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading OUI drugs in Massachusetts:   How the District Attorney prosecutes these cases in Court\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided the case of Commonwealth v. Gerhardt, many wondered how the Commonwealth would prove OUI Marijuana cases in Court. \u00a0Charges involving OUI drugs, including marijuana are difficult to prove. \u00a0However, these cases are still being prosecuted in the court. The SJC in Gerhardt did not exclude field sobriety tests, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dui-drugs"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>OUI drugs in Massachusetts:  How the District Attorney prosecutes these cases in Court &#8212; Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog &#8212; August 28, 2018<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"After the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided the case of Commonwealth v. Gerhardt, many wondered how the Commonwealth would prove OUI Marijuana &#8212; August 28, 2018\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/oui-drugs-in-massachusetts-how-are-these-case-prosecuted-in-court\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"OUI drugs in Massachusetts:  How the District Attorney prosecutes these cases in Court &#8212; Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog &#8212; August 28, 2018\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"After the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided the case of Commonwealth v. Gerhardt, many wondered how the Commonwealth would prove OUI Marijuana &#8212; August 28, 2018\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Michael DelSignore\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"OUI drugs in Massachusetts:  How the District Attorney prosecutes these cases in Court &#8212; Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog &#8212; August 28, 2018","description":"After the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided the case of Commonwealth v. 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