Your Shield Against Criminal Prosecution
A first-time driving under the influence (DUI) arrest in Boston can affect your job, housing opportunities or relationships. In addition, you may be anxious about the resulting public exposure harming your reputation or other long-term consequences. Your concerns are...
Getting charged with operating under the influence (OUI) in Massachusetts can feel overwhelming, but it doesn't always mean facing the worst possible outcome. While each case differs, you can potentially reduce the legal penalties you face. Understanding your options...
The law is ever-changing. Society changes. Ideologies change. And technology advances. It is often difficult for the court’s to keep up with changes in the world and implementing or amending laws that are fair or outdated. But this is particularly so when it comes to cell phone technology and how to balance or implement the appropriate legal safeguards so that…
Although criminal defendants charged with 1st degree murder in Massachusetts do not have a right to bail, the Supreme Judicial Court recently ruled that a judge has discretion to afford them with a bail. In its decision in Vasquez v. Commonwealth, the SJC explained that bail had been granted in the court’s discretion in capital cases from early colonial times. This “common law” rule…
Legally, one doesn’t have a “right” to his/her driver’s license. In Massachusetts, a persons’s right to operate a motor vehicle is a privilege, and continued possession of this privilege is conditioned on obeying the legislature’s laws that are aimed at regulating the state’s roadways and keeping them safe. Because of this, under the Massachusetts statutory scheme, a person who drives on…
In order for any criminal trial begins, a jury must be selected. But how a jury is chosen why certain prospective jurors are excluded is not limitless. Generally, when jurors are selected from a pool (called the “venire”) they can be excluded “for cause” or because either the defendant’s attorney or the prosecutor exercised a “peremptory challenge.” A peremptory challenge…
Oftentimes, when police are searching for a suspect of a crime, they will employ an identification procedure. Identification procedures vary, and can include a photographic array; a lineup (as you might see on TV); or a one-on-one show up identification procedure. Single-photograph identification procedures, akin to a “one-on-one show-up”, involve showing a witness one photograph or one person and asking…
The Massachusetts Court of Appeals recently affirmed an order from the Superior Court holding a petitioner in contempt for refusing to abide by an order to unlock his iPhone following a request from a Middlesex County Grand Jury. A grand jury hearing facts in an ongoing investigation in Middlesex County involving an alleged assault and battery on two children requested…
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court recently considered whether police officers are permitted to testify concerning the administration of field sobriety tests (FST’s) where they suspect the driver is operating under the influence of marijuana. Unlike in cases involving alleged operation of a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol (OUI/DUI), police officers, the state’s highest court held, may not…
District Attorneys across Massachusetts this week have suspended the use of Breath Alcohol Testing (BAT) evidence in drunk driving or Operating Under the Influence cases at trial or in plea negotiations. This action follows recent claims by defense attorneys that, in prior litigation challenging the reliability of the Alcotest 9510 BAT machine, prosecutors withheld key evidence, specifically, hundred of records…