Your Shield Against Criminal Prosecution
Massachusetts law permits police officers to conduct OUI/DUI roadblocks, or what is legally known as “field sobriety checkpoints.” For OUI/DUI roadblocks to be constitutionally valid, the selection of vehicles to be stopped must not be arbitrary; safety must be assured; motorists’ inconvenience must be minimized; and assurance must be given that the procedure to be conducted is pursuant to a…
In a recent decision in Commonwealth v. Garvey, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court agreed with the defendant that the habitual criminal statute required that the underlying convictions be based on separate incidents of criminal episodes. Because, in this case, the prosecutor failed to submit evidence to the grand jury that the prior criminal episodes arose from separate incidents, the supreme…
In the execution of a search warrant by Boston Police of a multi-family home, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld a superior court ruling that the seizure of a shotgun was improper. Clarifying the protections of the 4th Amendment to the United States Constitution, the SJC affirmed intrusion into the “curtilage” of a common area of the multi-family property intruded…
The Massachusetts Appeals Court last week upheld a District Court judge’s suppression order of a firearm found in a car after it was unlawfully impounded by police. The defendant in the case was charged in the case was charged in the district court with unlawfully carrying a firearm without a license, and unlawful possession of a firearm or ammunition. The…
In response to the challenge to alcohol breath test results involving the Alcotest 9510, a Massachusetts judge has recently ruled that the BAT results for yielded by this machine for the period between June 2012 and September 2014 are unreliable and inadmissible at trial. Results yielded after September 14, 2014, he further ruled, are admissible. In Massachusetts, it is estimated…
The Massachusetts Appeals Court recently reversed the conviction of a man who was found guilty after trial in the Cambridge District Court of gun/firearms charges, including unlawful possession of a firearm. The issue on appeal concerned the pre-trial motion to suppress challenge of the defendant, who argued that he was unlawfully seized and searched by police because they lacked reasonable…
The defendant in Commonwealth v. Palacios claimed that the ambulance records should not have been admitted against her at his OUI/DUI trial and that references to her intoxication should have been redacted. The Massachusetts Appeals Court, however, concluded that the ambulance records were properly admitted as records of medical services. This case began when the defendant ran a stop sign…
A criminal defendant appealed his conviction for possession of a loaded firearm without a license after trial where he was acquitted of the “predicate” offense of unlawful possession of a firearm. The Massachusetts Appeals Court held that a conviction on these verdicts could not stand because the crime of possession of a loaded firearm is a “sentencing enhancement”, which does…
The Massachusetts Appeals Court recently affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of an OUI/DUI indictment because of the Commonwealth’s violation of the “No-Fix Law”. In the case of Commonwealth v. Burnham, the appeals court upheld the trial court’s dismissal where the defendant did not receive prompt and definite notice of the OUI/DUI charge for which he was subsequently charged; and the…
The Massachusetts Appeals Court recently considered whether it was reasonable for Boston Police officers to seize and inventory the contents of a defendant’s backpack that was in the backseat of an unregistered and uninsured vehicle he was operating. In the case of Commonwealth v. Nicoleau, where the car was parked in front of the defendant’s home where he lived with his…