Last week, the Supreme Judicial Court reaffirmed that in Massachusetts, evidence unlawfully obtained from a police search will be excluded in criminal trials even in cases in which the police had good reason to believe the search was legal. That ruling buttresses a longstanding difference between federal law and Massachusetts law. In federal court, prosecutors can insulate…
Massachusetts courts often require individuals on probation, particularly sex offenders, to wear GPS monitors that track their every movement. Imposing this requirement, the state’s highest court said for the first time recently, is a search, meaning that a judge can only lawfully require such monitoring after making an individualized determination that balances “the Commonwealth’s need to impose monitoring…
Recently, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled on what the government must show in order to obtain an order compelling a defendant to enter his password into a locked phone. While holding that compelling such an act is testimonial in nature and does implicate a person’s right against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment and…
How does a court determine when consensual sex becomes rape? That is the question the Supreme Judicial Court just tackled in Commonwealth v. Sherman. The facts of the case are not relevant to the legal question at issue; it is enough to know that the defendant argued that he had entirely consensual sexual intercourse with the victim, while the victim claimed that the entire…
The “First Step” bill now circulating in the U.S. Senate promises to make some changes to sentencing and imprisonment that would ameliorate harsh penalties and treatment. However, it does not go far enough, and in some cases it actually takes a step backward. There are multiple provisions, but I will…
In 2011, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (“DPH”) discovered that state lab chemist Annie Dookhan had tampered with drug samples and falsified drug analyses submitted to DPH’s Hinton drug testing lab in Boston, where she was employed as an analyst, and that the tainted results were then used as…
In an October 2017 opinion, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided that a judge could no longer instruct a jury about a defendant’s refusal to take a breathalyzer test unless the defendant requested the instruction. An individual stopped on suspicion of operating a vehicle under the influence, more commonly known…
Earlier this month, the Supreme Judicial Court held that a defendant has a right to enter a “conditional plea.” A conditional plea allows a defendant to plead guilty but preserves the defendant’s right to appeal some of the trial court’s rulings on legal issues. If the defendant wins the appeal,…
Marijuana has been in the news this summer. Medical marijuana has been increasingly available in Massachusetts since it was approved, first by voters then by the legislature in 2012. There are currently 36 medical marijuana dispensaries regularly providing marijuana to medical cardholders. In the first half of 2018 well over…
Justice Gaziano, of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (“SJC”), makes a proclamation in the first paragraph of that Court’s recent decision in Commonwealth v. Wilbur W. that may be startling to many members of the public, especially teenagers: “When two minors have consensual sexual relations, both of whom are members…