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FEBRUARY 17, 2014

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Last week, the Massachusetts Appeals Court issued an opinion in Commonwealth v. Garcia that reversed a jury’s guilty verdict on the grounds that the judge did not follow appropriate procedures in discharging a juror during deliberations.

The defendant was charged with armed robbery, and the case was tried in superior court. About approximately three hours of deliberating, the jury sent a note to the judge, stating that they had not been able to come to a unanimous decision. The judge did not believe that the jury had deliberated long enough to show a deadlock, and instructed the jury to resume deliberations the following day.

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Posted In: Appeals Court , Criminal Allegations , Jury Selection , Robbery , Theft

FEBRUARY 10, 2014

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Today, the Massachusetts Appeals Court issued its decision in Commonwealth v. Bernard, affirming the decision of a Lawrence District Court judge to suppress evidence obtained from the defendant’s vehicle when a Massachusetts State Trooper pulled the defendant’s vehicle over after observing a plastic cover on the vehicle’s rear license plate. The decision resulted in the suppression of statements and evidence supporting firearm charges against the defendant.

In June 2009, the trooper observed the defendant operating a vehicle on Route 495 southbound. The trooper, who was traveling in the first lane, allegedly was unable to see the license plate of the defendant’s vehicle, which he observed from an angle as the defendant’s vehicle traveled in the third lane. The license plate was covered with a clear, but tinted, plastic cover. For this reason only, the trooper pulled up behind the defendant’s vehicle and activated his cruiser lights to pull the defendant over. The trooper observed no other traffic violations.

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Posted In: Appeals Court , Criminal Activity , Criminal Allegations , Criminal Defense , False Charges , Guns

FEBRUARY 19, 2014

Yesterday, in a 5-2 decision, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) ruled that state law enforcement may not compel cellular telephone service providers to provide historical cell site location information for a particular cell phone without first obtaining a valid search warrant. In other words, under Article 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, the government may not use a person’s cell phone records to track that person’s physical location unless they have first obtained a search warrant supported by probable cause.

Cell phone service providers use cell sites or cell towers placed throughout particular regions, which send and receive signals from a subscriber’s cell phone that is operated within the particular region. When a subscriber makes or receives a call, a record is created of the cell site used. This information enables a cell phone service provider to approximate the location of an operating cell phone within its network based on the cell phone’s communication with cell sites in the area. The greater number of cell sites in a region, the greater the accuracy of the cell phone’s location.

Continue reading “SJC Rules Warrant Required to Obtain Cell Phone Data” »

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Posted In: Cell Phone Records , Probable Cause , Warrantless Search , Warrants

FEBRUARY 27, 2014

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This week, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) held that a defendant who had pleaded guilty to resisting arrest was entitled to a new trial on the charges, where the district court judge failed to determine that a sufficient factual basis existed for the resisting arrest charge.

The SJC analyzed the applicable criminal procedure in Commonwealth v. Hart. Under Massachusetts law, a guilty plea will generally be valid if it is made voluntarily and intelligently. To be made “intelligently,” one of three things must occur: (1) the judge explains the elements of the crime to the defendant; (2) the defendant’s attorney explains the elements of the crime to the defendant; or (3) the defendant admits the facts constituting the crime, even if he is not aware that the facts admitted amount to a crime. In this case, both the defendant and his attorney confirmed that the attorney had discussed the charges or the nature and elements of the offense. Based upon that, the district court judge accepted the guilty plea and sentenced the defendant.

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Posted In: Appeals Court , Criminal Activity , Criminal Allegations , Criminal Defense , Resisting Arrest

MARCH 10, 2014

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On March 5, 2013, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) issued its decision in Commonwealth v. Scott, relative to the standard for permitting a criminal defendant to withdraw his guilty plea in cases in which Annie Dookhan, the state forensic drug chemist, was directly involved in the analysis of drug evidence that preceded the defendant’s guilty plea. In doing so, the SJC has announced a new standard applicable to guilty pleas to address the hundreds of criminal drug cases that potentially involved Dookhan’s misconduct and may have interfered with the proper administration of criminal justice.

The SJC’s opinion recounts in detail Dookhan’s extensive misconduct and the investigations that exposed it. Dookhan’s alleged misconduct, which began as early as 2004 and occurred into 2011, included removing drug samples against lab protocol; forging the initials of evidence officers on lab records; improperly grouping samples from a number of cases together, and reporting results for all sample tests that applied only to a few tests; and intentionally contaminating samples, including turning negative samples into positive samples. Because Dookhan’s misconduct seems to have been motivated only by a desire to increase her apparent productivity, Dookhan has been unable to identify those specific cases in which she improperly tested samples or inaccurately reported on tested samples.

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Posted In: Controlled Substances , Criminal Activity , Criminal Allegations , Criminal Defense , Drug Offense

MARCH 17, 2014

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Last week, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) issued its opinion in Commonwealth v. Wade relative to the standards applicable to M.G.L. c. 278A, a statute enacted in 2012 that provides convicted and incarcerated defendants access to forensic and scientific analysis of evidence used to convict them. The statute’s purpose was “to remedy the injustice of wrongful convictions of factually innocent persons by allowing access to analyses of biological material with newer forensic and scientific techniques.”

In Wade, the defendant was convicted in 1997 of first-degree murder on a theory of felony-murder and aggravated rape. The defendant was accused of raping the 83-year-old victim who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, and who lived on the farm where the defendant worked. The victim was allegedly found naked on the defendant’s bed on the property with injuries, which later led to complications and eventually her death. Evidence found on the victim and her clothing showed the presence of semen and sperm, but neither the defendant nor the Commonwealth sought DNA testing of the evidence. Since at least 2002, the defendant has been attempting to obtain DNA testing of the physical evidence against him, with the belief that it will exonerate him of the crimes for which he has been convicted. Each such attempt has been unsuccessful.

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Posted In: Criminal Activity , Criminal Allegations , Criminal Defense , Homicide , Murder , Sex Offense