Criminal Defense Blog

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.

Posted by Parker Scheer LLP | Permalink | Email This Post

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.

Posted by Parker Scheer LLP | Permalink | Email This Post

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

MARCH 24, 2014

In a recent unpublished opinion, the Massachusetts Appeals Court reversed a judgment against a criminal defendant who had been sentenced by a superior court judge under the sentencing enhancement provisions of the Massachusetts Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA). In relevant part, the ACCA applies to any person who has been previously and in separate instances been convicted of three violent crimes, or three serious drug offenses, or any combination of violent crimes or serious drug offenses that total three. Under the ACCA, if a person with such a criminal history is found to be in unlawful possession of a firearm under the applicable Massachusetts firearms laws, he may face a sentence of 15 to 20 years in prison. The statute defines a “violent crime” as, among other criteria, a crime that involved the use or possession of a “deadly weapon.”

In Commonwealth v. Boyd, the defendant’s adult criminal record included convictions for the unlicensed carrying of a firearm and unlawful possession of ammunition. However, the defendant also had juvenile convictions for assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, assault by means of a dangerous weapon, and assault and battery on a public employee. In this case, the defendant was further convicted of unlawful possession of a sawed-off shotgun, unlawful possession of ammunition without a firearms identification card, unlawful possession of a loaded sawed-off shotgun, unlawful discharge of a firearm, and two counts of reckless endangerment of a child.

Posted by O’Brien Law Boston | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Appeals Court , Criminal Activity , Criminal Allegations , Firearms Charges , Guns , Sentencing

MARCH 31, 2014

In Commonwealth v. Lobo, the defendant was convicted of two counts of assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, after he was tried for the shootings of two brothers on Hancock Street in Brockton in 2005. At trial, the Commonwealth called only one eyewitness to testify. That witness, the victims’ father, testified that he heard rapid gunshots fired while a white car was driving in front of him and his sons. He did not see a gun, a muzzle flash, or the faces of any of the people in the car. He was unable to say whether the gunshot sounds had come from the area of the white car, but assumed that they had.

The father further testified that when the white car drove away, he discovered that his sons had both been shot. He then heard the car return at a high speed and a car door open. He momentarily saw a male, who he later identified as the defendant, standing outside of the car. The father testified that he then heard two or three more shots fired, but he could not tell where those shots had come from. He never saw a gun in the defendant’s possession.

Posted by O’Brien Law Boston | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Appeals Court , Assault and Battery , Criminal Activity , Criminal Allegations , Evidence , Firearms Charges , Shootings

APRIL 14, 2014

Last week, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) reversed a superior court judge’s denial of a motion to suppress statements made by a defendant after he invoked his right to remain silent. The SJC found that the defendant sufficiently indicated to the interrogating officer that he was invoking that right.

In Commonwealth v. Hearns, the defendant was charged with the murder of a fourteen-year-old boy and the wounding of a fifteen-year-old boy in Jamaica Plain. The police suspected that the boys were shot in connection with a feud between two rival gangs in the area. According to their investigation, the defendant had admitted to a witness that he and others drove up to a basketball court on Heath Street, and the defendant, at the direction of older members in his gang, approached the victims, shot at them multiple times, and fled back to the vehicle and drove away. The defendant had also allegedly admitted his participation in the murder to another witness. That witness agreed to cooperate with the police, and consented to wearing a concealed recording device. During a recorded conversation between the defendant and the cooperating witness in an automobile, the defendant described how he committed the shooting.

Posted by O’Brien Law Boston | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Criminal Allegations , Fatal Shooting , Firearms , Gangs , Guns , Murder , Right to Remain Silent , Shootings , Wiretapping