Boston Lawyer Blog

Supreme Judicial Court holds murder charges cannot be based on accidental killing of bystander in course of legitimate acts of self-defense

Published on: October 16, 2025 | by Noah Gillen

Massachusetts courts have recognized self-defense as a defense to homicide as far back as the trial following the Boston Massacre in 1770, where John Adams successfully defended all but one of a group of British soldiers who had fired into a crowd of protesters that had thrown objects at them. In all that time, however, Massachusetts courts had never definitively answered the question of whether the defense applies where in the process of defending oneself, a defendant kills an innocent bystander.

That changed on Tuesday, when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court addressed the question in its decision in Commonwealth v. Santana-Rodriguez. The defendant in the case, Kenneth Jose Santana-Rodriguez, was at a salon with his girlfriend when her former boyfriend confronted him. Revealing a gun in his waistband, the ex-boyfriend stated, “You know what’s about to happen.” Believing “it was him or [the ex-boyfriend],” the defendant drew a gun and fired at the ex-boyfriend, but instead hit Trung Tran, a salon employee, who was killed.

In its opinion, the Court concluded that Santana-Rodriguez and similarly situated defendants acting in lawful self-defense cannot be guilty of first- or second-degree murder, but can still be found guilty of involuntary manslaughter if the prosecution proves that a defendant’s exercise of self-defense “was wanton or reckless so as to create a high degree of likelihood that substantial harm would result to an unintended victim.” In coming to this conclusion, the Court applied the concept of transferred intent to the self-defense context. Transferred intent is a theory of criminal liability that allows a defendant who attempts to kill one person, but by mistake or accident kills another, to still be criminally liable for the killing because their “felonious intent is transferred from the intended victim to the unintended victim.” In the self-defense context, when a defendant uses force to defend against an aggressor, but by mistake or accident harms someone other than the aggressor, the justifiability of the defendant’s use of force in self-defense carries over, or “transfers.” As stated in the opinion, the “intent follows the bullet.”

Massachusetts state legislature considers far-reaching AI bill targeting algorithmic discrimination

Published on: October 6, 2025 | by Jackson Estrin

Following the U.S. Senate’s decision in July to remove language in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that would have limited the ability of states to regulate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the employment and hiring context, states are now free to continue to legislate in this area. In 2024, Colorado passed SB 205, one of the first state laws directly related to algorithmic discrimination. Algorithmic discrimination broadly refers to the phenomenon of using an automated decision-making tool to make or inform a decision that has the effect of discriminating against a protected class. Since the adoption of SB 205, several other states have introduced similar laws targeting the use of AI in the employment context, and following the recent spike in interest in this issue, the Massachusetts state legislature introduced SD 3007, “An Act to ensure non-discrimination by improving algorithmic system.” SD 3007 has the potential to be one of the most comprehensive laws of its kind in the entire country, and could prove to be highly influential as legislators across the country grapple with how to regulate rapidly evolving AI technology.

SD 3007

SD 3007 was introduced on June 26, 2025, and was referred to the committee on Advanced Information Technology, the Internet and Cybersecurity on September 4, 2025. The law would cover “any person, business, organization, or government agency that is subject to the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, excluding an individual acting at their own direction and in a non-commercial context.”

First Circuit Clarifies Scope of Students’ Free Speech Rights at Public Universities

Published on: August 15, 2025 | by Naomi Shatz

Where is the line between free speech and sexual harassment? Students at public schools have both the right to free speech and expression, and the right to educational environments free of discrimination and harassment. At times, these rights can seem to run headlong into each other. When one student says something derogatory or offensive to another student, whose rights prevail?

Recently the First Circuit has been developing its jurisprudence in this thorny area. Last summer the Court held that a middle school could restrict a student’s expressive activity that demeaned and offended other students—in that case, wearing a shirt that said “There are Only Two Genders.” Then last month in Doe v. University of Massachusetts et al., the Court held that a college student who made a few comments that touch on sexual topics directed at different students, coupled with some non-sexual physical acts, was engaged in constitutionally-protected expression. These two cases have started to illustrate where the boundaries of protected student speech lie.

Back to School Basics: What You Need to Know About Academic Misconduct

Published on: August 7, 2025 | by Naomi Shatz

If you or your child is accused of engaging in academic misconduct, you’ll get a crash course in how the college or university bureaucracy works to process these cases and sanction students. Before that happens–and to prevent that from happening–it is important to understand a few key points about academic misconduct in higher education.

Lesson #1: Read the handbook and syllabi

Students (and schools) are required to follow the handbooks, policies, and syllabi they receive. While sitting down to pore over hundreds of pages of regulations is no one’s idea of a fun way to start the year, students are expected to know what is in these documents, and will be sanctioned if they violate the rules they set out. It is particularly important for students to read their professor’s syllabi carefully, because each professor may have different rules about what kind of work is and is not acceptable in their class. It is the student’s responsibility to know the rules for each class they are in, and to follow those rules.

Lesson #2: Academic misconduct is a broad category

In a previous post I explained how colleges define plagiarism, probably the most common form of academic misconduct. Colleges will sanction students for plagiarism if the student intentionally or accidentally copies, quotes without proper attribution, or incorporates language or ideas from some other person into their work. Colleges also deem it plagiarism if students work together on an assignment but do not list their co-collaborators on the work they turn in.

Unauthorized use of AI is another area where students are increasingly being disciplined for academic misconduct. Each school, and each professor, may have different rules about whether and how students can use AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grammarly, and CoPilot. When students are allowed to use these tools, they may be required to disclose that use. Some professors may prohibit their use altogether.

Appeals Court Reaffirms Students’ Right to Sue in Court for Sexual Harassment

Published on: July 31, 2025 | by Naomi Shatz

This week, the Appeals Court decided a case examining how students can bring claims under Chapter 151C, the Fair Educational Practices law.

In Doe 99 v. Cheffi et al., a former public high school student who alleged she had been sexually abused by a teacher sued the City of Chelsea and others for negligence and under Chapter 151C, which prohibits educational institutions from harassing students. The City moved to dismiss the Chapter 151C claim, arguing that the plaintiff was required to file her complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) before she could bring her claim in court.

SJC allows police to “double-dip” with show-cause hearings

Published on: June 24, 2025 | by Tom Miller

Free From above of stylish interior of modern conference hall with comfortable chairs and oval table Stock Photo Show-cause hearings, also known as clerk-magistrate’s hearings, are a unique feature of the Massachusetts legal system, offering many of those accused of criminal conduct but not arrested a chance to privately contest charges before they publicly issue, thus potentially avoiding the expense, uncertainty, and reputational harm associated with a formal court proceeding. Established by statute under G. L. c. 218, § 35A, the main function of show-cause hearings is to assess whether probable cause exists for the criminal charges—usually solely on the basis of a police report attached to the application for a criminal complaint. Probable cause is a low legal bar—much less than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard applied at trial—but the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) has also held that clerk-magistrates also have the discretion to “screen” or “mediate” charges that may be supported by probable cause but do not belong in the criminal justice system.

Unfortunately, in Cabrera v. Commonwealth the SJC took a step backwards with respect to the protections offered by show-cause hearings. The case began in summer 2020, when police officers responded to a noise complaint and encountered the defendant, who, according to the police, was intoxicated and had a handgun visible in one of his pockets. Although the handgun was properly licensed, police sought a criminal complaint under G. L. c. 269, § 10H, which bans possession of a loaded firearm while intoxicated. In fall 2020, a clerk-magistrate held a show-cause hearing and found no probable cause. This ruling was based on a mistaken reading of § 10H as requiring the possession to be in a motor vehicle.

The statute establishing show-cause hearings does not include any mechanism for review or appeal, but the SJC has held that a judge has inherent authority to revisit a decision not to issue the complaint if requested. In Cabrera, neither police nor prosecutors requested such a redetermination to correct the magistrate’s mistake about the meaning of § 10H. Police, however, had confiscated both the defendant’s handgun and his license to carry after the incident, and did not return them. Two years after the hearing, the defendant went to the police station at least three times to demand them back; police refused to return his belongings. At one point, the defendant suggested that he might sue the police department. Soon after these encounters, in May 2023, the same police officer who filed the original complaint application filed a new one, based on the same incident in 2020. A different clerk-magistrate found probable cause and allowed the criminal complaint to issue, leading to the initiation of a criminal case.

In Recent Decisions the SJC and MCAD Highlight the Broad Protections of Anti-Retaliation Law

Published on: May 27, 2025 | by Naomi Shatz

Last week, the SJC decided City of Newton v. Commonwealth Employment Relations Board, a case considering what an employee must show to make out a prima facie case of retaliation under the Massachusetts public employee collective bargaining law. The week before, the MCAD decided MCAD and Nom v. Acton Auto Body Inc. et al., also assessing what evidence an employee claiming retaliation must show to make out a prima facie case.

City of Newton was brought on behalf of a Newton police sergeant who also served in leadership roles in his union. In those roles, he repeatedly came into conflict with the police chief as he asserted employees’ rights under their union contract. Two years after becoming the union’s president, the police chief involuntarily transferred the sergeant from a specialty assignment in the Traffic Bureau to the Patrol Bureau. In the Traffic Bureau the sergeant had worked a regular daytime schedule with weekends off; in the Patrol Bureau he had to work nights on a rotating schedule. The transfer came with an 8% pay increase for working nights, which the sergeant said was less important to him than the regular schedule he had before the transfer.

The union filed a charge with the Department of Labor, and eventually the Commonwealth Employment Relations Board (CERB) decided that the transfer was an adverse action, and that the City had not met its burden to show that the reason for the transfer was not retaliatory. The City appealed, and the Appeals Court decided that because the sergeant received the pay increase his CBA required, the transfer was not an adverse action.

Proposed legislation would automatically seal eligible criminal records in Massachusetts

Published on: March 21, 2025 | by Niamh Gibbons

A group of Massachusetts lawmakers has introduced a bill this year that would require automatic sealing of many criminal records after specified waiting periods have passed from the end of the defendant’s sentence. The waiting periods have been part of the Commonwealth’s sealing laws for many years and, as we have previously written, were last amended in 2018, when they were reduced to seven years for a felony record and three years for a misdemeanor or delinquency record, provided the defendant has no subsequent convictions (sex offenses cannot be sealed for fifteen years or while the defendant remains required to register as a sex offender). But although the 2018 reforms made sealing more accessible, one estimate puts the number of applications for sealing at only ten percent of the total number of eligible defendants. The new legislation aims to dramatically increase the number of sealed records by eliminating the current petitioning process and automatically sealing records after the waiting period.

Sealing a criminal record can be an important step in allowing former criminal defendants to access to jobs, housing, and other opportunities that are not available to people with a criminal record. After a record is sealed, it doesn’t appear on the version of the defendant’s CORI that an employer or housing provider would receive, but it remains available to courts and various state and federal agencies including law enforcement and child services.

Under current Massachusetts law, former defendants whose records have passed the waiting period need to file a petition to the Probation Department to start the sealing process. The petition is free, but the defendant needs to know that they are eligible for sealing and submit the form, which includes identifying the correct statutory provision and attesting that the statute’s requirements are met. Some people’s records might also be more complex, such as those with a mix of eligible and non-eligible charges, which creates the added complexity of requiring a separate petition to the court that issued the charges. A separate petition is usually required if the defendant seeks to seal a record of a dismissed or dropped charge before the end of the waiting period (a process known as discretionary sealing).

First Circuit Holds that School Districts, Not Parents, Decide School Policy and Rejects “Parental Rights” Argument to Out Transgender and Non-Binary Students

Published on: February 20, 2025 | by Naomi Shatz

Since 2012, Massachusetts laws have prohibited discrimination based on gender identity, including in education. The Massachusetts Department of Education has had longstanding guidance in place instructing schools to use students’ preferred names and pronouns while at school. This week, in Foote v. Ludlow School Committee, the First Circuit Court of Appeals decided whether a school policy that followed this state law and DOE guidance violates parents’ constitutional right to direct the upbringing of their child. The school won. CONTINUE READING ›

Appeals Court Takes Step Backwards in Fighting Racial Discrimination in Jury Selection

Published on: February 16, 2025 | by Tom Miller

More than forty-five years ago, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court led the nation in combatting racial discrimination by prosecutors in jury selection. In its landmark decision in Commonwealth v. Soares, the SJC held that the use of peremptory challenges by prosecutors to exclude members of racial (or other) minorities from a jury violated a defendant’s right under the Massachusetts Constitution to trial before an impartial jury of his or her peers. Seven years later, the federal Supreme Court cited Soares in reaching a similar decision (under the principle of equal protection) in Batson v. Kentucky. Unfortunately, last week the Massachusetts Appeals Court took a serious step backwards in this area. Its decision in Commonwealth v. Lopez-Ortiz takes an artificially narrow view of what discrimination in jury selection can look like, and seeks to limit the power of appellate courts to correct it.