In Concepcion v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court continued its support for sentencing discretion for district court judges. In this case, the issue was how much discretion a sentencing judge has when resentencing a defendant pursuant to the First Step Act, a substantial criminal justice reform act that Congress…
Restraining orders are an essential tool that Massachusetts law makes available to help victims of abuse or harassment stay safe. Abuse prevention orders and harassment prevention orders (the two types of civil restraining orders available in Massachusetts) allow courts to impose restrictions on abuse and on contact. Some judges are…
“This court is very concerned about the disparate impact automobile stops have on persons of color and the national statistics on the fatalities suffered by such communities at the hands of police officers,” wrote Justice Cypher in a fractured plurality opinion for the Supreme Judicial Court in Commonwealth v. Sweeting-Bailey last month. Despite this acknowledgment,…
In many contexts, rules and codes of conduct have moved from evaluating the lawfulness or permissibility of sex based upon the presence or absence of force to instead evaluating whether the sex happened with or without consent. This is particularly true on college campuses, almost all of which have a…
The use of body-worn cameras by the Boston Police Department has sparked controversy since its pilot program in 2016 and its official implementation in 2019. While the City and the Police Department have marked this move as an effort to be more transparent with the community, citizens claim that such a goal of transparency cannot be achieved within a broken system.…
As part of the criminal justice reform bill in 2018, the Massachusetts legislature passed a statute creating a limited parent-child privilege so that minor children who may be in legal trouble can seek advice from their parents without having to worry that their parents could be witnesses against them in…
A recent Supreme Court case has reaffirmed the rights of individuals against unreasonable government searches and seizures after the First Circuit attempted to expand an exception to the Fourth Amendment. Last year, in Caniglia v. Strom, the First Circuit Court of Appeals (which includes Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Puerto Rico, and Rhode Island) identified a new…
In Commonwealth v. Lek, Lang Lek was convicted of gun possession after two Lowell Police officers pulled him over for a minor traffic violation so that they could “investigate” and “suppress gang activity.” After searching the vehicle, which belonged to Mr. Lek’s girlfriend, the officers found a gun in the…
In a landmark decision published last week, Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless v. Fall River, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) struck down G.L.c. 85, § 17A (often referred to as the anti-panhandling law) as an unconstitutional restriction on protected speech. This decision was hailed as a victory by community…
Recently, in Commonwealth v. Davis, the Massachusetts Appeals Court determined that Massachusetts State Police officers coerced an individual to waive his Miranda rights when they arrested him after he attempted to exercise his constitutional right to counsel during an interrogation. Facts Mr. Davis, who was cooperating with the Commonwealth in…