Boston Lawyer Blog

Matta’s New Test for When Police Officer Interactions Constitute Seizures: An Unrealistic and Disappointing Ruling

Published on: November 6, 2019 | by Zoraida Fernandez

Last month, the Supreme Judicial Court issued Commonwealth v. Matta, a case that makes it easier for police to stop individuals – especially those in high crime neighborhoods – without any reasonable suspicion.

Background

On the evening of November 5, 2015, an anonymous caller contacted police on two occasions and stated that they had seen someone put a gun under the front seat of black car with two male and two female occupants. The caller claimed that the car was parked in the city of Holyoke in an area described as “known for violent crime, drug sales, and shootings.” An officer who was dispatched to the scene saw a parked green car with only two passengers. The officer pulled up behind the green car and parked, without lights or a siren. As the officer exited his vehicle, he observed the defendant, who had been seated in the passenger seat, exit the car and adjust his waistband with both hands. The defendant then began walking toward nearby bushes away from the sidewalk. The officer called out to him, “Hey, come here for a second.” The defendant then made eye contact with the officer and started to run, holding onto his waistband as he ran. At this point the officer yelled at the defendant to stop and then ran after him. As the defendant was running, the officer observed him throw a plastic bag over a fence and onto a sidewalk. Several officers apprehended the defendant as he tried to climb the fence, and once they arrested him, the officers saw six wax baggies at his feet and found small wax baggies on the other side of the fence, totaling 129 baggies that were later determined to contain heroin.

Can the Commonwealth Compel You to Unlock Your Cell Phone? SJC Clarifies Certain Circumstances in Which it Can

Published on: March 20, 2019 | by Zoraida Fernandez

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 art. 12 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, the Court held that where the government can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it already knew that the defendant knows the password, the information sought is a foregone conclusion and compelling the defendant to enter the password is constitutionally sound. CONTINUE READING ›

Massachusetts Will Offer Life-Changing Paid Family and Medical Leave for Workers

Published on: July 26, 2018 | by Zoraida Fernandez

On June 28, 2018, Charlie Baker signed An Act Relative to Minimum Wage, Paid Family Medical Leave and the Sales Tax Holiday, part of a “grand bargain” between social justice advocates who pushed for paid family leave and a higher minimum wage and retail business representatives who urged a lower sales tax.

With passage of this law, Massachusetts is now the sixth state (plus Washington D.C.) to offer paid family and medical leave to employees. It will also outdo the U.S., which is currently the only country in the 41 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and European Union nations that does not offer any paid family or medical leave.

In this post, I will focus on the family and medical leave portion of the new law, which will take effect in 2021, and the legal protections it will provide for Massachusetts employees.

SJC Sanctions Judges’ Consideration of Victim Sentencing Recommendations

Published on: January 31, 2018 | by Zoraida Fernandez

In the recently decided Commonwealth v. McGonagle, the Supreme Judicial Court considered whether a Massachusetts statute that allows victims of crimes to recommend a sentence violates (1) the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article 26 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights (particularly in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Bosse v. Oklahoma, 137 S. Ct. 1 (2016)); and (2) the defendant’s due process rights. The SJC concluded that consideration of a victim’s sentence recommendation in a non-capital case does not violate either the federal or Massachusetts constitutions. While victims’ accounts regarding the effect of the crime provide relevant information for a sentencing judge, allowing victims to make a specific sentence recommendation seems unfairly prejudicial to the defendant and irrelevant, and the SJC’s reasoning in this case does not go far enough in addressing these concerns.

New Domestic Violence Law Creates Crime of Domestic Assault and Battery

Published on: March 16, 2015 | by Zoraida Fernandez

In August 2014, former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick signed into law An Act Relative to Domestic Violence. This law ushered in many changes in Massachusetts criminal law and procedure, which will be a topic of several blog posts here at bostonlawyerblog.com. In today’s post I will be addressing one of two new crimes created by the law: domestic assault/assault and battery, Mass. Gen. Laws. ch. 265, § 13M.

A&B on a Family or Household Member

Before delving into how this new crime of domestic assault/assault and battery is different, we must first examine the existing crimes of assault and assault and battery. An assault is either (1) an attempted battery or (2) an immediately threatened battery, where a battery is a harmful or unpermitted touching of a person.

To convict a defendant of an assault and battery, the Commonwealth must prove that:

(1) the defendant touched the person of another without having any right or excuse for doing so;
(2) the defendant intended to touch that person; and
(3) the touching was either harmful or was done without the person’s consent.

Crayton & Collins: Preventing Eyewitness Misidentification in Massachusetts

Published on: January 2, 2015 | by Zoraida Fernandez

“Eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, playing a role in 72% of convictions overturned through DNA testing.”

—Innocence Project.

Two cases recently decided on the same day by the Supreme Judicial Court (“SJC”) have made important strides in helping prevent wrongful convictions due to misidentification. In Commonwealth v. Crayton, the SJC excluded an in-court identification of the defendant where the witnesses were never asked to identify the defendant before trial. The Court also held that the in-court identification of the defendant in Commonwealth v. Collins should have been excluded where the witness had been unable to make a positive identification prior to trial.

To examine the importance of these recent cases, we should first explore why eyewitness identification evidence, while powerful evidence to juries, can be so unreliable that it can lead to the extraordinary rate of wrongful convictions noted above.