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Today in Commonwealth v. McCaffrey, the Supreme Judicial Court reversed all of our client’s most serious convictions and set aside those verdicts, remanding the case for resentencing. The SJC’s decision affirms the fundamental principle that a criminal indictment may never be substantively amended: “[s]ubstantive amendments are constitutionally defective regardless of whether they would prejudice the defense,” because they create a “substantial risk that the defendant was convicted of a crime for which he was not indicted by a grand jury.”

In reaching this conclusion, the SJC reversed the Appeals Court decision holding that the amendments in this case were not substantive. See Commonwealth v. McCaffrey, 104 Mass. App. Ct. 642, 645-48 (2024). The SJC agreed with Attorney Quinn-Judge that changing the offense from one subsection of a statute to another subsection of the same statute was in fact a substantive change, requiring reversal.

Read media coverage of Emma’s win here:

The Appeals Court vacated the convictions of our firm’s client, concluding that the Commonwealth “presented evidence that repeatedly violated the first complaint rule” that came from “no fewer than five witnesses and a written exhibit,” and to which the prosecutor specifically directed the jury’s attention during her closing argument. Specifically, the Commonwealth elicited impermissible testimony from multiple witnesses, introduced medical records that included impermissible commentary, and repeatedly presented evidence about the fact of the defendant’s arrest and the police investigation as a whole. The Appeals Court concluded that the “prejudicial effect of the repeated complaints was strong enough to have materially influenced the jury’s ultimate verdicts” and vacated the defendants’ convictions.

Zalkind Law’s Emma Quinn-Judge recently defeated a motion for summary judgment by a car dealership and its owners that sought to throw out race discrimination and retaliation claims brought against them by our client. The Superior Court soundly rejected the defendants’ argument that there was not enough evidence to support a race discrimination claim: the Court found that “the frequent, objected-to use of the plaintiff’s race as an identifier in an unwanted ‘nickname,’” as well as “references to stereotypes of Black culture, allusions to violence against Black individuals, and an arguably disingenuous question regarding why white people could not use the n-slur” were certainly sufficient to support a claim that our client was subjected to a racially hostile work environment. The Court also rejected the defendants’ arguments that our client’s claim was untimely and that there was not enough evidence to support a retaliation claim. Our client looks forward to proving his claims at trial.