Boston Lawyer BlogAttorney Emma Quinn-Judge Wins Appeal of Criminal Convictions
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:
