Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

At issue was a purely legal question concerning the correct interpretation of Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 218, 26. The Supreme Judicial Court held that the plain language of the statute confers jurisdiction in the Boston Municipal Court Department (BMC) and the district court over intimidation of a witness or a juror but not over intimidation of any other person.Defendant was convicted in the BMC of intimidating a person furthering a court proceeding. The alleged victim was opposing counsel in a civil action commenced by Muckle. The intimidation conviction was later vacated and the charge dismissed for lack of jurisdiction in the BMC. The Appeals Court reversed the order dismissing the intimidation charge. The Supreme Judicial Court reversed the Appeals Court and affirmed the order dismissing the intimidation charge, holding that jurisdiction was absent in this case. View "Commonwealth v. Muckle" on Justia Law

The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the superior court’s judgment convicting Defendant of five charges stemming from the sexual abuse his two daughters. Specifically, the court held (1) the superior court judge did not abuse his discretion by refusing to issue summonses pursuant to Mass. R. Crim. P. 17(a)(2) regarding the release of the mental health and counseling record of the younger of the daughters; and (2) the judge’s restriction of Defendant’s cross-examination of the younger daughter listing the defense from referencing “bad character” or “bad acts” of the daughter was not an abuse of discretion. View "Commonwealth v. Jones" on Justia Law

Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 276, 100A(6), the provision of a statute that retroactively prohibits Plaintiff from sealing the record of her sex offenses because she was once classified as a level two sex offender, as applied to Plaintiff, is both retroactive and unreasonable, and therefore, State constitutional due process precludes the Supreme Court from enforcing it against her.Plaintiff argued that the retroactive statutory prohibition on sealing sex offenses violated her due process rights under the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights because the Sex Offender Registry Board had determined that Plaintiff no longer posed any cognizable degree of dangerousness or risk of reoffending, no longer believed she should be classified as a level two sex offender, and had relieved her of the obligation to register as a sex offender. The Supreme Judicial Court agreed with Plaintiff, holding that section 100A applies retroactively to Plaintiff and is unreasonable in its application to her. View "Koe v. Commissioner of Probation" on Justia Law

In this case, the Supreme Judicial Court addressed the scope of criminal liability under the common-law felony-murder rule. A unanimous court concluded that the felony-murder rule is constitutional, but a majority of justices concluded that the scope of felony-murder liability should be prospectively narrowed. The court held that, in trials that commence after the date of the opinion in this case, a defendant may not be convicted of murder without proof of one of the three prongs of malice. The court held that, in the future, felony-murder is no longer an independent theory of liability for murder but is rather limited to its statutory role under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 265, 1 as an aggravating element of murder. The majority ruled that this holding is prospective in effect and therefore does not affect the judgment reached in this case, where Defendant was convicted of two counts of felony-murder in the first degree based on the predicate felonies of an attempted commission of armed robbery, home invasion, unlawful possession of a firearm, and unlawful possession of ammunition. View "Commonwealth v. Brown" on Justia Law

The Supreme Judicial Court vacated Defendant’s convictions of two charges of possession of the ingredients to make an incendiary device or substance with the intent to do so, in violation of Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 266, 102(a), and remanded the matter for entry of required findings of not guilty, holding that the evidence presented at trial was not sufficient to establish every element of the Commonwealth’s case. Specifically, the court held that the evidence introduced at trial was insufficient to establish that Defendant was without lawful authority to possess three bags of different powders or the incidendiary substance, thermite, that the Commonwealth asserted that Defendant intended to make. View "Commonwealth v. Aldana" on Justia Law

To the extent that field sobriety tests (FSTs) are relevant to establish a driver’s balance, coordination, mental acuity, and other skills required to operate a motor vehicle safely, FSTs are admissible at trial as observations of the police officer conducting the assessment. However, neither a police officer nor a lay witness who has not been qualified as an expert may offer an opinion as to whether a driver was under the influence of marijuana.Defendant was charged with operating a motor vehicle under the influence of marijuana. Defendant filed a motion for a Daubert-Lanigan hearing seeking to challenge the admissibility of evidence concerning his performance on FSTs conducted after the stop. The Supreme Court heard oral argument in the matter and then answered the reported questions as set forth above and remanded the case to the district court for further proceedings. View "Commonwealth v. Gerhardt" on Justia Law

The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed Defendants’ convictions of murder in the first degree and other offenses related to the home invasion but remanded for resentencing Swinkles Laporte’s convictions of home invasion and armed robbery while masked. The court held (1) there was no substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice arising from the failure of counsel to object to an in-court identification of Defendants - Laporte and Maxwell Wiggins - as the perpetrators; (2) the trial court did not err in denying Wiggins’ motions to sever and for a mistrial based on a previously suppressed out-of-court identification; (3) there was no reversible error in the trial court’s remaining challenged evidentiary rulings; (4) any error in the prosecutor’s closing argument did not influence the jury’s verdicts; but (5) Laporte’s nonmurder sentences are vacated and remanded for resentencing where Laporte’s murder sentence was revised because he was a juvenile at the time of the offense. View "Commonwealth v. Wiggins" on Justia Law

A police officer, responding to a report of an unauthorized person at Milton High School, searched the defendant's backpack and discovered a firearm, money, and marijuana. The defendant unsuccessfully moved to suppress the evidence, arguing that the police officer lacked a constitutionally permissible basis for the pat-frisk and the subsequent search. He was convicted of carrying a firearm without a license, G.L. c. 269, 10(a); carrying a dangerous weapon on school grounds, 269, 10(j); possession of a firearm without a firearm identification card, 269, 10(h); disturbing a school, 272, 40; and possession of a class D substance with intent to distribute, 94C, 32C. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court vacated, stating that when a police officer conducts a pat-frisk, the applicable standard for assessing its constitutionality is reasonable articulable suspicion under Terry v. Ohio and that an officer's conduct in a school setting is governed by the traditional Fourth Amendment standard. Applying the Terry standard to this case, the officer lacked reasonable articulable suspicion that the defendant had committed a crime and the circumstances of the encounter did not warrant a reasonable belief that the defendant was armed and dangerous. Nor was the search permissible under any exception to the warrant requirement. View "Commonwealth v. Villagran" on Justia Law

In setting the amount of bail for a defendant, a judge must consider the defendant’s financial resources but is not required to set bail in an amount the defendant can afford if other relevant considerations weigh more heavily than the defendant’s ability to prove the necessary security for his appearance at trial.In this case, Petitioner had been held in jail for more than three and one-half years because he had been unable to post bail in the amounts ordered by a superior court judge following his arrest and indictment for armed robbery while masked. Petitioner petitioned for relief under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 211, 3. A single justice denied the petition. Petitioner appealed, arguing that the superior court’s bail order violated his right to due process because the judge failed to give adequate consideration to his financial resources. The Supreme Judicial Court reversed, holding that the judge did not consider Petitioner’s financial resources in setting the bail. The court remanded the matter with directions that the superior court judge conduct a new bail hearing for Petitioner in accord with the standards set forth in this opinion. View "Brangan v. Commonwealth" on Justia Law

Where a juvenile is sentenced for nonmurder offenses and the aggregate time to be served prior to parole eligibility exceeds that applicable to a juvenile convicted of murder, the sentence cannot be reconciled with article 26 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights unless, after a hearing on the factors articulated in Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012), the judgment makes a finding that the circumstances warrant treating the juvenile more harshly for parole purposes than a juvenile convicted of murder.Defendant was seventeen years old when he committed the offenses leading to his convictions for armed robbery, armed assault with intent to rob, assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, and related firearms offenses. The judge sentenced Defendant to an aggregate sentence of thirty-two and one-half years, with parole eligibility after twenty-seven and one-half years. Defendant later filed a motion for resentencing, arguing that the aggregate sentence violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment and the cognate provision of article 26. The superior court denied the motion. The Supreme Judicial Court remanded the matter for a Miller hearing to determine whether Defendant’s sentence comported with the requirements of article 26. If not, then Defendant must be resentenced. View "Commonwealth v. Perez" on Justia Law