Finally, there is some judicial pushback on what my various Attorney Sam’s Take comments has been screaming about. At least, perhaps it is a start. Maybe. It involves an appeal from the prosecution’s side. It failed. Boston’s Supreme Judicial Court, the state’s highest court, ruled last Friday that judges cannot…
As you have learned from reading this daily Boston Criminal Lawyer Blog, criminal laws are getting more and more complex. Changes in the laws take place all the time. This is but one of the reasons that I urge you to retain the advice and aid of an experienced criminal…
Let’s first look at a recent United States Supreme Court case in point. On January 18, 2012, the Court rendered its decision in Maples v. Thomas. The case wasa criminal appeal from a gentleman who had been found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in Alabama state court. Later,…
In my last blog, we discussed Boston’s Supreme Judicial Court’s new ruling in the case of Commonwealth v. Tremblay. I used this case to cap off about a week of blogs concerning Massachusetts search and seizure issues. Through my experience as a Boston criminal lawyer, I have seen how the…
Attorney Sam’s Take On Massachusetts Criminal Appeals Your worse fears have been realized, The jury’s foreman has announced that the jury panel has found you guilty as charged. Your Boston Criminal Lawyer turns to you and murmurs that it is “not over yet” and that he will be filing an…
Luis Melendez-Diaz (hereinafter, the “Petitioner”) has been convicted of being a Massachusetts drug dealer. This took place quite awhile ago. However, his case did not end after trial. There was an appeal. The appeal went on to change the face of Massachusetts criminal trial procedure…to a point. You see, the…
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in Boston has ruled in favor of the prosecution. The type of case? Operating under the influence. As you may know, when one is pulled over by police, and suspected of being under the influence of drugs or alcohol, one is offered the opportunity to…
It’s stories like this that helps me love what I do for a living; you just never know what is going to happen next! Just when we see debacles like the one surrounding the Parole Board because of a recent police killing, and we see the predictable scurrying about by…
…And as we prance away from acknowledging the realities of the criminal justice system, we dance along with Governor Deval Patrick. His new proposed dance-step bows politely to law enforcement. It’s a nice dance, really. The only people likely to be hurt are the poor and disenfranchised. But then, if…
Here’s one for the sex trade! In the past, we have discussed many times the various, and in my opinion, faulty rationales for keeping prostitution illegal. One of those rationales has been that prostitutes are, per se, victims. They are exploited and forced to perform sex acts for money. The…