Let the games begin! As local as Boston and as distant as the globe will reach! The adventure of pointing fingers and looking for bodies to blame, as expected, has begun. Defense Attorneys for everybody! Everybody pays! Bernard Madoff (hereinafter, the “Defendant”), talking in 2001 about what fed the Internet…
This holiday season, so many religions and traditions call for gift-giving. Sometimes, those gifts are a big surprise. One gentleman from out of state has been given a surprise gift from the government because of the gifts he has given throughout the country, including the Boston area, big time. The…
Good Monday morning to you, Boston and environs. I hope you are free, recovered from last week’s ice storms and ready to begin a new week. Hopefully you are greeting another week without the need for a criminal defense attorney. Yet. Unfortunately, there will be no “regular” blog today. This…
Today is Thanksgiving. While the daily criminal law blog goes on, this is not a day o concentrate on the problems of criminal justice. Instead, let’s gain some brief optimistic perspective. From whence have we come? Some of the particular crimes and punishments make today’s laws look pretty liberal. Since…
According to critics, the state of Massachusetts is one of 25 US States with no laws dealing with the preservation of key DNA evidence. It is also one of seven states that do not automatically allow people convicted of crimes the right to submit their DNA to exonerate themselves from…
Investigated fire chief drops disability claim Friday’s Today’s Boston Globe reports that a Boston fire chief who has been on injured leave for nearly two years awaiting approval of his disability retirement claim suddenly withdrew his application this week after two witnesses recanted their initial statements about his injury and…
In Massachusetts on Friday, East Boston District Court Judge Paul Mahoney refused to drop the possession of a hoax device charge against Star Simpson, the 19-year-old MIT student who wore a strapped circuit board to her chest and walked into Logan International Airport last year. Simpson’s trial begins on May…
The city of Boston is reporting a lower crime rate for 2007 than in 2006. The Boston Police Department offers the following statistics comparing the number of crimes that occurred from January 1 – December 23, 2007: Vehicle theft and attempted vehicle theft: 34,008 in 2006; 354 in 2007. Larceny…
An FBI forensic test considered so faulty that the FBI no longer uses it may have caused juries to wrongfully convict hundreds of innocent people who are now serving prison time for crimes they did not commit. The forensic test uses a science called bullet-lead analysis, which links bullets used…
Massachusetts police chiefs says the cities of Lowell and Lawrence are among the cities in the state that experienced a slight decrease in crime. Woburn and Arlington saw the biggest increase in total crimes committed from January to June 2007. The group, made up of Massachusetts police chiefs, says most…