Confessions Of A Former Prosecutor – Introduction …And so I sit to grab a moment of rest as I get home to my apartment after a day starting another trial. This time it is a rape case. Sex crimes cases are how I actually began in this work. My first…
It has often occurred to me during my years as a Boston area criminal defense attorney that, once one abolishes the presumption of innocence, many efforts on the part of law enforcement become much easier. It’s called being for “law and order” as opposed to “soft on crime” and is…
Today is Memorial Day, a day in which we pause to remember the fallen. Generally, we remember those who have fallen in the armed services while they were defending and protecting our country from outside threats. I would like to take a moment to remember another category of protectors and…
Chef, former Food Network personality, and cookbook author Juan-Carlos Cruz has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder and solicitation to commit murder. Cruz is accused of trying to kill his wife Jennifer Campbell. According to investigators, Cruz solicited two homeless men, David Walters and David Carrington, and tried…
22-year-old George Huguely, a member of the University of Virginia’s lacrosse team, has been arrested and charged with the first-degree murder of Yeardley Love, also age 22 and a member of the school’s women’s lacrosse team. According to police, Huguely and Love were romantically involved with each other and had…
Gee, it is hard to imagine that after our protectors and law-makers have made the world safe for kids by passing the Anti-bullying bill discussed last week and prosecuted “the bad kids” as discussed ad nauseum, that kids could still be getting in trouble and even hurt! In connection, since…
Middlesex Superior Court Judge S. Jane Haggerty has sentenced John Odgren to life in prison without parole. Yesterday, a jury convicted the 19-year-old, who has Asperger’s syndrome and a history of mental illness, of Massachusetts first-degree murder. The Princeton teenager fatally stabbed Lincoln-Sudbury 15-year-old James Alenson in 2007. The two…
There were a few fireworks yesterday in Middlesex Superior Court in Woburn, Massachusetts. Attorneys argued over the topics of the defense attorney’s proposed summation. The Judge agreed with the Commonwealth and overruled the objections voiced by the defense. The setting was Commonwealth v. John Odgren. The charge is Murder in…
As I was recovering from a blog-free week this weekend, folks in Lawrence, Massachusetts, were gearing up and creating work for various defense attorneys. In fact, according to the police, over 100 people were involved in the resulting melee. The brawl took place in a Lawrence nightclub, Club Rio, during…
The prosecution rests in John Odgren’s Massachusetts murder trial. The 19-year-old Princeton resident fatally stabbed 15-year-old James F. Alenson, fellow student at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School on January 19, 2007. Odgren, who was 16 at the time of the fatal stabbing, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. While…