The tragedy we remember today was as horrible and ugly as they come. And come they have. Repeatedly.
Too often, the tragedy results in the death or serious injury of our children. Often, it is our children who perpetrate the deed.
It happened again just last week. This time it was in Murraysville, Pennsylvania. This time it was at the Franklin Regional High School. This time it was knives.
At least 75 people were arrested yesterday by the Boston Police Department during a targeted raid in the Boston neighborhood of Roxbury.
The raid, called “Operation H,” took place around 6 a.m. Tuesday morning in an effort to crack down on drug deals and gang-related violence in the neighborhood before the beginning of summer. As of mid-afternoon yesterday, 75 individuals had been arrested for violent and drug-related crimes including cocaine and heroin dealing. At least 14 individuals were indicted by a special grand jury and arraigned Tuesday morning in Suffolk Superior Court. All of the individuals arrested, according to police, were considered dangerous and had been involved in gun violence.
Most of the charges against the gang members were brought on by a targeted narcotics investigation. According to Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis investigators had been building their case against gang members for several months.
“Detectives videotaped the suspects selling illegal drugs to undercover officers from various locations. The suspects were openly plying their drug trade, victimizing the community and creating an atmosphere of fear — today’s arrests will give residents back their neighborhoods,” Davis said.
Investigators will be now be seeking search warrants for several residences to gather more evidence for the case, as well as pressuring individual group members to provide additional information about several unsolved violent crimes around the city, including the January shooting of a 13-year old boy. The boy, Gabriel Clarke, was shot while walking to choir practice on Humboldt Avenue. Clarke fortunately survived the ordeal, and police believe that he was an innocent victim who was caught in the middle of a violent gang rivalry.
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The Boston Criminal Lawyer Blog has discussed the suggested procedure when law enforcement is upon you and investigating you for a possible crime. I have maintained that the safest practice is to not try to out-run, out-talk or out-fight the investigators. I suggest you invoke your right to an attorney and comply politely with what you are required to do.
After all, you are suspected of committing a crime. That is why it is called a criminal investigation.
The case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, (hereinafter, the “Defendant”) and the issue of his timely receiving Miranda Rights goes to the very heart of this. Think twice before you wish to make exceptions to his Constitutional Rights because he is the villain of the day.
Tomorrow, you may be a suspected villain.
Attorney Sam’s Take On Miranda Rights, Statements And You
When it comes to answering questions of investigating officers, most folks do not understand the ground rules. The investigators do, of course. They utilize them every day for a living. The Miranda Rights do not fully advise the target of those rules either, by the way. It only advises that the rules exist to some extent.
Miranda Rights are necessary in only certain circumstances. They fit here. The Defendant has to be in custody and in that custody because he is the suspect of the crime about which he is being questioned. Both are undeniable here. It cannot, then, fit under any of the exceptions which would otherwise allow law enforcement to delay reading the Rights. The only one here is the public safety exception.
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As you may recall, yesterday’s Attorney Sam’s Take was as slated to continue the story of representing females in criminal cases Massachusetts violent crimes cases.
Unfortunately, this post was unable to be made yesterday as planned. I apologize. However, it will greet you bright and early on Monday morning.
In the meantime, have a great, safe and law-abiding weekend!
An investigation that recently led to the closure of a Massachusetts crime lab could have some defendants who were convicted of drug crimes filing their appeals. The lab, which is located in Jamaica Plain, was shut down after state police discovered that chemist Annie Dookhan did not follow testing protocols and may have improperly handled drug samples. At this time, state authorities are not sure how many of these samples were tainted. However, in the wake of these recent revelations, Department of Public Health Commissioner John Auerbach, has announced his resignation.
The Boston Globe reports that Dookhan was involved in the testing of over 50,000 drug samples related to about 34,000 defendants from 2003 to 2012. One of the cases linked to Dookhan is the 2010 Suffolk County drug investigation that led to the conviction of Larry Blue for weapons and cocaine traffic offenses involving 14 to 28 grams and the sale of narcotics within 1,000 feet of a school.
During Blue’s trial, Dookhan testified that she was in charge of “quality control/quality assurance” at the drug lab, which included ensuring that balances were in proper effect, policies and procedures were being abided by, and all machines were working correctly. Looking back at this testimony, some Massachusetts criminal defense lawyers are now asking whether even the samples that other chemists at the lab handled may have also been contaminated. (Dookhan also mentioned that she conducted 30 to 50 preliminary tests a day, and, along with three other chemists, performed confirmatory tests on drug samples that had already gone through initial testing.)
Such speculation is raising concerns that there might have been other problems with the way the crime lab was run. (The Massachusetts Department of Public Health was in charge of the lab until police took over in July.) For example, WCVB.com reports that a backlog in work may have hurt testing quality and delayed some criminal cases. In 2007, overtime was reduced by 50% even though there was a backlog of 8,000 samples. By 2011, turnaround time was taking about 140 days/sample. Compare that to in 2004 when the turnaround time per sample was approximately 30 days.
Lawyers expect appeals in Mass. crime lab case, Boston.com, September 13, 2012
Team 5 Investigates: Massachusetts drug lab in chaos, WCVB, September 15, 2012
DPH chief Auerbach resigns over lab scandal, lands new job, Boston Herald, September 17, 2012
More Blog Posts:
MASSACHUSETTS DRUG CASES ARE BEING REVIEWED DUE TO POLICE LAB’S CHEMIST MISHANDLEING EVIDENCE, Boston Criminal Lawyer Blog, September 3, 2012
False convictions and improper sentencing almost certain after lab debacle, Boston Criminal Lawyer Blog, August 31, 2012
Boston Police department assists with arresting international drug traffickers, Boston Criminal Lawyer Blog, September 5, 2012
More Blog Posts:
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Yesterday, we discussed the rather dismal view of cyber-attacks against the country’s computers and, in fact, against the country itself. The situation is summed up by the words of Mike Tuchen, chief executive of the Boston data security company Rapid7 LLC. He tells us that virtually all company networks will be breached sooner or later. The only question remaining is when they will find out. In his words, “The question isn’t will I get compromised, but how quickly will I discover it when I am.”
Waltham-based computer security company CounterTackInc.’s Chairman William Fallon adds that, in order to defend against these attacks, “The best thing you can do is to have intelligence, not just spending all your money throwing up walls, which is not going to work.”
After the various years of experiences in dealing with these problems (not to mention the years in which the government only had access to such tools) and who knows how much money spend on them…the situation looks pretty dismal.
When I left off in my last blog, I was making the point that more people were apt to disagree with the old adage that it is better to let 100 people guilty people go free than to send 1 innocent man to prison. It is, by the way, one of the beliefs which serves as the foundation of our criminal justice system, of course. However, I would imagine that many folks would argue that such beliefs made more sense hundreds of years ago and that such ideas are out of touch with the realities with which we live today.
Given what I do for a living, you may not be too shocked to hear that I still agree with the old adage.
I think I would be more willing to give law enforcement, including prosecutors, the benefit of the doubt more if the system were truly what it says it is.
Things like Melissa’s Bill, which mandate no parole for certain repeat violent offenders, are founded upon what the system pretends to be….but isn’t.
I would imagine that even the most ardent supporter of such legislation would think twice about supporting the new law if it were a given that police officers often lie and can be quite blind in their investigations,, prosecutors are advocates for their boss’ political careers and that the presumption of innocence has basically been replaced with an assumption of guilt. After all, I would like to think that while we may be bloodthirsty when it comes to criminal defendants….we like to assume that we have the right person behind bars.
Both as a prosecutor and a defense attorney I have folks allege that corruption rules the criminal justice system. I have heard suggestions of paid off jurors, judges and prosecutors not to mention defense attorneys who sell their client down the river for extra favors in other cases. I must tell you that, after a quarter century in the criminal justice system, I have not witnessed any of that.
What I have seen, however, is arguably just as bad.
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If you needed more evidence that the Commonwealth is in the mood to slam the cell doors shut on repeat violent offenders, you got it this week.
In Boston, Governor Deval Patrick held a private signing ceremony on Thursday to enact a law which removes the possibility of parole for certain repeat criminal offenders.
Among other advocates, present front and center was the man who championed the cause of this bill, Les Gosule. Mr. Gosule lost his daughter to the savage kidnap- rape-murder by such an offender in 1999. The bill suddenly gain new life after the murder nearly two years ago of Woburn Police Officer John “Jack” Maguire by a repeat offender.
Yes, that would be the one that brought about the dismantling and re-creation of the Parole Board about which there are complaints about folks entitled to parole not getting out.
Call it a “criminal justice ripple effect“.
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Suffolk Superior Court Judge Linda Giles ordered a halt to a murder trial over concerns regarding two witnesses who were involved in a stabbing yesterday afternoon in downtown Boston. Giles noted that she is “extremely reluctant to [postpone] this trial” due to the possibility that granting a delay could “set a precedent that all you have to do to derail a first-degree murder trial… is attack some of the participants,” but is choosing to go forward with the decision due to the condition of the witnesses. “I am basing it on two potential defense witnesses,” she said, in reference to the severity of their wounds.
Giles is presiding over the first-degree murder trial of two Dorchester men accused in the shooting of another woman. According to prosecutors, a second man was injured in the shooting but survived. However, he was reportedly not among the victims of yesterday’s stabbing.
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The Boston Criminal Lawyer Blog has been discussing the plight of witnesses in the Massachusetts criminal justice system. When we left off, the question came up about why, after simply being a witness, you may have to wait a long time and spend thousands of dollars before the “truth” came out.
The reason is that if you are not forthcoming as a witness the way the government wants you to…even if it involves matters in which you have no responsibility (unlike the cases of child sexual assault), you could end up a criminal defendant in need of experienced legal counsel.
We have discussed many times the overly-general definition of the Massachusetts crime of Intimidating a Witness. It includes lying to a police officer in the course of an investigation.
Clearly, the definition of “intimidation” differs here from one’s ordinary experience and so many people are not only unaware of it, but would never suspect it to exist. yet, it is not only a crime, it is a felony.
“But, Sam, why should someone be able to lie to the police?”
Well, let’s not “should” all over ourselves here for a minute and look at the facts. The fact is that police officers, during the course of a criminal investigation are not only allowed to lie to whomever they question…it is often encouraged and referred to as “good police work”. Officers are trained in this area. Typical citizens are not.
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Boston Criminal Lawyer Blog