Articles Posted in Juvenile Crimes

What Constitutes Disorderly Conduct in Massachusetts?

Over 2,000 people a year find themselves under arrest for disorderly conduct in Massachusetts. But what exactly is disorderly conduct? Often used as a catch-all offense when someone acts in a way that is likely to upset others, disorderly conduct actually applies to a range of activities. So if you engage in any number of behaviors that annoy the public at large, you may face a charge of disorderly conduct in Massachusetts.

While each state has its own laws about what constitutes disorderly conduct, Massachusetts defines it as “behavior that tends to disturb the public tranquility or to alarm or provoke others.” It includes fighting and threatening, engaging in agitated behavior that causes a public nuisance, and acting in a way that poses a hazard to public safety or creates a physically offensive condition for no justifiable reason.

Facing a Malicious Damage Charge in MA?

Any type of property damage—from vandalism and graffiti to hitting another’s property with your car—can result in a criminal charge for malicious damage. As with most crimes, penalties for malicious damage are largely dependent on the circumstances of the case, the severity of the offense, and whether or not you have a prior criminal record.

What are the Penalties?

Penalties for malicious damage vary widely based on whether you acted deliberately or carelessly. Willful and malicious actions can carry a potential sentence of up to two-and-a-half years in jail and fines of up to three times the cost of the damage or $3,000, whichever is greater. If, on the other hand, you acted carelessly or wantonly, you may be facing a penalty of up to two-and-a-half years in jail and fines of up to three times the cost of the damage or $1,500, whichever is greater. Damage of less than $250 is punished much less severely, but can still land you in jail for up to two-and-a-half months.

Leaving the Scene

Let’s say you are driving one night when you hit and knock down a stop sign. Having just left a bar, you’re worried that you might be over the legal limit, so you leave the scene of the accident. Another driver gets your license plate number and reports the incident. You might end up facing two criminal charges—one for malicious damage and one for leaving the scene of property damage. A Boston criminal defense attorney can help you determine how to proceed if you’ve been charged with any type of crime.

Can Malicious Destruction to Property be a Felony?

If you damage or vandalize certain types of property in MA, you may face felony charges. These specific buildings or locations have special protections due to their sacred or sensitive natures. If you destroy or deface any of the property below, you may be charged with a felony:

• Church
• Synagogue
• Mosque
• Any house of worship
• Cemetery or any type of burial ground
• Memorial
• School
• Community center
• Educational institution

In addition, if you cause more than $5,000 of damage to any of the above properties, you may face up to five years in prison. At less than $5,000, the potential penalties are up to two-and-a-half years in jail and fines of up to three times the cost of the damage or $2,000, whichever is greater. A MA criminal defense lawyer can help you protect your rights if you’ve been charged with malicious damage or another crime.

What About Graffiti?

Even as graffiti becomes more accepted and celebrated as a form of art, intentionally making graffiti on another’s property remains a criminal offense. Property can include walls, fences, signs, monuments, or buildings. It even includes rocks. Graffiti, also known as defacement of property, carries a potential penalty of up to three years in jail, and up to three times the cost of the damage or $1,500, whichever is greater. A defacement of property conviction may also lead to a one-year license suspension. Continue reading

Child abuse is a crime, there is no question about that. But what about the failure to report child abuse? If you suspect that a child has been abused, do you have to speak up? Is failing to do so a crime?

It depends.

Mandated Reporters

Certain people are required to report child abuse due to their profession. In MA, these people are called Mandated Reporters. Individuals designated as mandated reporters include:

• Teachers and other school personnel
• Social workers
• Doctors, nurses and other medical personnel
• Counselors and other mental health personnel
• Child care providers
• Foster parents
• Clergy
• Medical examiners
• Police and other law enforcement

If you are a mandated reporter and you fail to report child abuse, you may be charged with a misdemeanor and face a fine of up to $1,000. A MA criminal defense attorney can help you determine how to proceed if you’ve been charged with a crime.

What if I’m Not a Mandated Reporter?

In MA, as in most states, failure to report child abuse is not specifically charged as a crime. However, every case is unique. In the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal, for example, victims have called for the criminal punishment of the individuals who failed to report his abuse of hundreds of young girls and at least one boy.

In Michigan—where Nassar abused his victims—state legislators have proposed several bills that would increase penalties for failure to report child abuse from a misdemeanor offense to a felony with fines of up to $5,000.

But this topic begs the question – why wouldn’t you report child abuse? If you suspect that a child is being abused or neglected, reporting that mistreatment is the right thing to do. Fortunately in MA, as in most states, you can file an anonymous report. A Boston criminal defense lawyer can help you protect your rights if you’ve been charged with a crime.

What is Considered Child Abuse?

There is a lot of gray area when it comes to child abuse and neglect. For example, in 2014 a Florida mom was charged with felony child neglect for letting her seven-year-old child walk to a nearby park by himself. However, not all cases are as ambiguous. Some types of child abuse, including sexual or physical abuse and depriving a child of food and water, should be reported immediately.

In the United States, approximately four children die from child abuse or neglect every day. Most are under the age of four. Child abuse is often associated with a medical or emotional disorder, such as alcohol abuse, depression and drug addiction. In many cases, the abuser was abused as a child.

In MA, child abuse is defined as “the non-accidental commission of any act by a caretaker upon a child under age 18 which causes, or creates a substantial risk of, physical or emotional injury; or constitutes a sexual offense under the laws of the Commonwealth; or any sexual contact between a parent/guardian/caretaker and a child under 18.”

Child abuse, which can occur both at home and in other environments, includes:

• exposing a child to domestic violence;
• having a baby that is born with an addiction to narcotics; and
• mistreatment of a physical, sexual or emotional nature.

Child neglect, on the other hand, is the failure of a parent or care giver to meet the child’s basic needs for food, shelter, clothing, supervision and other emotional needs. Continue reading

If you are caring for a child – whether your own or someone else’s – you have a legal responsibility to keep that child away from unreasonably harmful or dangerous situations. If you put a child in an unhealthy, inappropriate, or dangerous situation, or you don’t intervene to help remove a child from such a situation, you may be charged with child endangerment. In MA, child endangerment is a serious crime with equally serious consequences.

Children are vulnerable. As adults, it is our responsibility to protect them to the best of our abilities. Child endangerment, abuse, and neglect are punished harshly, and being convicted of any of these crimes can bring a lifetime of consequences. In addition to imprisonment and hefty fines, crimes related to child welfare can ruin your reputation, and negatively impact your ability to get a job or find housing for the rest of your life. Prosecutors can be especially aggressive when it comes to child endangerment cases; nobody wants to go easy on someone who harmed an innocent child. For this reason, child endangerment charges often get blown out of proportion.

OUI with a Child in the Vehicle

One of the most common types of child endangerment charges involves a parent who is arrested for OUI with a child in the vehicle. We all know that drunk driving is illegal, and that doing so with a child is even worse. But people make mistakes…even parents. Let’s say, for example, that Stacy goes to a friend’s house for dinner. She takes her four-year-old twins, Nolan and Chloe. Stacy has two glasses of wine with dinner, knowing that she’ll be fine to drive after a big meal and the passing of several hours. But Stacy’s mom calls from the hospital; she’s having heart palpitations. Stacy scoops up the twins and rushes to the hospital. In a panic, she fails to come to a complete stop at a stop sign and gets pulled over. The officer smells alcohol on Stacy’s breath, and asks her to get out of the vehicle. Stacy submits to a breath test, which registers a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.09. Stacy is arrested for OUI and winds up facing additional charges for child endangerment.
Common Types of Child Endangerment

The point of the story above is not that Stacy didn’t do anything wrong. She did. Rather, it is to illustrate that even a good parent can make a mistake that endangers a child. In the above case, the prosecution may paint a very different picture of Stacy. Over-dramatizing child endangerment cases is very effective for the prosecution. For this reason, it is crucial to work with a highly-experienced Boston criminal defense attorney if you have been charged with child endangerment or a similar crime. Common types of child endangerment include:

• OUI with a child in the vehicle
• Failure to properly secure a child in a moving vehicle (car seat, seat belt, etc.)
• Exposing a child to drug use, manufacturing, or distribution
• Failure to properly secure firearms in the presence of a child
• Leaving a young child without supervision
• Engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child

The interesting thing about child endangerment laws is that they are intended to punish behavior that could harm a child, but a child doesn’t need to be harmed for a conviction to occur. For example, if loaded firearms are kept in reach of a child, the responsible adult could be convicted of child endangerment even the child never touched one of the firearms. Of course, cases involving actual harm will generally be punished more severely than those that do not result in injury. A MA defense attorney can help you protect your rights if you’ve been charged with child endangerment.

Intent is also considered when determining punishment in a child endangerment case. If the adult did not intend for the child to be exposed to the harmful situation, the penalties will likely be less severe than if he had. That being said, intent is not necessary to convict someone of child endangerment. As long as a reasonable person would have realized that the situation was dangerous, that is generally enough to convict. For example, leaving a young child in a car unattended can be a form of child endangerment. However, leaving a child in an air-conditioned car for five minutes is very different from leaving a child in a hot car for 45 minutes. In the first scenario, a reasonable person wouldn’t necessarily consider the situation to be dangerous, whereas most reasonable people would find the second scenario to be dangerous. Continue reading

According to Boston police, MIT’s Phi Delta Theta fraternity house was being “operated as a nightclub” on Sunday night, complete with a DJ and strobe lights. The fraternity failed to obtain the City of Boston License Division’s approval, but the problems don’t stop there. Underage drinking, a waterfall pouring down a marble staircase, and other hazardous conditions have resulted in the issuance of a violation to the fraternity’s president.

The inspection of the premises came after Boston police saw a “line of approximately 40 college-aged persons awaiting entry” into the fraternity house. During the inspection, detectives talked to a fraternity member who was stationed at the front door to record the number of people inside the building. When asked by police, he responded that there were 116 people inside.

Staircase Waterfalls and Underage Drinking