Amy Bishop, the University of Alabama-Huntsville professor charged with killing three colleagues and injuring three others on February 12, is now charged with Massachusetts first-degree murder in the 1986 shooting death of her brother Seth Bishop.

After originally finding that Bishop accidentally killed her 18-year-old brother, prosecutors reopened the case after the February incident. They now say that police back then did not share important evidence, including Bishop’s alleged attempt at stealing a car from a dealership after she shot her brother, and they are wondering why police never charged her.

At the time, Bishop told the cops that she accidentally shot Seth while attempting to unload her father’s 12-gauge shotgun. Her mother, who witnessed the incident, supported her daughter’s claim.

Investigators now say that even prior to shooting her brother, Bishop kept a newspaper clipping about the 1986 murders of TV star Patrick Duffy’s parents. A teenager had used the same type of gun to kill both of them before stealing a vehicle from an auto dealership.

John V. Polio, the Braintree police chief at the time of Seth’s shooting, said that the murder indictment does not convince him that Bishop is guilty. He says that back then there were too many unanswered questions to determine whether Bishop had intended to shoot her brother. Meantime, the Quincy, Massachusetts lawyer for Bishop’s parents says that the family maintains the tragic shooting incident was an accident and that Amy, who was very close to Seth, had no reason to kill him.

After she was indicted for her brother’s murder, Bishop tried to commit suicide. She was treated at a hospital before returning to an Alabama jail.

Bishop’s criminal defense lawyer says the latest charge against Bishop will be used in any insanity defense. Bishop is charged with capital murder and attempted murder in the Alabama University shootings.

Amy Bishop charged with murder for 1986 shooting of brother, Boston.com, June 16, 2010
Bishop lawyer says Boston case may help defense, Lake Wylie Pilot, June 16, 2010
Amy Bishop Attempts Suicide After Learning of Murder Charge in Brother’s Death, Say Sources, CBS, June 18, 2010

Related Web Resources:
Boston Ghosts Of Criminal Past Continue To Haunt Prof. Amy Bishop, Now Accused Of Murders By Firearm, Boston Criminal Lawyer, February 18, 2010
Police Report from the 1986 shooting, Boston.com Continue reading

19-year-old Sherman Badgett is being held without bail. The Dorchester teenager has pleaded not guilty to charges of Massachusetts assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, first-degree murder, and unlawful possession of a firearm. Badgett is accused of fatally shooting Aaron Brown, also 19, on August 29, 2009 outside the Dorchester YMCA.

According to authorities Brown, Badgett, and Tyree Draughn, 18, became involved in dispute while at the YMCA dance. Draughn, who is charged with and has pleaded not guilty to the charges of assault with a dangerous weapon and accessory after the fact, allegedly pulled out a gun and pointed it at a group of people.

The teenagers were ordered to leave the YMCA and that was when Badgett allegedly pulled out a gun and fired three shots. One bullet struck a wall, another hit another victim’s ear, and the third one hit Brown. Badgett and Draughn were not apprehended until several month’s after Brown’s shooting death.

First-Degree Murder
First-degree murder is considered one of the most serious crimes and can come with a maximum lifetime prison sentence without the chance of parole. Bail is usually denied in these criminal cases.

Boston man pleads innocent to YMCA slaying, WHDH, June 15, 2010
Boston man pleads innocent to YMCA slaying, Boston Herald, June 15, 2010
Teen killed at YMCA dance, Boston.com, August 31, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Massachusetts General Laws

Murder, First Degree, Lectlaw.com Continue reading

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 year as an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn was in the Sex Crimes and Special Victms Bureau.

I remember back to one night, looking around my Brooklyn Heights apartment, papers and chineese food scattered, mid-trial, taking note of my surroundings. Then I looked into a mirror, seeing Mr. Prosecutor..red-eyed, sweaty and dressed…well, let’s just say not at my best.

This is when I began thinking, “If people only knew…!”

There I was, mere months out of law school in Boston and now juggling around one hundred sex crimes cases…..all of which seemed bound for trial.

I had always loved performing, and so being a student prosecutor at Boston University Law School had been fun…but this was the real stuff. And there I lay on my couch, too tired to review a rape case that was mid-trial, yet knowing that I had to do so. All those “all nighters at school tended to pay off at such moments.

If people only knew…this is the picture of that scary prosecutor who had the power to send people to jail.
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Benjamin F. Haskell, one of three white men who originally pleaded not guilty to conspiracy charges in a civil rights violation related to the burning of a predominantly black Springfield church, is scheduled to plead guilty during a change of plea hearing on Wednesday. It has not been revealed what charge he will plead guilty to is or whether there is a plea agreement involved.

Haskell, 23, Michael Jacques, 25, and Thomas Gleason Jr. 22, were charged in connection with a blaze that destroyed the Macedonia Church of God in Christ on November 5, 2008, just hours after President Obama was elected. All three men were arrested in January 2009 based on information provided by an informant.

The defendants allegedly confessed that they entered the church, which was under construction at the time, through a side window and used about five gallons of gas to douse the structure on the outside and the inside. Three firefighters sustained minor injuries as they attempted to put out the blaze.

Gleason and Jacques have pleaded not guilty to charges of damaging religious property because of race, color, or ethnic characteristics, civil rights violations, and using fire to commit a felony. Their criminal defense lawyer attempted to get their confessions tossed out as evidence on the grounds that law enforcement officials allegedly threatened and bullied the two men during hours of interrogation but a judge denied that motion. Haskell, who is facing lesser criminal charges, did not take part in the suppression hearings.

Guilty plea expected in Mass. black church arson, AP, June 13, 2010
Tipster led authorities to 3 men charged with setting Macedonia Church of God in Christ on fire hours after President Obama elected, court testimony indicates, MassLive, May 26, 2010

Related Web Resources:
Post-election church arson at predominantly black parish probed as possible hate crime, MassLive, November 5, 2008
Federal Crimes, Cornell University Law School Continue reading

As a Boston criminal defense attorney, there is an oft-said and ill-fated sentence claimed by clients. It reads, “…but I didn’t know that was illegal!”

Unfortunately, such lack of knowledge does not usually matter. They really mean it when they say “ignorance of the law is no excuse”. Further, there are times when ignorance of the facts is basically irrelevent.

A prime example of the latter is the case of statutory rape. “But I didn’t know she was just shy of her thirteenth birthday…she told me she was twenty-five” is not going to be a viable defense.

Another example is something that a psychiatrist who teaches at Harvard Medical School (clearly not an ignorant man by any estimation, yet, hereinafter, the “Defendant”) said this week about the trouble in which he has now found himself.

He had been hosting a graduation party in New Hampshire. He has released a statement that he didn’t know that there were students drinking at the high school graduation party .

Apparently, however, there were.
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Last week, the Boston legal community had alittle excitement which spread from Capitol Hill to the United States District Court. That’s right, the federal one.

Many people are still debating it and question whether it should have happened. As for me, although I had not had a chance to blog on it yet, I was interviewed on WBZ radio (1030 on your a.m. dial). That interview, incidently, can be found here.

In case you had not heard, former state Senator. Dianne Wilkerson pleaded guilty to eight counts of attempted extortion and now faces up to four years in jail when she’s sentenced this fall.

Ms. Wilkerson had been arrested in October 2008, prior to leaving the State House office she held for six terms, on indictments alleging she pocketed $23,500 in bribes between 2002 and 2008, including $1,000 she was photographed stuffing in her bra at an upscale Beacon Hill restaurant.

The Roxbury Democrat was to go on trial June 21. Thinking better of it as time grew shorter, she came to an agreement with the federal prosecutors and, last week, she pleaded guilty.
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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 generally encouraged by society. Of course, it is antithetical to the United States Constitution and other laws of our country (not to mention the spirit behind them), but that’s simply a nasty nuance.

Who looks at nuances anyway?

Anyway, I have often indicated in these blogs that, while we still give lip service to the presumption of innocence, we generally accept the existing assumption of guilt.

Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis has announced that the Boston Police Department is now pursuing a new approach in finding alleged gang members. In this case, the department has released photographs of 10 unidentified young men because Commissioner Davis believes that the photographed gentlemen should be “shamed” for allegedly belonging to a gang that he contends bears responsibility for the death of a 14-year-old boy.

“We are doing this because we believe the community can play a role in making the individuals who are responsible for the execution of a 14-year-old boy outcasts in their own neighborhood,” Davis said in a telephone interview.
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As a Boston-area criminal defense attorney, I face many “There but for the grace of G-d go I” moments. As I have often discussed in these postings, I am constantly presented with lives that have been ruined by very bad moments. Such moments can change an otherwise on-track life into something of a living nightmare. Some people choose such moments on a regular basis. For others, dealing with the debris of one such moment is enough to last a life-time.

Last week, I side-stepped one such moment.

I was appearing on a murder case at Suffolk Superior Court which involved a shooting. As it turned out, the next door session had a murder trial of its own in which the jury was deliberating. Ironically, the subject matter of that case was related to my case. I waited awhile in case the verdict came, but it did not.

It came the next day instead. I wasn’t there, but I learned in the papers that the verdicts were guilty. But, as it turned out, the verdicts were the least of the excitement the court experienced.

Moments after the defendants were denounced by the deceased’s family for their “animalistic” actions in a victim impact statement, the courtroom exploded into a melee between said victims and families of the four men convicted of murdering the 16-year-old on a Dorchester street in 2007.

After being given the mandatory sentence for second-degree murder (life with the possibility of parole after serving 15 years) one of the convicted lads protested his innocence,

The clerk then announced that the men were sentenced to prison for their “natural life.”
One of the defendants’ relatives shouted out, “What do you mean ‘natural life?’ ”
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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 defenders. These people, however, guard against inside threats. They are involved daily in more local battles that end up being resolved in the trenches of the courtroom. The dangers they face, however, are very real.

Joseph Galapo had been an undercover police officer with whom I worked during my days as an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, New York. At the time, I was in the narcotics bureau, happily indicting names I had been informed were the enemy in the “War Against Drugs”. That’s all they were to me then…names. The police officers who were our witnesses, however, were human beings. We saw them on a regular basis. We got to know some of them beyond the badge and thin blue line. Joe was one such guy.

Shortly after the birth of his second child, he quit working undercover because of the obvious dangers. He began to work in a safer capacity…as a uniformed narcotics investigator.
Joe was thirty years old when he was shot and killed during what should have been a routine drug bust in a typical Brooklyn Street. In the chaos of an arrest, a partner’s gun was jolted and it discharged a bullet into Joe’s head.
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Thomas DeBlois, a church choir director, was arrested on Saturday for alleged sexual misconduct. The 47-year-old Woburn man is charged with the Massachusetts enticement of a child. Now, pending the outcome of the criminal investigation, the Archdiocese of Boston has placed him on leave without pay.

DeBlois, who is St. Charles Borromeo Parish’s music and choir director, has worked there since 1992. He used to be a music teacher at the parish’s elementary school.

All parish volunteers and employees that work with children must undergo criminal background checks each year. The last time DeBlois was screened was in January. At the time, he had no criminal entries on his record.

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