Boston Criminal Lawyer Blog

As we start today’s blog, hoping for a more regular posting schedule than the last couple of weeks (again), we turn to the transition occurring for our kids. Namely, the school year is ending.

This week, I plan to start and end the week with stories related to school-related matters.

We turn first to North Attleboro, Massachusetts. There, a 31-year-old Middle School guidance counselor is facing charges with having sex with a 14-year-old student. At his arraignment last week, he was held on $30,000 bail.

We now return to the predicament I left you in early last week. You can find it here.

A couple of weeks have gone by since your arraignment. The outlook has changed a little bit. While you were muddling through your “adventures” in the local jail, combating isolation, humiliation and fear, you received a visitor. He introduced himself as “Attorney Larry Liberty”. He explained that your family wanted to hire him as your lawyer.

He told you the amount of his fee which you found to be astronomical. He explained to you that the fee would cover both the criminal case as well as the DCF case and that it was a flat fee. You did not understand what a” DCF case” was, but you knew that any progress was likely to be good progress.

In my last blog, I mentioned that I wanted to give you a taste of what it is like to be charged with the particularly nasty crime of sexual assault. In that blog, I described some of the problems you would likely face should the charges against you be dismissed.

Later this week, I plan to update that subject with a case I witnessed only this past week. In the meantime, let’s assume that you have been charged with Massachusetts indecent assault and battery. Assume further that, while you know the man making the allegations, you do not recall attacking him in any way. However, the police called you down to the police stations to “talk” and “get your side of it”.

“Your side” was not too helpful to the Commonwealth and so the response was to take you into custody.

Today, on the Boston Herald website, Bob McGovern has posted a column entitled “Full Court Press: ‘Nolle’ process feels inadequate to innocent”. It is well worth reading and reflects a part of the message which this blog has long been trying to convey.

He tells about Ross Currier, a 26-year-old man who was charged with a recent North End sexual assault. It turns out that, after going through the hell of the kind years can be stripped from your life whatever the result, the Commonwealth said “never mind.” The Commonwealth, apparently realizing that they had the wrong man, issued a “nolle pross”.

A “nolle pross” is basically a dismissal…for now. It is actually a vehicle by which the Commonwealth seems to turn back time and simply withdraws the prosecution. The resulting dismissal is “without prejudice”. This means that the charges can be brought again any time in the future, so long as the statute of limitations has not passed.

Josh Wairi, 27, of Somerville, and hereinafter, the “Defendant”, was arrested Thursday. He is now being held without bail in federal custody until he faces a detention hearing on Wednesday.

We began discussing this case on Friday. The Defendant is/was a 5th grade teacher in Cambridge and has allegedly made all sorts of confessions for some unknown reasons.

As usual, the press have copies of the affidavit filed by law enforcement. Despite the fact that the Defendant is alleged to have admitted guilt, there is much we do not know about this case…including what, if any, defense is planned. While you might not know it to look at it, he is still presumed to be innocent.