Text DelSignore Law at 781-686-5924 with your name and what kind of charge you are texting regarding.
Massachusetts Court of Appeals Decides a Classroom Death Threat Case
In the years following the 1999 Columbine shootings, the United States has seen approximately 284 mass shootings in schools across the country. Due to this tragic fact, threats of violence in schools are taken very seriously.
In a recent decision by the Massachusetts Court of Appeal in Commonwealth v. Leonardo, the court answered the question of whether a juvenile’s threat to kill his teacher was protected as free speech.
Circuit Split Arises Over Transgender Prisoner Rights
It is well known that the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution prevents cruel and unusual punishment. However, what constitutes cruel and unusual punishment is a decision that is left to the court’s’ discretion. There is a deep divide as to whether core issues such as the death penalty meets the standard of cruel and unusual punishment. If there is a disagreement over these central issues, the hot button issues will inevitably have a profound disagreement. Currently, there is a circuit split amount the federal courts of appeals as to whether denying a transgender prison sex reassignment surgery constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
The Eighth Amendment has been interpreted in a variety of situations, including the medical needs of prisoners. In Estelle v. Gamble, the United States Supreme Court held that a prisoner’s Eighth Amendment medical rights are violated if there is deliberate indifference to serious medical needs of prisoners constitutes the usury and wanton infliction of pain. It has been argued that denying transgender people their healthcare surrounding their gender dysphoria meets this standard.
Massachusetts Appellate Court Decides Text Message Restraining Order Case
A typical restraining order prohibits contact between two people, typically in a domestic violence or stalking situation. But what qualifies as contact? Are text messages from a certain phone number considered “contact” even though there is no way to prove who is behind the phone? The Massachusetts Court of Appeals decided this question in the case of Commonwealth v. Gonsalves.
What happened in the Gonsalves case?
Massachusetts Appellate Court Decides Sex-Crimes Case With No Sexual Offense
Is it possible to be labeled as a sex offender when no sexual assault ever occurred? The Massachusetts Court of Appeals decided this question in the case of John Doe v. Sex Offender Registry Board.
What happened in the Doe case?
The Sixth Amendment promises the right to confront an adverse witness. However, when the witness is on the other end of a 911 call, this can lead to tricky constitutional issues. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court will soon decide a confrontation clause issue in Commonwealth v. Rand. Hopefully, the SJC will correct an error made by the lower court regarding Rand’s right to confrontation as defendant’s in domestic assault and battery cases have seen their right to confront their accuser diminished by recent Court decisions.
What happened in the Rand case?
This case arises out of a domestic dispute. Defendant Rand and his former girlfriend Otilia Cradock are parents to a young daughter. The couple was on and off, but Rand stayed involved in his daughter’s life, so he was often at Cradock’s home. One night, Cradock and her sister spent the night drinking wine at her apartment. She started to be rude to her sister. Her sister left the apartment. At around 1 in the morning, Cradock reported to police that her boyfriend had assaulted her. She said that he had strangled her until she passed out and urinated. When the 911 operator asked if the boyfriend was still at the home, she responded that he had left.
The Massachusetts Court of Appeals held that pretextual inventory searches do not comport with the Fourth Amendment in the case of Commonwealth v. Lek. In the Lek case from Lowell the police detective conceded that he was using traffic infractions in order to detective gang activity. In other words, traffic stops were being made not to enforce the traffic laws but with the hopes that guns, drugs or other evidence of gang activity would be discovered during the stop.
What happened in the Lek case?
The Detective and his partner were in plainclothes in an unmarked police car. According to the Detective, he and his partner were looking for motor vehicle violations to address gang suppression through motor vehicle stops. the Detective testified that he was not required to do traffic enforcement that night and was doing it by his own free will.
The irony of living in a high crime area is that it makes the innocent more susceptible to searches and arrests. The case of Commonwealth v. Karen K. looks at a juvenile who was searched based on a police officer’s assumptions about the local area.
What happened in the Karen K. case?
Karen K. is a juvenile who resides in the Boston area. On November 1st, 2018, a concerned resident of a housing complex called the Boston Police Department to report that a group of “kids” was loitering and displaying a gun outside the complex. Officer Lopes reported to the scene. He was familiar with the complex because he had made many arrests there in the past. Lopes had a negative connotation associated with this building, and police had responded to shots fired at the building that same week.
Do You Have A Reasonable Expectation of Privacy in the Basement of a Multifamily Home That You Do Not Own?
The Fourth Amendment protects against places in which they have a subjective reasonable expectation of privacy. But when is this expectation unreasonable? The Appeals Court of Massachusetts, Bristol answered this question in Commonwealth v. DeJesus.
What happened in the DeJesus case?
Breath test evidence is heavily contested in Massachusetts OUI trials. When someone takes a breath test, as a Massachusetts OUUI Lawyer, we attempt to exclude the results from evidence as being unreliable. But what happens if the machine does not register, is the failed attempt to take a breath test admissible and under what circumstances. That was the issue in the case of Commonwealth v. Daigle, the Massachusetts Appellate Court answered this question.
A failed breath test is admissible in certain circumstances. It is well settled that a defendant refusing to take a breath test is not admission against them during an OUI trial. However, if a defendant signs a consent form to take a breath test, a machine malfunction or other errors may be admissible, In the case of Commonwealth v. Curley, police officers alleged that the defendant was purposely blowing into a breathalyzer machine incorrectly as to inhibit the machine from producing a reading. Because the defendant in that case signed a consent form, the jury could infer from his actions that he waa trying to avoid giving a sample while appearing to try and take the test.
What happened in the Daigle case?
The Fourth Amendment protects against government intrusion in the home and provides for a reasonable expectation of privacy. But does this protection extend to the most intimate areas of a person’s body? The case of Brown v. Wisconsin is pending before the Supreme Court and looks at the issue of whether police officers were justified in searching a woman’s vagina and anal cavity without a warrant. The Supreme Court of the United States must grant cert and decide whether the Fourth Amendment protects a person from unreasonable and humiliating searches by law enforcement officers.
What happened in the Brown case?
Sharon Brown is a Native American woman residing in Minnesota. In May of 2017, she was a passenger in her boyfriend’s car following a trip to Wal-Mart. The police stopped the vehicle after learning that her boyfriend allegedly shoplifted from the store. Despite her only being the passenger in the car, the police took her along with her boyfriend to jail and placed her in the holding cell. The jail’s policy allowed manual body-cavity searches without a warrant, probable cause, or exigency. Less than a day after Brown was detained, another detainee told a correctional officer, Steven Hillesheim, that Brown was hiding drugs. This detainee was a know liar and troublemaker. Hillesheim, however, did not investigate the legitimacy of these claims, despite Brown not having a history of drug use and being held in prison for shoplifting, an unrelated claim.
Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog