In Commonwealth v. Eldred, the Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the revocation of the defendant’s probation and concluded (1) that “a judge may order a defendant who is addicted to drugs to remain drug free as a condition of probation”; and (2) that where a defendant has violated that condition, the…
In Commonwealth v. Monteiro, the Appeals Court reversed the suppression of items seized by the police from the defendant’s apartment because the judge erroneously ruled that “the information provided by a first-time, confidential police informant (CI) was [not] sufficiently corroborated by a single, imperfectly executed controlled ‘buy’ of cocaine for…
In Commonwealth v. Richardson, the Supreme Judicial Court reversed the defendant’s conviction of unlawful cultivation of medical marijuana because “the jury were not properly instructed as to the standard for evaluating whether a defendant exceeded the home cultivation limit,” and because “the evidence was insufficient to support such a finding.”…
In Commonwealth v. Rodriguez, the Appeals Court reversed the defendant’s conviction of trafficking in heroin because the field test of the purportedly illegal substance seized by the police was not evaluated for scientific reliability under the Daubert/Lanigan standard (Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 [1993]; Commonwealth v.…
In a recent decision – Commonwealth v. Smith – the Appeals Court affirmed the defendant’s conviction of possession with intent to distribute cocaine, the Appeals Court rejected the defendant’s contention that the testimony of a police expert on drug use and distribution “was admitted improperly because it was based on hearsay…
The Appeals Court’s recent decision in Commonwealth v. Martin reversed the denial of the defendant’s motion to suppress evidence seized by the police after they made a warrantless entry into a residence “while chasing the defendant, who [had] fled … during a stop for a civil infraction of marijuana possession.” The…
The Supreme Judicial Court recently issued a decision in a petition filed under G. L. c.211, §3, ruling that the public defender’s office, not judges, have the independent authority to decide who represents indigdent defendants in court. In the decision – Deputy Chief Counsel for the Public Defender Division of CPCS…
The Appeals Court recently issued a decision – Commonwealth v. Cooper – clarifying what clarifies as an “accredited” preschool for the purposes of G. L. c. 94C, § 32J, the school zone statute. The defendant was convicted of drug distribution of a class E substance, in a school zone. In its…
A recent article at Slate.com addresses damning information about the Massachusetts state prosecutors’ failure to properly handle the drug scandals that have rocked Massachusetts over the past several years. Massachusetts has been the site of two of the country’s largest drug laboratory scandals which occurred as the result of egregious misconduct…
The Supreme Judicial Court issued a recent decision, Bridgeman v. District Attorney for the Suffolk District, addressing cases impacted by the Annie Dookhan scandal. In its decision, the SJC announced a new protocol to address the unresolved drug cases that may have been affected by Dookhan’s misconduct. The Court described…