In an extremely important decision issued last week, the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the police must obtain a search warrant before looking at the data contained in the cell phone of someone who has been arrested.  The name of the case is Riley v. California.  It overruled a Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court...

On June 11, 2014, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the law allowing for community parole supervision for life (CPSL) is unconstitutional. (more…)

The Massachusetts witness intimidation statute (chapter 268, section 13B) prohibits any person from misleading a police officer with the intent to impede a criminal investigation. (more…)

On June 18, 2014, the Supreme Judicial Court clarified the scope of the “one-party consent exception” to the state wiretap law (chapter 272, section 99).  In Massachusetts it is illegal to secretly record an oral communication unless all parties to the conversation consent.  However, the one-party consent exception allows a law enforcement officer, or...

Thanks to a shocking scandal involving the gross misconduct of a single chemist, crime labs around the country are finding themselves in a unique position: under the microscope of judicial, legislative, and social scrutiny. While the Massachusetts example only involves a single one of the state’s eleven forensic evidence-processing labs, the one in Jamaica...