Yesterday, the Boston Globe reported on a murder that almost certainly could have been prevented, involving a domestic violence call that Boston Police Department officers had responded to a year ago, in November 2014. This story has cause a lot of concerns among the public about the effectiveness of restraining…
Here in Massachusetts, we’ve got a serious problem involving heroin use. A lot of deaths have resulted, and clearly, we need to address this problem. No one, including myself, disputes that. But you can rely on government to step in and largely botch the potential solutions to a given problem.…
“Deja Vu, all over again.” I don’t mean for that quote from the late Yogi Berra to be humorous here. I’m talking about yet another mass shooting, this time in Oregon. Ten people killed, seven wounded. For me, as Massachusetts criminal defense lawyer, one of the scariest things about this…
Boston Fox TV25 has reported that a Brewster, Mass., woman has been fired for her job — for testing positive for marijuana use — even though she has a completely legal prescription from her doctor, to treat a serious disease that she has. That disease is Crohn’s Disease, a gastrointestinal…
I grew up just down the street from Boston University, on Crowninshield Road in Brookline, Mass. Every late August and early September, I would watch as thousands of “grown ups,” as I thought of them in those much younger years of my life, swarmed Commonwealth Avenue and North Brookline, in…
I don’t usually weigh in on cases outside Massachusetts, but the St. Paul’s Prep School rape trial in New Hampshire merits a few observations. First, in the event that some people might think that, as a Boston Massachusetts sex crimes attorney, I’m going to dismiss all the allegations that have…
In my previous post on this subject, I wrote of how colleges and universities across the United States are rapidly disassembling the way that accusations of college campus rape and college campus sexual assault are handled – and of how, in the process, many accused students’ legal and constitutional rights…
There’s a growing trend across Massachusetts college campuses, and at universities throughout the United States, and it isn’t pretty: Colleges and universities that conduct their own “investigations” over accusations of sexual assault, and hear “evidence” in their own internal “tribunals,” consisting of anything but trained judges or even attorneys. What’s…
In my previous post on this subject, last week, I discussed how unjust, wasteful and counterproductive Massachusetts mandatory minimum drug sentences are. In today’s post I’ll provide some examples: If you bought or sold a little over an ounce of pot from a friend, or anyone, were charged under the…
Readers of this blog know that I’ve made my opposition to mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses, well known. It is a foolhardy, unjust, wasteful, and expensive approach to sound legal policy when it comes to Massachusetts drug crimes. As a Massachusetts drug charges attorney, I know this all too…