In the past ten days or so, I’ve been asked by more than one person why accused “Craigslist Killer” Phillip Markoff has been charged with murder, and not a lesser crime, since there are not currently any witnesses who say they actually saw what happened. The formal charges against Markoff…
I’ve dedicated several posts to this subject, because the problem of school bullying and student violence has become so pervasive. It is a reflection of the violence and vulgarity that pervades our society, in everything from video games such as “Grand Theft Auto,” which is filled with sickening and gratuitous…
In my previous post on this subject, I wrote of how an 11 year-old boy in Springfield, Massachusetts, Charles Joseph Walker-Hoover, killed himself last week after suffering repeated taunts and bullying at the hands of fellow students at the New Charter Leadership School in Springfield, Massachusetts. According to the boy’s…
Something happened in our midst this past week; something that should strike at the core of every public school committee and private school system in Massachusetts, and which should resonate across the United States. It is something that should keep principals awake at night, and something that should keep teachers…
In two previous posts on this subject, I wrote of how Middlesex County District Attorney Gerry Leone’s office has doggedly pursued a suspect in the unsolved murder of Dr. Linda Goudey, a Stoneham obstetrician who was found strangled to death in the trunk of her car in September of 1993.…
File this under: “It Doesn’t Just Happen At Abu Ghraib” The vast majority of Massachusetts Police Departments do a good job of enforcing the laws that the rest of us are required to obey, as well as observing the laws they are required to obey when it comes to arresting…
Occasionally, I’m asked by other criminal defense lawyers if I have any hesitation writing about or publicly approving of “prosecution wins” – cases where the defendant was found guilty. As a Massachusetts criminal defense attormey, the answer is no, I don’t: I don’t at all believe that truly guilty persons,…
Ten years ago this summer, a horrifying story came to pass on Cape Cod. It represented the penultimate fear of anyone whose car has ever broken down, and is seeking help. A young woman named Melissa Gosule was driving on Cape Cod in July 1999 near the Cape Cod Canal…
Here’s an interesting decision handed down from the Massachusetts Appeals Court recently. Seems a Barnstable District Court judge overstepped his authority in 2007 when he unilaterally upgraded, or beefed up, the charges that the Commonwealth had tried a defendant on involving a 2006 motor vehicle fatality on Cape Cod. The…
When will this end? Recently, a handful of cities and towns in Massachusetts have begun efforts to develop municipal ordinances and bylaws that would punish public possession of an ounce or less of marijuana, above and beyond the state civil fines that were approved in the November 2008 ballot measure…