The Kickham Comment - Boston Criminal Attorney Blog
As the Enterprise News made clear in an editorial last week, change begins with telling the truth. And the truth on this subject – the glaring truth – is that drug crime polices, both in Massachusetts and across the nation – have been essentially a complete failure, and a waste of hundreds of millions of […]
Search Results for: Mandatory Minimum Sentencing
Alleged Rape By Recent Prison Parolee Raised Questions: Massachusetts Parole Board Flawed? Part Two of Two
In my previous post, I discussed the arrest last week on rape charges of a recent Massachusetts prison parolee, one Richard Flowers, released two months ago in July. While this year isn’t an election year in Massachusetts for statewide offices such as Governor, you can be assured that if it were, this case would be […]
Massachusetts Criminal Justice Reform Stirs Debate
Like an unusually large wave that occasionally hits the shore, every few years there is a swell on Beacon Hill to “reform” something. Back in the 1990’s, get-tough-on-crime advocates successfully passed legislative “crack-down” amendments to many criminal law statutes, several of them requiring mandatory minimum sentences for a variety of crimes – mostly Massachusetts drug […]
Massachusetts Child Rape Reform Bill Awaits Governor’s Signature
Sorry I haven’t posted anything in several days. I’ve been down with a bit of a summer flu, but hope you’ve been visiting, nonetheless. A major legislative effort has come to a head up on Beacon Hill, which would reform the current child rape statute by increasing the mandatory minimum sentence for some sex offenses […]
Murder In Massachusetts: Post # 8: Entwistle’s Fate In Hands of The Jury
And now we wait. The defense finally showed their cards on Monday, with Elliot Weinstein closing the defense’s case with a not-surprising defense theory that “Rachel Did It”: That a depressed woman killed her baby, then herself. While advancing this defense at the last minute, in their closing arguments before the jury, was technically objectionable […]