Argument: September 2010

Keywords: Constitutional Law - Criminal Procedure - Judicial Review - Search and Seizure

Question Presented: Whether police were justified in impounding and searching a vehicle when the driver was arrested at 4:15AM in a “high crime area” and the car’s owner could not be contacted.

Facts: Officers saw the defendants leave an after-hours party at a residential home at 4:15 AM, carry open bottles of beer into a car, and drive away. (Remarkably, parties at …

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Argument: October 2010

Keywords: Criminal Procedure - Immigration

Question Presented: Whether police violation of the Vienna Convention justifies a motion to withdraw a guilty plea.

Facts: The defendant, a citizen of the Dominican Republic, was arrested and charged with crimes three times in 2003. At no time was he given notice of his right to communicate …

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Argument: September 2010

Keywords: Criminal Procedure - Search and Seizure

Question Presented: Whether college police improperly entered a dorm room without consent or a warrant, on reports of conduct that violated the residence policy but not the law.

Facts: Resident directors for a Boston College dorm brought two students to campus police with a report that defendant Daniel Carr was bullying them and boasted of having a knife, and …

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Argument: Not yet scheduled.

Keywords: Constitutional Law - Criminal Procedure - Probation

Question Presented: Whether a defendant violates probation running “from and after” his jail sentence if he commits a crime while still serving the sentence.

Facts: The defendant was convicted of various crimes and sentenced to two and a half years in the house of corrections, with a ten year term of probation to run “from …

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Argument: September 2010

Keywords: Bail - Criminal Procedure - Judicial Review

Question Presented: Whether a defendant who is released on bail with conditions by the District Court can appeal the imposition of conditions to the Superior Court, pursuant to G.L. c. 276, § 58A.

Facts: The defendant was released on bail by a judge of the District Court subject to conditions, including that he wear a GPS tracking bracelet and follow a curfew. The defendant …

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Argument: September 2010

Keywords: Criminal Procedure - Evidence

Question Presented: Whether an incriminating statement must be suppressed where police delayed granting the defendant’s request for a phone call until after he confessed, but still permitted the phone call within one hour of arrival at the station.

Facts: The defendant was arrested after selling cocaine to undercover police officers. A substantial quantity of cocaine was then found in the apartment he shared with his cousin. At the station …

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Argument: May 2010

Keywords: Constitutional Law - Criminal Procedure - Evidence - Search and Seizure

Question Presented: Whether a defendant’s conclusory motion to suppress evidence permitted him to challenge the reliability of a 911 call after the close of evidence; whether an anonymous statement that the defendant was waving a gun was sufficiently reliable to justify an investigatory stop.

Facts: Police received an anonymous 911 call that a person was loading a firearm and waving it in the air. The suspect was described as a black male wearing a gray …

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Amicus due April 19, 2010 - Argument: May 6, 2010

Keywords: Criminal Procedure - District Court - Search and Seizure - Warrants

Question Presented: Whether a district court clerk-magistrate may issue a search warrant for premises falling outside the district court’s jurisdiction, but within the district court’s county.

Facts: The Barnstable Police Department investigated the defendant and his family, who were allegedly running a drug distribution enterprise, from 1999 to 2007. By 2007, the defendant had moved to the …

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Argument: September 2010

Keywords: Criminal Law - Criminal Procedure - Lesser Included Offense - Murder

Question Presented: Whether a defendant is entitled to an instruction on the lesser included offense of manslaughter, if a conviction on that offense is barred by the statute of limitations.

Facts: The defendant, Margaret Earle, appeals from her second degree murder conviction following the death of her 20-month-old daughter. The evidence showed that the child had been stomped on by Earle …

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Argument: May 2010

Keywords: Criminal Procedure - Evidence

Question Presented: Whether a district court judge properly fined the Commonwealth $25,000 for permitting the state police to test evidence in alleged violation of an ex parte order.

Facts: Several officers conducted a warrantless search of a car on the basis of a strong odor of fresh (not smoked) marijuana. They seized an unlicensed firearm and a small plastic …

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Argument: May 6, 2010 (reserve)

Keywords: Confrontation Clause - Constitutional Law - Criminal Procedure

Question Presented: Whether admission of a 911 call made by the alleged victim of an assault and battery from a neighbor’s house violated the defendant’s right of confrontation.

Facts: After a physical fight between the defendant and the alleged victim, his girlfriend, the victim ran to a neighbor’s house and made a 911 call. On the call, the …

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Argument: May 3, 2010

Keywords: Criminal Procedure - Domestic Violence - Evidence - Hearsay

Question Presented: Whether a defendant forfeited the right to object to prior statements made by the alleged victim of a crime, where he married her in order to allow her to claim the marital privilege against testifying.

Facts: The alleged victim, the defendant’s then-girlfriend, told her best friend and her sister that the defendant attempted to strangle her, and, while brandishing a knife, threatened to kill her …

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Amicus due February 16, 2010 - Argument: April 5, 2010

Keywords: Civil Procedure - Criminal Law - Criminal Procedure - Summary Judgment

Question Presented: What proof must a former convict offer at summary judgment to establish that his exoneration qualifies him to sue the Commonwealth for erroneous felony conviction, pursuant to G.L. c. 258D, § 1?

Facts: The plaintiff, Shawn Drumgold, was convicted of a gang-related murder on the testimony of a number of witnesses who claimed to have seen him planning for or en route to …

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Amicus due April 19, 2010 - Argument: May 2010

Keywords: Criminal Procedure

Question Presented: Whether a District Court judge properly issued a $5,000 sanction against the Commonwealth for failure to discover a police report in a cross-claim filed by the defendant.

Facts: In an assault and battery case where both parties claimed the other was the agressor, the Commonwealth provided automatic discovery materials to the defendant, including a police report and several …

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Amicus due February 16, 2010 - Argument: May 3, 2010

Keywords: Criminal Procedure - Expert Testimony - Search and Seizure

Question Presented: Whether a driveway technically belonging to three apartments, but actually only used by one apartment, is on that apartment’s curtilage; whether the judge had sufficient evidence that a field test for cocaine was widely accepted in other jurisdictions.

Facts: Police obtained a search warrant for the defendant’s home after a field test indicated that bags found in the defendant’s trash were dusted in cocaine. The defendant’s …

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Amicus due February 16, 2010 - Argument: April 5, 2010

Keywords: Criminal Procedure - First Complaint - Hearsay - Probation - Sex Offenders

Question Presented: Whether the judge in a probation revocation hearing properly relied on a videotape of a four-year-old girl in revoking the defendant’s probation, even though she later recanted her testimony.

Facts: The defendant’s probation was revoked after his four-year-old granddaughter reported that he had touched her sexually. The Commonwealth submitted hearsay evidence of the child’s report, including most significantly …

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Argument: April 8, 2010 (reserve)

Keywords: Criminal Law - Criminal Procedure - Jury Instructions - Lesser Included Offense

Question Presented: Whether a defendant may be retried on the lesser included offense of assault with a deadly weapon, where the jury should not have been instructed on that offense in the first trial.

Facts: The defendant and a motorcyclist, Frank Merlonghi, shouted threats and obscenities at each other while driving down a two-lane road. At one point the defendant removed his service firearm (he …

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Amicus due March 15, 2010 - Argument: April 2011

Keywords: Criminal Procedure - Search and Seizure

Question Presented: What steps must a police officer must take to verify the identity of a person inviting him into a residence, when entering for a protective purpose?

Facts: A police officer, looking for a motel manager in order to retrieve a dirty needle, knocked at the motel room where he knew the manager had lived three months earlier …

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Amicus due March 15, 2010 - Argument: May 6, 2010

Keywords: Criminal Procedure - Disabilities - Judicial Review

Question Presented: Whether a witness with a speech-related disability has the right to challenge her exclusion as a witness during trial; whether the judge properly excluded her testimony for inability to give narrative answers.

Facts: The appellant is the alleged victim in the criminal trial of Kofi Agana. The alleged victim suffers from expressive aphasia, a condition that permits her to understand language, but to …

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Amicus due March 15, 2010 - Argument: May 2010

Keywords: Constitutional Law - Criminal Law - Criminal Procedure - Judicial Review - Sex Offenders

Question Presented: Whether an improper basis for imprisonment of a sex offender bars the Commonwealth from petitioning for commitment of the offender as a sexually dangerous person.

Facts: Repeat sexual offenders are subject to a mandatory sentence of community parole supervision for life (“CPSL”), a lifetime status equivalent to parole.  G.L. c. 265, § 45.  The petitioner pled …

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Argument: April 6, 2010

Keywords: Constitutional Law - Criminal Procedure - Professional Responsibility

Question Presented: Whether a witness to a crime can be compensated for their testimony by a third party, contingent on obtaining an indictment or conviction.

Facts: The defendant was convicted of second-degree murder after two witnesses implicated him in a nighttime shooting in New Bedford. The witnesses were compensated by the New Bedford Chamber of Commerce …

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Amicus due February 16, 2010 - Argument: March 2, 2010

Keywords: Criminal Procedure - Evidence - GPS - Hearsay - Probation

Question Presented: Whether printed documents from a GPS monitoring center are admissible in a probation revocation hearing.

Facts: The defendant received both jail time and a probationary sentence after a number of assaults against his wife. His probation specified that he wear a GPS tracking device and remain …

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Amicus due February 16, 2010 - Argument: March 2, 2010

Keywords: Constitutional Law - Criminal Procedure - Evidence - First Complaint

Question Presented: Whether a report by a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) is admissible in a rape trial, either as a medical record or a prior consistent statement.

Facts: A jury convicted the defendant of crimes included aggravated rape after the victim testified that he attacked her, digitally raped her, picked up her purse, and then ran away when …

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