Recently, Attorney Claire Ward succeeded in reducing her elderly client's Sex Offender Registry Board level from Level 3 to Level 1 (the lowest level). Her client, aging and in poor health, had not offended in decades and poses no threat to anyone. Attorney Ward convinced the SORB that the public could be protected without subjecting her client to the barriers to living safely and without discrimination that are posed by public notification.
Wrongful Conviction Press Conference
Check out our Facebook Live feed of yesterday's press conference with our exonerated client Nat Cosenza, our firm and our co-counsel Loevy & Loevy. Watch here.
Wrongful Conviction Suit Filed, Press Conference
UPDATED LOCATION: Post Office Square Park, Boston. On May 10, 2018, Wood & Nathanson along with Loevy & Loevy filed a wrongful conviction suit on behalf of our client Nat Cosenza. The suit alleges that Worcester Police prompted the victim to make a mistaken identification, withheld and manipulated evidence. A press conference will be held at 2 p.m. on May 10. Mr. Cosenza spent 16 years in prison for a wrongful armed burglary conviction. Read the press release here.
Consequences of a Conviction Lecture
Attorney Claire Ward is presenting on collateral consequences on Thursday, May 10, 2018 at Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education. People charged with crime face so many penalties beyond probation and jail time but many people have no idea how a conviction can really impact their lives. A good attorney will help you anticipate and try to avoid some of these consequences.
Disqualification of Joyce's Counsel a Threat to Sixth Amendment
Opposing the government's attempt to disqualify counsel for former Sen. Brian Joyce, Attorney Wood, on behalf of MACDL, co-signed this brief written by Jack Falvey and a team from Goodwin Procter in in the federal criminal fraud case of former state senator Brian Joyce.
Lecture: Felony Murder after Brown
After drafting an amicus brief on behalf of MACDL with Foley Hoag partner Neil Austin which helped convince the Massachusetts SJC to abandon the 150 year old felony murder rule in Commonwealth v. Brown, Attorney Wood gave a lecture on March 16, 2018, at the annual MACDL Advanced Post-Conviction Seminar, at Wilmer Hale in Boston, explaining the consequences of this ground-breaking decision. An outline of Attorney Wood's lecture is available here.
Speedy Trial Amicus
Attorney Wood along with a team from Goodwin Procter, LLP including Attorney Willie Jay, recently filed an amicus brief in the SJC. On behalf of MACDL, they argued that the defendants were entitled to dismissal because the prosecution was not ready to try the cases within one year. The defendants caused no delay and yet the prosecution tries to blame them for not objecting to the scheduling of routine pretrial conferences. The prosecution's argument is nonsense both as a matter of law and as a matter of policy. Read the brief here.
No Juvenile Mandatory Minimums
Attorney Meredith Shih filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Boston Bar Association arguing that the SJC should not permit adult mandatory minimums for juveniles. There must be an individualized sentencing hearing that takes account of the constitutionally significant differences between juveniles and adults.
No Suspicionless Border Searches
We were pleased to partner with the Constitutional Accountability Center to file an amicus brief in support of the ACLU's challenge to suspicionless border searches of electronic devices in Alasaad v. Duke. The briefs are here. The government should not have unchecked power to trawl through our electronic devices. It is an invitation to profiling and other abuses.
Disappointing Decision on Pretextual Stops
We are disappointed in the SJC’s ruling today that pretextual traffic stops are permissible. The opinion expresses concern about the problem of racial profiling and “driving while black.” But in deciding the issues, it emphasizes the difficulties faced by judges asked to decide that a stop was pretextual. In contrast, the opinion gives short shrift to the real world difficulties faced by people who are subjected to pretextual stops. Pretextual stops lead to not just inconvenience, but embarrassment, missed appointments, lost pay, lost jobs, and even lost lives. A judge’s supposed difficulty in deciding whether a stop was pretextual should not outweigh the difficulties of the people of the Commonwealth.
Article 26 is more protective than the Eighth Amendment
We were troubled by a misstatement in a recent SJC opinion which asserted that Massachusetts' art. 26 protection against cruel or unusual punishments had never been ruled to be more protective than the Eighth Amendment. It just isn't true. So, we (along with Attorney Merritt Schnipper) filed this amicus brief on behalf of the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, asking the SJC to remove this misstatement. Many of us feared that this was a beachhead in an attempted rollback on constitutional protections.
Botched Title IX Case Leads to Yale Settlement
We read with interest about this case from Connecticut in which Yale was forced to settle a claim that it wrongfully expelled a student who was the subject of a false sexual assault claim. The case involved personal vendettas, student group politics, and and an unfair disciplinary process. Even when well-intentioned, these hearings can quickly go off the rails. If you are the subject of a Title IX complaint, you need counsel!
OUI Dismissed: A Big Deal to Our Client
Recently, Attorney Ward successfully obtained the dismissal of an OUI case. She did so by pushing the case to a quick trial and being ready to try the case when the Commonwealth was not. As a result, our client can return to driving for work and avoid other potentially serious consequences from a criminal conviction. We always strive to understand what our client's objectives are and formulate a plan to achieve them through preparation, skill and zealousness.
Check out our Twitter and Facebook feeds
Criminal Justice Reform: What Happened?
The Massachusetts House of Representatives has passed its own criminal justice reform bill. What happens now? In short, negotiations. The Senate and House versions have some substantive differences that need to be negotiated and agreed upon in a conference committee. That process will likely run into next year. We can expect some very positive developments at the end of the process: expanded expungement for some criminal records, repeal of mandatory minimum sentences for some drug crimes, and the reform of the use of solitary confinement or segregation. These are all data-driven "smart on crime" reforms that are likely to benefit society as a whole, not just offenders.
Massachusetts Criminal Justice Reform: What’s in the Bill?
The Massachusetts Senate passed a major criminal justice reform bill on October 27, 2017 and the legislation is now before our House of Representatives. Broadly speaking, the Senate bill represents a victory for the “smart on crime” approach that has swept state legislatures in recent years, even in the most conservative states. The fact is that you cannot arrest or prosecute your way out of social problems. The “tough on crime” approach has failed, proving instead to be disproportionate, destroying poor communities and communities of color, and seriously burdening taxpayers with the high fiscal and social cost of unnecessary incarceration.
Title IX Sexual Assault Investigation Policy Changes
Recent Department of Education policy changes under Title IX require that students accused of sexual misconduct be informed of the allegations in writing. They also allow for a higher standard of proof such as clear and convincing evidence, do not require that investigations be completed in 60 days, and allow for mediation. While all of these changes might seem obvious and non-controversial to those familiar with basic notions of due process in the American criminal justice system, they are important steps forward in the evolution of disciplinary procedures designed to adjudicate sexual assault allegations fairly and reliably on college campuses.
Commonwealth v. Timothy Brown: Felony Murder Limited
On September 20, 2017, the Supreme Judicial Court, in a four-judge concurring opinion in Commonwealth v. Timothy Brown, abolished the current Massachusetts doctrine of felony murder and replaced it with a new doctrine that requires the prosecution to prove actual malice. As Attorney Nathanson commented in the Boston Globe (here or here), felony murder law was "the ultimate technicality" because murder requires proof of malice, but felony murder replaced that with simply the intent to commit a felony. That rule did violence to some of our most basic principles of criminal justice: (a) that the government must prove all the elements of the crime, including intent, (b) that the defendant is presumed innocent, rather than essentially presuming his guilt of murder from his commission of some other offense, and (c) most importantly punishment - here, life imprisonment without parole - must fit the defendant's culpability or blameworthiness, rather than punishing him for unintended consequences from accidents or out-of-control compatriots.
SJC Should Outlaw Traffic Stops That Are Pretexts
Attorney Malm convinced the Supreme Judicial Court to take one of his cases in which he raised the important issue of whether or how police authority should be limited when a traffic stop for an observed civil traffic infraction is clearly a pretext to engage in an investigation of other activity. The Court has asked for amicus briefs on the issue. We hope to have supporting briefs from important civil rights and professional groups. Pretextual traffic stops enable racial profiling, and undermine public respect for the rule of law. The briefs and the Court's amicus invitation can be found here.
Dismissal Before Complaint Issues
Recently, Attorney Shih successfully convinced a clerk magistrate to throw out a pending application for a criminal motor vehicle infraction against the client. Additionally, Attorney Shih prevented a second criminal assault & battery complaint from issuing, protecting the client from having any criminal charges whatsoever show up on her record.