Over the past few years, the number of calls that I receive as a Massachusetts domestic restraining order attorney, on the subject of Massachusetts domestic violence arrest and charges, has increased substantially.  A great reason for this spike has to do with new legislation that was passed a few years ago, which expanded the scope and legal severity of these crimes.  That reform legislation was passed in large part due to tragedies involving allegedly light…

Now that summer is here and people are again flocking to Cape Cod & the Islands, a lot of people have been looking at news on actor Kevin Spacey.  As most everyone who knows this name knows, Spacey (real name:  Kevin Fowler), was charged last January in Nantucket District Court on Massachusetts Indecent Assault & Battery charges, accused of sexually assaulting an 18 year-old boy in the summer of 2016.  Spacey, of course, has pleaded…

As a Massachusetts drug crimes defense attorney, I have watched for years as countless citizens have been arrested and prosecuted for a wide variety of Massachusetts drug offenses – the majority of them needless prosecutions caused by the now half-century old “War on Drugs” that the federal government has used hundreds of billions of our tax dollars to “fight”.  As a Boston drug crimes lawyer, I can assure my readers that this “War” has always…

Most of my time as a Massachusetts criminal defense attorney is spent on defending very serious charges, such as Massachusetts sexual assault charges, Massachusetts domestic violence charges, Massachusetts larceny charges, Massachusetts drug charges, and more.  But life here in Massachusetts can be made miserable on a legal level in more ways than being arrested for a very serious criminal offense.  To illustrate, I’ll open this post with this news excerpt: “Federal prosecutors say troopers from…

Here’s a twist on an old issue involving Massachusetts rape charges: A victim claims she/he was raped. Importantly, before going further, let’s make sure that we understand what the legal elements of rape are in Massachusetts, which are as follows: 1) Penetration of any bodily orifice by any part of the body, or by an object, performed against the victim’s will, 2) Without the victim’s consent, and 3) Accompanied by the threat of or actual…

Governor Charlie Baker filed a bill this past Wednesday adopting a state panel’s recommendations to deal with police stops of drivers suspected of being impaired due to cannabis use. Even though I’m a very serious safety advocate, as a Massachusetts OUI/DWI attorney, I have one major objection to this bill, as presently written. The Special Commission on Impaired Driving, which is part of the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission was created within the law that legalized…

In my immediately preceding  post on this subject, I discussed the background of how it was discovered that a high number number of breathalyzer test results in Massachusetts OUI/DUI cases across the state, were tainted by failures by the Massachusetts Office of Alcohol Testing (OAT) to either make sure that their testing equipment was calibrated properly, as well as that office intentionally withholding exculpatory evidence in a variety of OUI prosecutions. All this litigation began…