Attorney Wood recently consulted on and was a signatory (as MACDL’s representative) to an amicus brief in Commonwealth v. Sweeting-Bailey. This brief by a coalition of civil rights groups explains why gang databases are artificial racist constructs and unreliable indicators of criminal behavior. Therefore, the fact that someone has been placed in a gang database should not be a basis for reasonable suspicion that he or she has committed a crime. Read the brief here.
Racial Justice Litigation
Every attorney at Wood & Nathanson is motivated to advance racial justice. It is a central focus of what we do. We thought we would take a moment to outline some of our work in this area. We have brought litigation challenging racism in traffic stops, stop and frisk, jury selection and the school to prison pipeline. Racism pervades the criminal justice system and we will not stop challenging it.
Emails Reveal New Evidence of Misconduct at Hinton Drug Laboratory
This week, the Boston Globe reported on a series of cases that Wood & Nathanson attorney Christopher Post has been working on for the past several years, along with parallel litigation by Attorney James McKenna. New information proves that misconduct at the Hinton Drug Lab was wider than previously known. This information came to light because of Attorney Post’s relentless push both to obtain the internal emails of the Office of the Inspector General (‘OIG’) and then his fight to make them public. Read the emails here.
Striking Two Blows for Freedom against Stop & Frisk and Impoundment Searches
In the past week, Wood & Nathanson has helped strike two significant blows for freedom in cases involving police arrests and searches of motorists. Wood & Nathanson alumna Attorney Claire Ward convinced the Supreme Judicial Court to rule that the police must have reasonable suspicion that a suspect is both armed and dangerous before pat frisking them. Also, Attorney Wood and a team of ACLU lawyers drafted an amicus brief that helped convince the SJC to rule for the first time that police cannot routinely impound and search the car of an arrested motorist when a sober, qualified driver is available to take possession of the car.
Important Amicus Brief Regarding Police Stops
Today, the SJC heard argument in Commonwealth v. Tykorie Evelyn, an important case regarding police stops in so-called “high crime” areas where residents may seek to avoid contact with the police out of nervousness or fear, not consciousness of guilt. As co-chair of the MACDL Amicus Committee, Attorney Wood was proud to help pull together and assist a great team from Foley Hoag consisting of Anthony Mirenda, Neil Austin, Rachel Hutchinson, and Ned Melanson. Their brief powerfully argues, among other things, that nervousness or lack of engagement by a black teenager during a police encounter is not indicative of criminality. You can read the brief here.
Wrongful Conviction Day
In honor of Wrongful Conviction Day (Oct. 2), Attorney Wood and Boston College Prof. Charlotte Whitmore went to Concord Academy with their client Omar to share his story with a group of students. It was a very popular event!
Omar Released: 19 Years to Vindication
This week, after a 15 year fight, Attorney Wood finally achieved victory in the single most gut-wrenching case of his 25 year career. The Hampden Superior Court vacated the murder conviction of his client Omar and immediately released him into the loving arms of his family. Click here to read the story.
SJC Avoids Adopting "Reasonable Juvenile" Standard
n Commonwealth v. Michelle Carter, the Supreme Judicial Court declined to decide whether all legal standards involving a "reasonable person" should be applied against children by assessing what a reasonable juvenile of the same age would have done in the same circumstances. Trial attorneys should continue to request a reasonable juvenile instruction in any appropriate case and in bench trials should argue for the judge to apply a reasonable juvenile standard in closing. Given what we know about those age 18-25, trial attorneys should also consider asking for a reasonable person of the same age instruction and putting in an expert to explain brain science in the emerging adult population.
New Trial Granted Based On Eyewitness ID Developments
On May 31, 2016, Justice Richard Tucker granted Attorney Wood’s motion for new trial in Commonwealth v. Cosenza, a 2000 armed burglary case in which the trial judge had excluded the eyewitness expert testimony of Dr. Steven Penrod. Attorney Wood has been fighting for Mr. Cosenza for more than a decade.
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.
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.
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!
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.
Resources for Research
Below you will find links to some great (and free) resources for creative and effective legal writing.
First, always use your public library! Most provide free access to excellent online academic databases including Academic OneFile.
Scientific and medical information can be found at: Pubmed (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/advanced) and Pubmed Central (full text) (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/).
Sign up for notifications regarding the latest law-related neuroscience publications here: http://www.lawneuro.org/listserv.php.
Keep abreast of current and developing issues at the Supreme Court using Cert Pool (http://certpool.com) and Seton Hall's law review focusing on splits of opinion among the federal courts of appeal (http://scholarship.shu.edu/circuit_review/).
Great resources for full text historical legal writings and original documents include The Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/texts), Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) and Yale University's Avalon Project (http://avalon.law.yale.edu/default.asp). Others include:
- Federalist Papers: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fedpapers.html
- Collections of the Founders: http://founders.archives.gov/
- Historical legal dictionaries: https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/559416
And great general purpose research tools include:
- Massachusetts Trial Court Libraries: http://www.mass.gov/courts/case-legal-res/law-lib/libraries/services/
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/
- Stanford University's guide to low or no cost legal research: https://law.stanford.edu/robert-crown-law-library/research-resources/brief-guide-lowno-cost-online-american-legal-research/
- American Bar Association's free journal search: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/departments_offices/legal_technology_resources/resources/free_journal_search.html
Troubling Double Jeopardy Ruling
Attorney Nathanson was recently interviewed by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly regarding the First Circuit's troubling decision in United States v. Szypt. In that case, the First Circuit had allowed a defendant to be prosecuted a second time even though the lower court had entered a not guilty finding after the defendant won his first appeal. The First Circuit said its ruling in the first appeal was not intended to order an acquittal, even though that is what the lower court actually ordered. The MLW article quotes Attorney Nathanson: