News, Pleadings
David Nathanson
Public Trial Amicus Brief

On March 6, 2017, Attorney Wood and a team of attorneys from Ropes & Gray filed a brief in the Supreme Court on behalf of the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in Weaver v. Massachusetts, No. 16-240. They argue that the Court should not shy away from vindicating the treasured right to a public trial. The government's argument that vindicating the right to a public trial would "open up the floodgates" is both factually incorrect and diverts attention from the real issue: whether our Constitution entitles everyone to a public trial. Read the brief here.

Daubert

Amicus: Exclude Expert Testimony on Proprietary "Black Box" Technologies

Attorney Wood - on behalf of MACDL and in cooperation with a team from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the ACLU, and NACDL - recently filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Judicial Court arguing that supposed expert testimony regarding proprietary “black box” technologies should be excluded. Such testimony does not pass Daubert/Lanigan test unless accompanied by testimony from an expert who knows what is in that black box! Here, a prosecution witness intended to testify regarding the defendant’s iPhone “frequent location history” without knowing anything about the algorithm that produces such a history, including the reliability of the data it uses or the reliability of the algorithm used to reach the supposed result. The defendant’s attorney successfully argued below that the testimony failed Daubert/Lanigan. The SJC should uphold that order.

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Murder Conviction Reversed Due To Junk Science Expert Testimony

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On September 27, 2021, a unanimous SJC reversed the first degree murder conviction and life sentence of Attorney Wood's client Cara Rintala in a 47 page decision. After two trials in which juries could not agree on a verdict, the prosecutor called a bench chemist at a paint company to offer "expert" testimony in a third trial that paint found on the victim's body had been poured intentionally just before police arrived at the crime scene. His opinion convinced the third jury to convict. On appeal, the SJC accepted Attorney Wood's argument, supported by the affidavit from a professor of material science and several amicus briefs, that this "expert" opinion was junk science that was not reliable because it did not follow the scientific method and should not have been admitted. The decision is a powerful precedent that trial judges must demand that prosecutors who offer expert opinion purportedly based on new science first demonstrate its reliability - using the scientific method - before permitting the jury to hear it.

Attorney Wood and his associate Melissa Ramos immediately filed a motion seeking Ms. Rintala's release while the Commonwealth decides whether to attempt to retry her a fourth time.