Massachusetts Appeals Court
The Massachusetts Appeals Court today rejected an effort by Canton to block a proposed apartment complex because of concerns about an intersection two miles away and fears the apartments would lead to "an unreasonable overage" in the number of affordable units in town. Read more
The Massachusetts Appeals Court said today a jury was correct in convicting unlicensed daycare operator Ann Power of Reading of involuntary manslaughter for the death of a three-month-old in her home in 2003.
The court noted that testimony showed Power repeatedly ignored state warnings to stop taking in children and that even if she had been licensed, she was simply caring for far too many children on the day little Mackenzie Corrigan was shaken to death. Read more
The Massachusetts Appeals Court today ordered a Manchester-by-the-Sea man to pay Samuel Adams $145 for taking out his boat mooring from a tidal flat near his house.
The court rejected Richard Spillane's assertion he owned the part of the flats where Adams and another boat owner moored their boats one day and that that gave him the right to simply go out and cut Adams's mooring because the sight of the boats offended him.
Although Spillane's lawyer produced a 1902 deed that showed ownership, Adams trumped that with a 1640 land grant from the town of Salem granting the flats to what is now the town of Manchester-by-the-Sea. "In the absence of countervailing evidence would be correct, but here they were confronted with a claim predating theirs by several centuries," the court concluded.
The court also rejected Spillane's attempt to define the low-water line - used to show where property owners' rights end - by sending out a guy with sticks to measure the actual points at which the water receded. The court ruled it was sticking with bounds set by federal surveyors:
Boundaries should be capable of determination with relative ease, rather than greatly subject, as here, to weather and the phases of the moon.
Complete ruling.
Good to know for you folks on the other side of 128: The Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled today that property owners have to keep their sidewalks clear of snow and ice.
The ruling comes in the case of a Concord woman who slipped and broke her hip on frozen slush on a walkway at her condo complex on Feb. 5, 2005. A lower-court judge ruled against her under the "open and obvious" doctrine - the slush was such an obvious hazard she shouldn't have attempted to walk across it but instead gone back to her condo and called the maintenance company's answering service to ask that the slush be plowed. Read more
The Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled today that a gun found in the pants of a suspected drug dealer in a South End alley can be used against him at his trial.
A lower-court judge had ordered the gun dismissed as evidence, saying two Boston detectives had no probable cause to frisk Enrique Cabrera on Oct. 15, 2007. The appeals court, however, said a series of events gave the detectives reason to conclude Cabrera was involved in a drug deal and that officers who feel their safety is at risk can frisk suspects for weapons even in the absence of bulges that might indicate a weapon. The judges add, though, that such cases are showing the strain between conflicting sections of the federal and state constitutions: Read more
The Massachusetts Appeals Court today upheld a man's conviction for dealing drugs in Cambridge even though his lawyer didn't get the chance to cross-examine the expert who signed a certificate on what sort of pills he was caught with.
The court ruled the fact that the pills were stamped with a brand name and were in a Walgreens prescription bottle with David Greco's name on it, that he was arrested in front of the Walgreens the prescription was from and that the guy he sold the pills to had the same pills on him was enough proof to warrant a conviction. Read more
The Massachusetts Appeals Court today rejected a request for a new trial from a man who pleaded guilty to drunk driving more than 20 years ago, basically telling him that what little evidence remains from the case shows his rights were not violated.
Robert Haskell did not try to reverse his 1987 guilty plea in Salem District Court until 2007, when he learned the Registry of Motor Vehicles was about to suspend his license for four years because of it. In his request for a new trial, Haskell did not dispute that he pleaded guilty but said his rights were violated because the judge in the case did not ask him if he were pleading guilty voluntarily and free from the influence of drugs or alcohol - a procedure known as a "colloquy." Read more
The Massachusetts Appeals Court today tossed the assault-and-battery conviction of a Boston man who represented himself in court, because he only orally agreed to give up his rights to a lawyer and a trial by jury. Read more
File under: Slowly grinding wheels of justice? Several months after the US Supreme Court ruled evidence used against a Boston man was unconstitutional - and after Massachusetts courts began throwing out convictions based on that ruling - the man has finally had his own conviction overturned. Read more
The Massachusetts Appeals Court today upheld the 2007 conviction of a Lawrence man on marijuana-distribution charges even though prosecutors introduced certificates the leafy substance found in his bedroom was pot in a way the Supreme Court ruled last year was unconstitutional.
The appeals court ruled Irving Madera tripped himself up in his own defense, because he never claimed the green stuff wasn't marijuana, just that it wasn't his. Read more
The Massachusetts Court of Appeals today reversed a Boston man's gun-possession conviction because prosecutors failed to prove he owned the gun in the friend's car he was driving at the time - or that he even knew the weapon was there. Read more
The Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled today a man confronted by a Cambridge police detective is entitled for a hearing on whether the interaction meant he couldn't get a fair trial on a charge he threatened the detective's niece.
The court pointed to "all of the troubling circumstances" implicit in a law-enforcement officer confronting a man up on charges the day before his trial and ordered a lower court judge to reconsider Dennis Teixeira's motion to dismiss the case because he said his curbside conversation with Det. Kevin Donofrio made him afraid to testify on his own behalf: Read more
The Massachusetts Appeals Court today upheld the drug convictions of a Townsend man whose pot and mushroom stashes came to light when a local cop doubling as a firefighter went through the house investigating a report of smoke. Read more
The Massachusetts Appeals Court today ordered a lower court determine how much mental anguish Norwegian Cruise Lines caused a Massachusetts couple by refusing for four years to refund the cost of a cruise they decided not to take because it was five days after 9/11. Read more
The Massachusetts Appeals Court today reversed a man's conviction on charges of trafficking in cocaine and heroin because his lawyer didn't have a chance to cross-examine the expert who certified the bag he allegedly threw out a car window contained enough of the two drugs to warrant serious jail time.
The reversal is the latest in a series of setbacks for prosecutors, primarily in Suffolk County, following the Supreme Court's narrowly rejection earlier this year of Massachusetts's contention - argued personally by Attorney General Martha Coakley - that certificates signed by experts were not subject to a constitutional requirement that defendants be allowed to confront their accusers. Read more
The Massachusetts Appeals Court today upheld the disorderly-conduct conviction of a Philadelphia preacher who likes to show up in Salem on Halloween and use a megaphone to demand that revelers repent. Read more
The Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled today a gun found inside a box inside a bag inside a guy's trunk can be used against him in a trial on weapons charges. Read more
The Massachusetts Appeals Court today threw out the conviction of a man in whose car Salem police found a pill bottle with enough cocaine to charge him with possession with intent to distribute.
Police said they were concerned the man might have hidden a razor, knife or even a "pen-sized single-shot gun" in the bottle and so seized it. The court, however, said they were about to let him go and had no cause to think he might be in possession of a weapon and shouldn't have taken the bottle. Read more
The Massachusetts Appeals Court today rejected a request from a convicted sax stealer that it overturn his verdict because he said he was only using the knife in self defense. Read more
The Massachusetts Appeals Court today overturned a Roxbury man's conviction for crack trafficking because prosecutors relied on a certificate that the substance found in his apartment was a large amount of crack, rather than producing an expert who could be cross-examined. Read more
The Massachusetts Appeals Court today threw out a New Bedford man's conviction on a charge of illegal gun possession because his similarity to the description of a man holding a gun in the air in an anonymous 911 call was not enough to warrant ordering him out of his car and searching it. Read more
For the fourth time in recent weeks, the Massachusetts Appeals Court has reversed a gun-possession conviction because prosecutors did not have a "ballistician" testify that the device the defendant was charged with possessing was actually a gun that could be fired.
As in the earlier cases, the court ruled this violated the defendant's constitutional right to confront an accuser. Read more
The Massachusetts Appeals Court today upheld an assault and battery charge against a man who flooded his estranged wife's home with natural gas and who had to be pulled out of the house when it caught fire. Read more
Maybe you have to be a lawyer to read the decision in Clean Harbors Environmental Services vs. Boston Basement Technologies and not go: WTF? Read more
Two people who sued Home Depot for charging sales tax on the value of coupons on some batteries and light bulbs have just had their suit dismissed by the Massachusetts Appeals Court - which ordered them to reimburse Home Depot for eight years' worth of court costs in the case. Read more
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