The Massachusetts Appeals Court today upheld illegal-weapons convictions against a college student found walking around campus with a loaded gun in his backpack after a security guard spotted live rounds and a hunting knife in the console of his Jeep - which was festooned with stickers reading "Kill 'Em All Let God Sort It Out" and "Sniper No Need to Run--You'll Only Die Tired."
The Massachusetts Appeals Court today upheld Trevon Mason's conviction for resisting arrest in an armed-holdup investigation in 2008 - roughly four months before he was arrested for fatally shooting a man in the lobby of a Stanwood Street apartment building and injuring the woman whom the victim was shielding with his body.
Mason had originally been arrested on a variety of charges for a September, 2008 incident in which a pizza-delivery man was held up, allegedly at gunpoint.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled today that the fact a man had a transparent blue plastic cover over his license plate was not enough of a reason for a state trooper to pull him over on Rte. 495 in 2011.
And because that was the only reason the trooper pulled Michael Bernard over, the illegal gun the trooper found on Bernard during a pat frisk cannot be used against him in a trial for possession of an illegal weapon because the trooper had no reason to think Bernard was doing anything illegal at the time that would warrant pulling him out of his car and frisking him, the court ruled.
A man facing illegal-weapons charges stemming from a Mattapan traffic stop will have to explain why police say they found a loaded gun in a secret compartment in his car when he goes to trial, the Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled today.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court today upheld a Newbury man's conviction on a charge of willfully interfering with a firefighter in the performance of his duty and resisting arrest on the night his house went up in flames.
When Sean Joyce's house caught on fire on April 12, 2011, neighbors and police arrived to find him standing outside screaming and pounding his car trunk. Despite orders from a police officer, Joyce went back into the flaming house - followed by his mother. Then Newbury FIre Chief William Pearson arrived:
The Massachusetts Appeals Court today upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit by three Brighton residents against a major expansion plan by Boston College.
In their suit, residents said the BRA was a "quasi judicial" body and therefore violated the state constitution in approving a 10-year, $1.6-billion "institutional master plan" by holding private discussions with college officials and not swearing in people testifying in public on the proposal or letting the residents cross-examine anybody who testified. The result of the BRA process was changes to the city zoning code, which were then approved by the Boston Zoning Commission.
So this guy out in the Berkshires gets his license taken away after his second OUI conviction, appeals 10 years later to get it reinstated, to which the state agrees on condition he install one of those in-dash breath-tester gizmos, which he installs, only then he takes it out and gets caught and has his license taken away.
And then, two years later, he's stopped again and charged with violating the "ignition interlock device" condition and is convicted on that charge.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court today overruled a lower-court judge and said prosecutors could use a loaded gun found in a space behind a car dashboard during a Dorchester traffic stop as evidence against the man charged with its illegal possession.
Ishmal Haynes was arrested on Nov. 8, 2009 in "a high crime area of the Dorchester section of Boston" after a state trooper and two Boston police officers spotted him making "several traffic violations" and a search of his car showed he'd stashed a loaded gun in a space behind the dashboard of his rented car.
In the latest of a series of similar gun rulings, the Massachusetts Appeals Court today rejected a Brockton man's argument that the Second Amendment lets him walk around with a gun without having to bother with the niceties of first applying for a license to carry.
Both the appeals court and the Supreme Judicial Court have repeatedly held over the past couple of years that our state's gun-permitting laws are constitutional and that only somebody who has applied for a firearms license can make a Second Amendment claim.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court yesterday threw out the gun conviction of a man who'd been stopped for failing to signal a left turn and running a red light on Quincy Street in Roxbury in 2009.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled today a state law on bank embezzlement should not have been used to prosecute a Worcester couple convicted of staging a fake robbery so that they could make off with money from the credit union where the wife worked.
The court said state law specifically refers to banks, not federal credit unions, such as the Wyman-Gordon Federal Credit Union where they staged a fake robbery in 2002. The court cited a 1903 ruling by the US Supreme Court that, in fact, states could not enact criminal laws related specifically to financial institutions with federal charters.
A Chelsea man whose manslaughter conviction was overturned because the jury heard testimony it shouldn't have is not entitled to damages from the state for the time he spent in prison, the Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled today.
Michael Riley was convicted of manslaughter in 1986 after a friend he was with fatally stabbed somebody with whom he'd fought the night before. Riley got a new trial when the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that part of the evidence against him was essentially hearsay and, the second time around, he was acquitted.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled today that heroin found in a car after the driver was pulled over for a traffic infraction can't be used as evidence against him or his passenger, because the only reason state troopers ordered the two men out was the aroma of burned pot, which by itself is no longer an indication of criminal activity in Massachusetts.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court told a convicted burglar today he's guilty of "entering a residence during the daytime with the intent to commit a felony and with the resulting infliction of fear upon a lawful occupant" even if he didn't want to scare the homeowner who heard him trying to get into her house.
Obdulio Santana argued the court should dismiss his conviction because prosecutors failed to prove he intended to inflict fear on a woman whose house he was caught breaking into after she'd hired him to paint a fence, told him she would be at work - but then stayed home.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled today a Boston police officer did nothing wrong when he searched under the mattress on which a teen was sitting as he awaited arrest and found a gun.
The Massachusetts Court of Appeals today upheld a jury's conviction of a bookkeeper at Bridgewater State College for embezzling more than $355,000 in a year.
Clare Werner argued the conviction should be appealed because her lawyer discovered two of the jurors had posted complaints about being selected for the jury on Facebook and because the trial judge dismissed her complaint about that online activity even before Facebook had responded to the judge's subpoena for records related to the post.
A man who snuck back into the US after being deported for a cocaine-trafficking plea will get a new trial because his original lawyer blew it by telling him he probably wouldn't be deported if he pleaded guilty.
Wagner Martinez is current in federal custody, awaiting another deportation to his native Dominican Republic. In a ruling today, the Massachusetts Appeals Court said Martinez's lawyer made such an egregious error that Martinez deserves the chance to convince a jury of his innocence - or to attempt another plea deal.
When a Boston Police detective found Michael Holloway trespassing at a BHA project in Roxbury in 2010, he testified, Holloway couldn't identify the brand of one of the two mountain bikes he had with him. Holloway was arrested for trespassing and, when the bikes turned out be have been reported stolen, receiving stolen property.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court, however, ruled today that the bikes cannot be used as evidence against Holloway, because the detective never had probable cause to seize them without a warrant.
Ed. note: Post updated to clarify that the ruling was only on the poles between 2005 and 2009.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled today that Verizon does not owe Boston $5.3 million in back taxes on its poles and wires over a four-year period.
The court said 150 years of telephone-related legislation in Massachusetts has consistently excluded overhead wiring along public ways from the personal-property tax - even as legislators have let cities and towns tax wiring that snakes under public ways.
The question became moot for future years in 2010, when the law was changed, city officials say.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled today a Nigerian immigrant will have to pay child support for two children conceived with donor sperm and eggs even though his then separated wife had signed an agreement not to go after him for support payments.
The court said state law, which focuses on "intent to create a child," trumps Chukwudera B. Okoli's contention he never gave "consent to become a parent."
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