Justia Massachusetts Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Based on a tip, surveillance, and controlled drug purchases, Brockton police obtained a warrant to search defendant's apartment. Officers found cocaine, cash, and a digital scale in the apartment. In the locked basement of the building, they found heroin, handguns, and ammunition. Defendant was convicted of trafficking in heroin, G.L. c. 94C, 32E (c); possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, G.L. c. 94C, 32A (c ); school zone violations, G.L. c. 94C, 32J; unlawful possession of a firearm, G.L. c. 269, 10 (h ); and unlawful possession of ammunition without an FID card, G.L. c. 269, 10 (h ). The Appeals Court found sufficient nexus between the suspected drug dealing and the defendant's apartment and that defendant had no objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in the basement. The court nonetheless reversed all except the ammunition conviction. Admission of certificates of drug and ballistics analysis without testimony of analysts who had performed the tests violated the defendant's Sixth Amendment confrontation right. The Massachusetts Supreme Court held that defendant is entitled to a new trial on the confrontation clause issue. The search warrant application established probable cause to believe that evidence of defendant's drug dealing would be found in his apartment, and the basement was within the curtilage of the defendant's apartment. View "Commonwealth v. Escalera" on Justia Law

Since at least 1986, the town had a deteriorating sewer system. Defects allowed inflow and infiltration (I/I). Wet weather caused overflow, contaminating the ocean, rivers, and wetlands. To avoid overflow into housing, the town installed, without approval, a bypass pump that discharged raw sewage into the Saugus River. In 2005, the town entered into a consent order with the Department of Environmental Protection, acknowledging violations of the Clean Water Act and state law; the town was required to implement plans to eliminate I/I. There was a moratorium on new connections until the problem was addressed. The town embarked on a 10-year, $27 million dollar plan. Ratepayers were to finance the majority of the plan. In the interim, the town required new connections to pay an I/I reduction contribution, calculated by multiplying, by a factor that decreased as repairs were completed, the number of gallons of new flow to be generated. Plaintiff, developers, paid $670,460 to accommodate new flow from the single-family houses and multifamily housing. The trial court concluded that the charge provided no particularized benefit to the developers; that the amount was excessive compared to regulatory costs involved; and that the charge was an impermissible tax. The Massachusetts Supreme Court vacated, finding that the charge is a fee. View "Denver St. LLC v. Town of Saugus" on Justia Law

A fist fight broke out at a cookout. Shots hit a bystander, who later died. None of the fight participants had displayed a firearm. The only firearm that was seen was carried by defendant, described as a stocky African-American man wearing a white T-shirt and a baseball cap who ran up Arbutus Street. Numerous witnesses saw him; one had photographed him and another had been in jail with him in 1997. Defendant told a friend that he shot the victim in self-defense. The highest court affirmed conviction for murder in the first degree on a theory of deliberate premeditation, G.L. c. 265, 1. The court rejected claims of error in denial of a motion to suppress statements he made to the police, which he claimed were involuntary, and of ineffective assistance of counsel in failing to object to admission of evidence that the defendant was in the house of correction with an eyewitness. The court also rejected a claim based on counsel’s failure to request jury instructions on voluntary or involuntary manslaughter and that the judge created a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice by making "gratuitous interjections" to defendant's opening statement, examination of witnesses, and closing argument.View "Commonwealth v. Brown" on Justia Law

A taxicab driver was robbed at knifepoint by a passenger wearing a hat that covered most of his face; the driver fired his pistol at the fleeing robber, wounding him in the back. Police located defendant near the scene of the robbery suffering from an apparent gunshot wound to his back, but no witness was able to identify him as the robber. Defendant claimed to have been shot in an unrelated incident by unknown assailants. Convicted of armed robbery, G.L. c. 265, 17, defendant appealed, arguing that certain statements allegedly made by the fleeing robber were hearsay and should not have been admitted; that a statement attributed to defendant contained in his medical records ("he was in a taxicab when he got shot") was inadmissible as hearsay; and that, even if not hearsay, the admission of the medical records violated his right to confrontation under the Sixth Amendment. The supreme court affirmed, finding error but no prejudice. The trial judge erred in admitting defendant's medical records under the statutory exception for business records, G.L. c. 233, 78, and the disputed portion of the records was not shown to be admissible under the hospital records statute, G.L. c. 233, 79. View "Commonwealth v. Irene" on Justia Law

After being convicted of assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon and unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition arising out of a shooting, defendant moved for a new trial, claiming ineffective representation by counsel. The judge granted the motion, noting that identity was the central issue and defense counsel had essentially promised in his opening statement that the jury would hear from a witness, Levesque, who had provided a description of the shooter markedly different from that of defendant. Defense counsel cited credibility concerns, stating, "I don't want to call Levesque because I don't have the burden of proof in this case,... This is about the police and what they did, and what they didn't do." Defense counsel was permitted to hypothesize about Levesque's absence in his closing argument. The Appeals Court reversed. The supreme court upheld the trial court decision. Having presided over the trial and a full hearing on the motion for a new trial, the judge was exceptionally well poised to assess the potential impact of Levesque's testimony on the case, to understand counsel's reasons for not calling Levesque, and to scrutinize whether that decision was manifestly unreasonable when made. View "Commonwealth v. Lane" on Justia Law

A judge preliminarily enjoined Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) from proceeding to evict plaintiff, Eaton, from her home, following a foreclosure sale by Green Tree Servicing, as mortgagee. The judge ruled that Eaton likely would succeed on her claim that for a valid foreclosure sale to occur, both the mortgage and the underlying note must be held by the foreclosing party; Green Tree stipulated that it held only Eaton's mortgage. The supreme court vacated the injunction, announcing a new statutory interpretation to apply to foreclosures under the power of sale where statutory notice is provided after the date of this decision. A foreclosure sale conducted pursuant to a power of sale in a mortgage must comply with all applicable statutory provisions, particularly G.L. c. 183, 21, and G.L. c. 244, 14, which authorize a "mortgagee" to foreclose by sale pursuant to a power of sale in the mortgage, and require the "mortgagee" to provide notice and take other steps. The term "mortgagee" is not free from ambiguity, according to the court, but refers to the person or entity then holding the mortgage and also either holding the mortgage note or acting on behalf of the note holder. View "Eaton v. Fed. Nat'l Mort. Ass'n" on Justia Law

This case involved the proper interpretation of a Massachusetts election law that governed the filing of a vacancy, where a candidate nominated for state, city or town office withdraws, dies, or otherwise becomes ineligible prior to an election, G.L.c. 53, section 14(14), and its application to the presidential and vice-presidential candidates of a minor political party. The court concluded that this matter was properly before the court where plaintiffs have established an actual controversy; section 14 applied to presidential electors and assumed by extension to the presidential and vice-presidential candidates the electors have pledged to support; although section 14, as written, was not a model of clarity and its meaning not without uncertainty, the court interpreted it in a manner largely consistent with the interpretation proffered by the Secretary; and finally, aligning the court's analysis under art. 9 with that of the equal protection clause, the court perceived no constitutional deficiency in the election law scheme. View "Libertarian Assoc. of Massachusetts & another v. Secretary of the Commonwealth" on Justia Law

This case involved a parcel of land on a hill overlooking Cape Code Bay in the town of Truro with no frontage on any street. The parcel, however, had the benefit of an unspecified easement conveyed in an 1899 deed that provided a "right of way" to reach a nearby road. Plaintiffs filed suit in the Land Court to confirm the validity of the easement and to establish its precise location and characteristics. The court concluded that the Land Court judge did not err in concluding that the easement had not been extinguished by estoppel. But the court also concluded that the judge did err in limiting the width of the finished surface of any roadway built within the easement to twelve feet where the roadway must conform to the town's rules and regulations governing the subdivision of land, which required that the minimum width of a roadway for a single-family residence be at least fourteen feet and allow no waiver of this requirement. Therefore, the court vacated the judgment and remanded the case to the Land Court for further proceedings. View "Cater & another v. Bednarek & others, trustees, & others." on Justia Law

Defendant was found guilty of manslaughter for "inflicting fatal injuries on a viable and near full term fetus during the birthing process" in violation of her "legal duty...to refrain from wanton or reckless acts committed against her own viable fetus." At issue was whether a woman in the midst of an unassisted childbirth could be held criminally responsible for the unintentional death of her viable fetus. The court concluded that the evidence was insufficient to convict defendant on the theory that she was wanton or reckless in her acts of commission because the Commonwealth failed to prove that, once she decided to give birth unassisted, defendant had any alternative safe course of action. Additionally, the court concluded that, in light of the judge's findings that the Commonwealth had not proved that the baby was born alive, or that summoning medical assistance would have saved the baby's life, there was insufficient evidence that defendant's act of omission was the legal or proximate cause of the baby's death. The court also declined to recognize a duty of a woman, in these circumstances, to summon medical assistance, breach of which could give rise to criminal liability or involuntary manslaughter. View "Commonwealth v. Pugh" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs brought suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 alleging, inter alia, that the city council's vote to remove Charles Turner, an elected Boston city councillor convicted of attempted extortion and other Federal crimes, was void, and sought declaratory and injunctive relief as well as damages. At issue were two certified questions: (1) Did the Charter of the City of Boston, or any other provision of the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, authorize the Boston City Council to promulgate Rule 40A of the Rules of the Boston City Council and employ it to remove an incumbent Councillor from office before he was sentenced and removed automatically by operation of M.G.L.c. 279, section 30? and (2) If so, is Rule 40A a civil or a criminal provision of law? The court answered that the city council was authorized to promulgate Rule 40A but did not have the authority to employ the rule to remove Turner from office. In light of this answer, the court need not provide an answer to the second question. View "Turner & others v. City of Boston & others" on Justia Law