Commonwealth v. O’Leary

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The Commonwealth did not meet its burden of proving compliance with the citation requirement of Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 90C, 2, which mandates the issuance of a traffic citation “at the time an place of the violation” where a State police trooper issued a traffic citation nine days after the violation.Defendant was the driver of a vehicle that had rolled over. Defendant was transferred the hospital, where State police trooper Jared Gray interviewed Defendant. Defendant admitted that he had been drinking at the time of the accident. Gray did not issue a citation at the hospital but instead submitted his investigation report to his supervisor, who approved the report nine days later. On that day, Gray issued and mailed citations to Defendant. Due did a ZIP code error, however, Defendant did not receive the citation until five to six weeks after the incident. The superior court granted Defendant’s motion to dismiss on the ground that Gray had failed to issue a citation “at the time and place of the violation.” The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the dismissal of the indictments, holding that the delay in the citation’s issuance, in the absence of any justification, was inconsistent with the antiabuse purpose of the “no-fix” provision of the statute. View "Commonwealth v. O'Leary" on Justia Law