News and Action Alerts

News2019-02-11T21:24:40-05:00

Complaint to SJC filed re: Houses of Correction failure to do routine COVID-19 testing

On December 24, 2020, CPCS and MACDL, represented by the ACLU of Massachusetts, filed a complaint with the single justice of the SJC alleging that the Houses of Correction (HOCs) failure to conduct routine, comprehensive COVID-19 testing and to meaningfully reduce their populations, as well as five HOCs’ failure to provide meaningful, timely, and confidential modes of communication between incarcerated individuals and their lawyers, violate constitutional guarantees concerning cruel […]

By |January 4th, 2021|Categories: News|Comments Off on Complaint to SJC filed re: Houses of Correction failure to do routine COVID-19 testing

ACLU & MACDL Amended Petition

On Monday, December 21, MACDL, CPCS, and ACLUM filed an amended petition in the Supreme Judicial Court alleging that Massachusetts Houses of Corrections still are not undertaking two essential steps to mitigate the threat of COVID-19 in communal living environments: routine, comprehensive COVID-19 testing, and meaningful population reductions, and that their failures violate the 8th Amendment and Article 26. We also argue that 5 facilities are violating the right […]

By |December 22nd, 2020|Categories: News|Comments Off on ACLU & MACDL Amended Petition

Letter from Suffolk County District Attorney

September 22, 2020

MACDL and CPCS received a letter from Rachael Rollins, Suffolk County District Attorney, regarding the federal charges recently announced against nine current and retired Boston Police Department Officers. In the letter Rachel Rollins states, “I am deeply dismayed by the allegations outlined in federal court. If these allegations are true, these men and women have dishonored their badges by stealing taxpayer dollars on multiple occasions over a […]

By |September 28th, 2020|Categories: News|Comments Off on Letter from Suffolk County District Attorney

The Road to Commonwealth v. Long

September 21, 2020
Chauncey Wood, co-chair MACDL amicus committee

In the midst of an otherwise horrible week for Justice in America, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued a ground-breaking decision on racial justice on September 17, 2020. In Commonwealth v. Long, SJC-12868, the Court unanimously agreed that its previous remedy for addressing racially motivated traffic stops under the equal protection clause of the state and federal constitutions, a statistical […]

By |September 22nd, 2020|Categories: News|Comments Off on The Road to Commonwealth v. Long

MACDL and CPCS Amicus Brief Challenges Parole Board’s “Non-Aggregation” Regulation

On August 20, 2020, CPCS and MACDL submitted an amicus brief to the SJC in Commonwealth v. Dinkins, the parole board’s regulation which makes it so people serving life sentences are “paroled” to any consecutive sentence, rather than having their parole eligibility periods aggregated to one date on which they have a true parole hearing that might actually result in their release into the community. When the […]

By |August 24th, 2020|Categories: Action Alert, News|Comments Off on MACDL and CPCS Amicus Brief Challenges Parole Board’s “Non-Aggregation” Regulation

Juveniles Should Get Credit for Pretrial Detention

MACDL Amicus for Commonwealth v. Lopez

Unlike adult defendants, children in Massachusetts do not receive credit for time spent in detention pretrial. The Commonwealth has justified this practice by emphasizing differences between juveniles and adults. As MACDL writes in its brief:

Children are indeed different, but DYS’s argument perverts that principle in a misguided effort to treat them worse than their adult counterparts. The reality is that pretrial detention […]

By |August 17th, 2020|Categories: News|Comments Off on Juveniles Should Get Credit for Pretrial Detention
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