An Attack on All Defense Attorneys
Defense attorneys Blake Rubin and Angela Cavanaugh were acquitted of witness intimidation after being accused of arranging for a key witness in a human trafficking case to be bailed out so that she could run away and not be available to testify at trial. When the man accused of human trafficking was confronted for bailing the witness out, he blamed his lawyer and the witness’s lawyer for orchestrating this. […]
MACDL Objects to DA Harrington’s Attack on Judge Tyne
MACDL’s Board recently sent a letter to Berkshire County District Attorney Andrea Harrington, strongly objecting to DA Harrington’s choice to write an ex parte letter to the Chief Justice of the District Court system requesting the removal of the Honorable Jennifer Tyne from criminal cases. As the letter states, MACDL is deeply concerned by this indefensible and unethical effort to circumvent fair process and undermine the independent decision-making of […]
Suffolk County Hinton Lab Initiative
On Monday March 22, 2021 the Suffolk County DA’s Office announced the Hinton Lab Initiative — a plan to identify a global resolution for any controlled substance conviction resulting from a Hinton Lab case between May 1, 2003 and August 30, 2012. DA Rollins’ office has pledged “to collaborate with the defense bar to identify a global resolution for any controlled substance conviction resulting from any analysis conducted at […]
MACDL Amicus in Commonwealth v. Vazquez Diaz
In Commonwealth v. Vazquez Diaz, MACDL, the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice, and the Boston Bar Association submitted an amicus brief arguing that a superior court judge acted in violation of Mr. Vazquez Diaz’s rights when it ordered him to undergo a virtual suppression hearing, over his objection and despite his willingness to wait to hold the hearing until it is safe to do so […]
MACDL Amicus Supports Further Appellate Review in Case of Intentional Destruction of Evidence by Springfield Police
On January 4, 2021, MACDL filed an amicus letter, written by Attorney Amy Belger, in support of an application for Further Appellate Review in a case in which the trial judge concluded that members of the Narcotics Bureau of the Springfield Police Department intentionally destroyed evidence favorable to the defendant. A Springfield Police sergeant ordered the City Forester to remove trees near the scene in order to prevent the […]
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 […]