The Supreme Judicial Court today told Luis Melendez-Diaz his precedent-setting case in Boston came too late to help him try to clean his record of another
By adamg - 2/10/11 - 7:17 pm
A Suffolk Superior Court jury today found Luis Melendez-Diaz not guilty of cocaine-possession charges - ten years after his initial conviction for an incident at the South Bay mall, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.
By adamg - 12/28/10 - 12:59 pm
The Massachusetts Appeals Court today overturned the drug convictions of two Somerville brothers who acknowledged they were hearty consumers of pot, cocaine and Ecstasy because a key part of the case against them involved certificates of authenticity on
By adamg - 10/4/10 - 11:02 am
A Watertown man today became the latest convicted drug dealer to have his verdict overturned because of a Supreme Court ruling that defense lawyers must be allowed to cross-examine experts who certify that what police found was a particular type of drug
By adamg - 3/26/10 - 11:36 am
The Supreme Judicial Court today set aside two more drug convictions under a Supreme Court decision last year that Massachusetts drug suspects
By adamg - 1/6/10 - 1:50 pm
Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly reports the court will once again take up the issue of certifications by lab technicians being introduced into cou
By adamg - 12/30/09 - 11:13 am
The Massachusetts Appeals Court today reversed a man's conviction on charges of trafficking in cocaine and heroin because his lawyer didn't have a chance to cross-examine the expert who certified the bag he allegedly threw out a car window contained eno
By adamg - 12/8/09 - 11:16 am
The Massachusetts Appeals Court today overturned a Roxbury man's conviction for crack trafficking because prosecutors relied on a certificate that the substance found in his apartment was a large amount of crack, rather than producing an expert who coul
By adamg - 11/17/09 - 10:43 am
For the fourth time in recent weeks, the Massachusetts Appeals Court has reversed a gun-possession conviction because prosecutors did not have a "ballistician" testify that the device the defendant was charged with possessing was actually a gun that could be fired.
As in the earlier cases, the court ruled this violated the defendant's constitutional right to confront an accuser.
