Last month, a man facing charges of assault and battery on a police officer and resisting arrest from a March traffic stop walked out of Quincy District Court a free man after a prosecutor with the Norfolk County District Attorney's office suddenly dropped the charges.

In a suit filed in Suffolk Superior Court today, the man's attorney says the prosecutor decided to ask the judge to drop the charges via a nolle prosequifiling - which the judge did - rather than try to explain why State Police wouldn't turn over information about disciplinary issues or complaints facing the trooper who conducted the arrest.

The suit, by attorney Cameron Casey, her client, Shawn Davenport, and the Committee for Public Counsel Services, states that the trooper's body-cam video already offered damning evidence the man should never have been arrested for the two felonies because he did not attack the trooper, let alone resist him, that in fact, the trooper pondered whether to arrest the man or kick him after finding no evidence the man had any drugs on him or in his car, at which point a local police officer told the trooper to "mute" his body-worn camera.

But, the complaint continues, a colleague in the group's Quincy office told her in August that the trooper's name sounded familiar and that he might be on the Norfolk DA's "Brady list" of police officers facing possible disciplinary investigation, so Case filed a public-records request with State Police to obtain any records of the trooper's disciplinary record and any open disciplinary investigations. The next day, the suit continues, a research analyst with the State Police legal office reported "a diligent search" found no "responsive records" on the trooper.

In fact, the complaint states, another attorney, in Braintree, had filed a complaint with State Police in July alleging the trooper had acted improperly in three cases - in one of which he allegedly "placed staged evidence" at a crash scene suggesting the driver had been transporting drugs for sale, and that after prosecutors saw the trooper's body cam evidence in that case, dismissed the charges against her client.

On Oct. 2, the complaint continues, Casey's colleague told her she was now pretty sure the trooper was, in fact on the DA's "Brady list." The next day, at a court hearing:

Attorney Casey explained to the Court that she had reason to believe that exculpatory information about [the trooper] existed which had not been turned over by the Commonwealth.

The prosecuting attorney, some minutes later, filed a nolle prosequi, declining to proceed with the Commonwealth's case against Mr. Davenport.

On information and belief, had Attorney Casey relied on MSP's public records response and not happened to have learned, fortuitously, of [the trooper's] misconduct from a colleague, the criminal prosecution of her client would not have ended so quickly.

The complaint continues that after Davenport's case ended, CPCS got a copy of notification that the trooper was, in fact, on the DA's "Brady list:"

The letter indicates that the evidence which must be disclosed as exculpatory pertains to the events described in [the other attorney's] complaint, the very records that MSP failed to find and produce in response to Attorney Casey's request.

The suit seeks a court declaration that State Police violated the state's public-records law, the delivery of all of the disciplinary records initially sought by they attorney, attorney's fees and punitive damages.

State Police have until March 10 to answer the suit.

Complete complaint (6.2M PDF).

Walgreens, which has been shutting Boston pharmacies left and right over the past couple of years, yesterday closed its pharmacy at 1999 Centre St. in West Roxbury.

The store, which began emptying its shelves a couple of weeks ago, was locked this morning, with a sign on the door saying it had transferred its prescriptions to the CVS down Centre Street.

The move leaves Centre and Spring streets with just two pharmacies - the CVS and the one inside the Star Market on Spring Street.

The Boston Public Health Commission warns the pond on the Hyde Park/Dedham line off Sprague Street is now infested with a cyanobacteria algae bloom and it has shut the pond to public access - so don't jump in it, go fishing there or let your dog into the smaller of Boston's two great ponds.

After being notified of a fish kill and green murky water by a member of Boston's Department of Parks and Recreation, the Neponset River Watershed Association sampled the pond and performed a test which identified the presence of cyanobacteria.

The commission says the state Department of Public Health will now be conducting checks of the pond's water to determine when the bloom is off the pond and it's as safe as it usually is, which it isn't, really, for other reasons, to go back in the pond.

The Supreme Judicial Court today broke with earlier case law and declared that engagement rings have to be returned on request in the event of a pre-marriage breakup regardless of who might be at fault in the parting of ways.

Up until the ruling, Massachusetts residents who had been given engagement rings for marriages that never happened only if a court determined the person asking for the ring was "without fault."

But now, in deciding the case of a Plymouth County ex-couple, Bruce Johnson and Caroline Settino, and the $70,000 engagement ring and a $3,5000 wedding band the former gave the latter, the court said it was joining Massachusetts with other states in concluding "the engagement ring must be returned to the donor regardless of fault." At the same time, the court ordered Johnson to pay Settino interest for the two-step dental-implant surgery for which he paid only for the first part - having her front teeth removed - before they broke up.

The court summarized the events leading to their engagement and then parting of ways, after they met in 2016 and began dating:

Over the next year, they traveled together, visiting New York, Bar Harbor, the Virgin Islands, and Italy. Johnson paid for these vacations, expecting nothing in return. Johnson also showered Settino with lavish gifts of jewelry, clothing, shoes, and handbags. It was customary for Johnson to give Settino the receipts for these gifts.

The couple selected a $70,000 engagement ring - and Johnson paid for Settino to have her upper front teeth removed to be replaced by implants. But the couple began to bicker and one night, after an argument, when Settino stormed out of the room but left her phone behind, Johnson began scrolling through her text messages and found an exchange with man in Connecticut that sounded like they were arranging an assignation while Johnson was out of town.

Johnson, already troubled by the arguing, called off the wedding plans, asked for the ring back - and refused to pay for Settino to have the implants put in to replace the teeth she'd had pulled.

She refused to give the ring back and he sued. A Plymouth Superior Court judge ruled in her favor, saying that the evidence suggested the guy in Connecticut really was just an old friend, like Settino claimed and because there was no proof of a dailliance, Settino played no role in the breakup and the decision was solely Johnson's and therefore, Johnson was the one to blame for it and so he couldn't get the ring.

The Massachusetts Appeals Court last year ordered her to replace the ring and him to pay interest on the teeth replacement, but was careful to say it was deciding only on the merits of this one case, not setting a precedent, because that's something only the SJC, the state's highest court, can do.

Today, the SJC said it was setting precedent and bringing the issue of engagement breakups both in line with modern thinking on relationships and with the state's existing "heart balm" law, which bars using the courts to settle romantic disputes. Until today, the precedent in Massachusetts was that disputes over rings before a wedding were not romantic disputes, but contract ones not necessarily subject to that law.

The court cited several factors, including the fact that post-marriage breakups, a.k.a., divorces, in Massachusetts are now no fault and that, honestly, how in the world is a judge truly to decide who is at fault in matters of the heart, as had been required under a case decided 60 years ago?

The court cited one New Jersey decision:

What fact justifies the breaking of an engagement? The absence of a sense of humor? Differing musical tastes? Differing political views?

And the justices cited a Pennsylvania ruling:

It is unlikely that trial courts would be presented with situations where fault was clear and easily ascertained.

Also, the court concluded, part of the point of an engagement is for a couple to see if they are truly compatible for marriage:

[C]ourts have remarked that assigning blame to one who breaks an engagement is at odds with a principal purpose of the engagement period to allow a couple time to test the permanency of their wish to marry.

And so, the court concluded, it's time to take the rare judicial step of breaking with precedent and setting out a new legal path:

As a result of these considerations, the modern trend, and now majority view among courts that have considered this issue, is that the only relevant inquiry in conditional engagement gift cases is whether the condition under which the gift was made -- that is, the marriage ceremony -- has failed to occur. Where the planned nuptial does not come to pass, the engagement gift must be returned to the donor.

The Dorchester Reporter reports Secretary of State Bill Galvin is looking at a temporary takeover of the Boston election department after a number of precincts ran out of ballots on Tuesday. The City Council wants answers as well.

CommonWealth Beacon reports that the Wellesley Municipal Light Department, one of several town-owned electricity providers in the state, has teamed up with the former Joe-4-Oil on six 20-foot containers filled with large lithium-ion batteries that will charge at night, when wholesale electricity rates are lower, then discharge into the town power grid during peak daytime hours.

The plant, although tiny compared to proposed battery plants in Everett, Chelsea and Brighton, could save $8 million a year, with that split between the town and Citizens Energy, which built the facility.

Students at both Curry College in Milton and Stoughton High School received text messages today telling them they've been selected to pick cotton "at the nearest plantation."

The Currier Times reports students at Curry and across the country got the texts.

Hateful and racist text messages sent to Curry College students overnight has led to increased vigilance on the Curry campus. Administrators said that other colleges were hit with the same, disturbing, messages.

Stoughton school officials report students of color at Stoughton High School received them as well.

The Boston Sun reports a chain called First Watch, which offers blunchy stuff, is looking at space at 777 Boylston St. for its first Boston location. They'll be seeking a liquor license, because what's breakfast without a bloody Mary?

Rigging on a crane being used to lower a floating dock or "barge" into the water at the Boston Harbor Shipyard and Marina, 256 Marginal St. in East Boston, failed at 11:08 a.m., sending the dock slamming into the water - and a boat that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, the Boston Fire Department and the shipyard report.

Nobody was injured, but the shipyard reports it shut for the day, to await a second crane to help right things.

The Supreme Judicial Court today upheld a Cambridge man's first-degree murder sentence for strangling and then dismembering somebody in his apartment in 2015.

In an appeal of his life-without-parole sentence, the attorney for Carlos Colina argued that the prosecution's use of recordings of songs written and sung by Colina, found in his apartment after parts of Jonathan Camilien, 26, of Somerville were found in two different locations, and including lyrics about strangulation, murder and dismemberment, unfairly prejudiced the jury against his client and that they were obtained with a faulty search warrant, to boot.

The state's highest court concluded: Nope.

The court said the lyrics - some of which it describes in great, nauseating detail - were properly introduced by prosecutors to show Colina's "state of mind, identity, intent, plan, or knowledge on the day of the murder and not for the purpose of showing anything about the defendant's character or propensity for misbehavior."

Similarly, there was nothing wrong with the warrant police obtained to search Colina's apartment, in which they found the CDs. And while the judge and prosecutors may have made some errors in their statements to the jury, they were minor and would not have affected the verdict, the court said.

We conclude neither the rap music evidence nor the record of online purchases [another piece of evidence] was erroneously admitted in evidence. We further conclude that the trial judge's nondeadly force instructions were correct, and that any error in the judge's omission of an instruction on sudden combat or reasonable provocation was not prejudicial. While we agree that the prosecutor's remarks during closing argument were erroneous, the defendant was not prejudiced.

The court summarized events on the morning of April 4, 2015, when security guards from Biogen found "a suspicious duffel bag" on a walkway next to their property on Binney Street.

Police officers arrived at the scene shortly after 8 A.M. and discovered that the bag contained a human torso, appearing to belong to a male. Later that day, security personnel from the business led officers to a conference room, where they reviewed a surveillance video of the business's property recorded in the early morning hours of April 4. The officers observed on the video, starting at the 4:15 A.M. time stamp, a person carrying a bag across a street towards the walkway, returning from the walkway to the same street without the bag, and entering an apartment building, all over the course of approximately five minutes.

Directing their investigative efforts to the apartment building depicted in the surveillance video, police obtained a time stamped record of key fobs used to enter the apartment building on that morning of April 4. From this record, police learned that a key fob assigned to the defendant was used to enter the lobby at 4:26 A.M. and that no other key fob was used to enter the apartment building for a "long period" around this time. The record also showed the number of the defendant's apartment, which was located on the third floor.

Later that same morning, police conducted a search of the halls, stairwells, and trash rooms of the apartment building. In a trash bin in the third-floor trash room, they discovered human remains -- including upper left and right limbs, lower left and right limbs, and a human head that appeared to be that of a male -- within white trash bags that had been stuffed into two blue draw-string bags branded with the name of a bodybuilding website. The trash bin also contained red-brown stains that later tested positive for the presence of blood. Officers also found clothes and other items in the trash bin, including fragments of a driver's license and credit cards that had been cut into pieces. From these fragments, officers obtained the name of the victim, Jonathan Camilien, as well as his date of birth and photograph.

While on the third floor in the trash room, and prior to the trash bags being removed from the trash bin and opened, police officers heard the sound of a power tool or vacuum cleaner coming from the defendant's nearby apartment. When they approached the apartment's door, they could hear water being turned on and off and could smell a strong odor of bleach and cleaning products. The defendant then exited his apartment to the sight of the officers standing outside his front door. The officers observed that the defendant's clothes were wet and that he smelled of a bleach-based cleaning solution. The defendant agreed to accompany the officers to the police station. In the apartment building's lobby, officers observed a box addressed to the defendant from the same bodybuilding website that was branded on the blue draw-string bags found in the third-floor trash bin.

After arresting Colina, who had numerous scratches and cuts, police got a search warrant for his apartment, where, in addition to his rap CDs, they found:

A piece of green rope, a handsaw with red-brown stains on the blade that was removed from its handle, and cleaning supplies. They also observed red-brown stains on the floor beneath a carpet, some of which tested positive for the presence of blood.

Colina was convicted in 2018.

The Boston City Council yesterday approved a change in a regulation designed to protect the Emerald Necklace from being overwhelmed by tall buildings so that a developer can build a 28-story, 400-unit apartment building at 2 Charlesgate West, next to a little used portion of the Emerald Necklace along the Bowker Overpass.

City Councilor Sharon Durkan (Fenway, Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Mission Hill), first proposed the change in August, saying then Boston desperately needs housing and that the measure was crafted not to become a precedent for allowing other big private development along one of the nation's most famous urban parks.

At a council meeting yesterday, she reiterated the need for housing, but said the results of the national elections make the proposal by Scape, an English company, even more important.

"Boston stands as a beacon to the rest of the country, as a city where we protect human rights, including reproductive rights and the rights of LGBTQIA people, to ensure public safety and provide quality education," and Boston needs to provide even more housing for people who share those values, she said, adding, "however, these values that are core to Boston, that we're all proud to uphold, come at too steep a cost and currently exclude many who would like to live here." The new building would be a small step in "welcoming those who wish to live here," she said.

Scape's proposal includes 68 affordable apartments, or 17% of the total. At the time it submitted its plans that exceeded the city affordable-housing requirements, although it now exactly matches requirements that went into effect Oct. 1.

The project was approved by the Boston Planning Department in July. However, it was facing rejection by the Parks and Recreation Department because of an ordinance that bans new construction of buildings more than 70 feet tall on lots within 100 feet of parts of the Emerald Necklace (as well as certain parkland in South Boston and Brighton) and the proposed building was both way taller than that limit on a lot way closer than 100 feet to the Charlesgate segment of the Emerald Necklace.

The proposed change in the parks ordinance, which now goes to Mayor Wu for her consideration, would only apply to an area bounded by the roads that surround the Scape proposal.

Durkan said the new building would replace three little used commercial buildings along the turnpike with "a vibrant welcome to the Fenway." In addition to apartments, Scape has also proposed a new outdoor stairway and a public elevator, as well as a public restroom for Necklace users and $700,000 in total donations to the city and DCR for parks maintenance in the area.

Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson (Roxbury) said the ordinance amendment was "not such a perfect solution," and said some people in her district had called for other changes. But she said that because the project is not in her district, and "out of respect" for Durkan, she declined to elaborate, save to say she hoped there would be "further conversations."

Durkan agreed additional discussion is needed - and might result in further possible changes to the ordinance - but said that the project is critical enough to move forward now - an answer that did not sit well with Councilor Ed Flynn (South Boston, South End, Chinatown, Downtown.

The council voted 10-1-2 in favor of the measure. Flynn voted no; Fernandes Anderson and Julia Mejia (at large) voted "present."

2 Charlesgate filings.

Watch the discussion:

Mary Ellen watched a young deer yesterday morning getting something to drink in Sawmill Brook at Millennium Park in West Roxbury, along with some ducks and some tires.

Boston Police report arresting a Brighton man they say repeatedly stabbed another man after a fight that may have started in a liquor store at the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Warren Street in Brighton shortly before 10 p.m. on Monday.

Hans Pierre, 43, was arrested last night for the attack, which left the victim on the sidewalk outside a neighboring pizza place. Police say the victim, 36, was taken to a trauma center with injuries considered serious but not life-threatening.

Police say Pierre was arrested outside his home by both D-14 detectives and members of the D-14 drug-control unit.

Pierre was arraigned today in Brighton Municipal Court on a charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury, court records show.

Judge David Donnelly ordered him held without bail at least until a dangerousness hearing scheduled for next Tuesday, according to court records.

Innocent, etc.

Myron Freeman captured the sunset from Vassar Street at MIT this evening.

When Boston Police announced the arrest of a woman charged with stealing $4,800 of stuff from the Prudential Center Lululemon on Saturday, they gave her name as that of a 37-year-old Ipswich woman.

Only problem, her family - and now court records - say, the name and age released by police are actually those of the suspect's sister. In fact, Boston Municipal Court records now show, the woman charged with larceny over $1,200 is Kourtney Elizabeth McLean of Ipswich, and she's 33.

In a statement, the McLean family says this is not the first time the younger sister, currently homeless, has used her sister's identity in an interaction with police:

As a family, we are deeply concerned for Kourtney and the path she is currently on. While we cannot support these choices, we are hopeful this incident might inspire her to seek the help she needs. Our wish is for her to find stability and health.

Court records show the younger sister remains at the Suffolk County jail after failing to come up with the $750 bail Judge Margaret Albertson set at her arraignment on Monday. She is next scheduled for a court appearance on Dec. 3.

Innocent, etc.

Ed note: The original UHub story, based on the BPD account, has been corrected.

The Trump fan who'd been beaming his logo on the Hanson town water tower only to have the town bring in an even more powerful white spotlight to drown it out was back at it again tonight after he noticed the town had removed its spotlight, so the town hauled it back and turned it on again.

In a statement tonight, Town Administrator Lisa Green said:

Earlier today, the Town of Hanson discontinued measures put in place to block a political image being projected onto a Town-owned water tower. Regrettably, the party involved in the image projection resumed projecting today and as a result we have had to yet again take measures to block the projected image.

We would like to reiterate that the Town of Hanson does not endorse any political candidate, party or platform in any election, and that Town bylaws prohibit the display of political symbols or signage on government property. The Town is duty-bound to enforce those bylaws and is committed to taking whatever action is necessary to prevent future violations.

Both Secretary of State William Galvin and the Boston City Council decided today to investigate how precincts across the city ran out of ballots and numerous other ways voters had obstacles placed in the way of casting their ballots, from one polling place not having any working lights to voters with disabilities being refused access to handicap parking spaces at another.

"Our democracy is increasingly fragile in so many ways" and the last thing Boston needs is another election where people have trouble voting, Council President Ruthzee Louijeune said, calling for an emergency hearing on what went wrong.

"It's unacceptable," Councilor Ed Flynn (South Boston, South End, Chinatown, Downtown) said. Flynn went further than his fellow councilors in calling for a federal civil-rights investigation, in particular about the way he said voters with disabilities had problems yesterday.

Flynn, like other councilors, had only praise for poll workers, who they said did the absolute best they could under trying conditions. Instead, he and other councilors said they would grill city Election Department officials on what went wrong.

Flynn said not only had Galvin warned the city on Monday to expect higher than average turnout, as precincts began to run out of ballots, poll workers couldn't get anybody at the Elections Department in City Hall to answer their increasingly frantic calls.

Boston Police officers were eventually dispatched from City Hall with more ballots, starting at 6 p.m., in rush hour. Flynn said new ballots didn't get to one Savin Hill polling station until 7:45 p.m.

City Councilor Liz Breadon, who represents Allston and Brighton, said she got a call from a friend working the polls on Pond Street in Jamaica Plain that she and other poll workers realized by 2 p.m. that they would be running out of ballots.

Her friend, she said, called her around 5 p.m. because they couldn't get anybody at City Hall to answer their calls. "She was frantic, anticipating a big rush" between 5 and 8 p.m., she said.

Councilor Enrique Pepén (Hyde Park, Mattapan, Roslindale) said one precinct at Another Course to College in Hyde Park ran out of ballots. He said he and state Rep. Russell Holmes, later joined by Councilor Julia Mejia, tried to convince voters to stay in line, that more ballots were on the way.

A polling place at Cristo Rey School in Dorchester also ran out of ballots. Councilors said at least one Charlestown polling place also ran out of ballots.

One precinct at the Bates School in Roslindale ran out of ballots shortly after 5 p.m.

But missing ballots weren't the only issue.

Flynn said when he and his wife went to the Cathedral School with some pizza for poll workers, they were shocked to see the place had no lights on. Some enterprising poll workers who lived nearby went home to get table lamps; later in the evening, people pulled out their phones to get some light to read ballots.

Councilor Erin Murphy (at large), said that the day started with a busted tabulating machine at Florian Hall in Dorchester. And she said one constituent called her to let her know that some people with disabled family members were turned away from handicap spots at the Conley School in Roslindale by a principal who said the spaces were contractually available only to teachers during the school day.

Mejia said that at the Frederick Pilot School in Dorchester, confusion reigned because of a large influx of Spanish, Haitian and Cape Verdean Creole-speaking residents without enough poll workers to help them. Some were not allowed to vote without showing licenses, she said.

The Massachusetts Appeals Court today dismissed a man's conviction on a count of illegal possession of a firearm, because the stun gun police found in his trunk looks nothing like a gun as currently defined by state law.

In practical terms, the ruling does not free Michael Shehadi because, in addition to getting sentenced to two years in prison for possession of the device, he was also sentenced to five years for the two counts of possession of the fentanyl police also found in his car, after waking him up while he was parked at the Squire strip club in Revere early on Aug. 27, 2021. Shehadi had pleaded guilty to the charges but had reserved the right to appeal.

Suffolk County prosecutors argued to keep the illegal-firearms conviction on his record because they charged him under a state law regulating stun guns, which the legislature passed after the Supreme Judicial Court overturned a complete state ban on their possession, ruling that that violated the Second Amendment.

At the center of the legal wrangling in the case was a section of the new law defining the weapons:

[A] stun gun or a pistol, revolver or other weapon of any description, loaded or unloaded, from which a shot or bullet can be discharged and of which the length of the barrel or barrels is less than [sixteen] inches or [eighteen] inches in the case of a shotgun as originally manufactured; provided, however, that the term firearm shall not include any weapon that is: (i) constructed in a shape that does not resemble a handgun, short-barreled rifle or short-barreled shotgun including, but not limited to, covert weapons that resemble key-chains, pens, cigarette-lighters or cigarette packages; or (ii) not detectable as a weapon or potential weapon by x-ray machines commonly used at airports or walk-through metal detectors.

Suffolk County prosecutors tried arguing the definition did not really apply in Shehadi's case "because stun guns are not 'gun-type' or 'bullet-
discharging' weapons," that the legislature only wanted to "exclude covert weapons that are banned altogether in Massachusetts from the firearm regulatory scheme" and that even if you didn't buy that, again, the legislature was only referring to "covert" weapons, and while police had to get a search warrant to find Shehadi's stun gun in his car's trunk, the weapon was not really "covert."

And, prosecutors continued, to think otherwise would be to permit an "absurd result," because the legislature passed the new definition in direct response to, and just four months after, the SJC ruling throwing out the state's complete ban on stun guns, and so the legislature "must have intended to include all types of stun
guns" in its new definition of "firearm."

The appeals court, however, noped out on all of that. The new definition, right down to its placement of semi-colons, is pretty clear, and while the legislature has since amended the firearms law several times since the initial bill passed in response to the court decision, it has never changed the distinction between stun guns that look like traditional handguns and ones that look more like a TV remote or, in the court's phrasing, a "brick."

Case docket, includes links to briefs filed by the DA's office and the defense attorney.