THERE IS NO QUESTION that for years, state breathalyzer tests were not certified correctly, and Massachusetts’ Office of Alcohol Testing acted egregiously when it withheld evidence about failed calibrations of breathalyzers. But what happens to all those drunk driving cases where breathalyzer evidence was used? The Supreme Judicial Court on Wednesday heard arguments in a […]
Shira Schoenberg
Shira Schoenberg is a reporter at CommonWealth magazine. Shira previously worked for more than seven years at the Springfield Republican/MassLive.com where she covered state politics and elections, covering topics as diverse as the launch of the legal marijuana industry, problems with the state's foster care system and the elections of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Gov. Charlie Baker. Shira won the Massachusetts Bar Association's 2018 award for Excellence in Legal Journalism and has had several stories win awards from the New England Newspaper and Press Association. Shira covered the 2012 New Hampshire presidential primary for the Boston Globe. Before that, she worked for the Concord (N.H.) Monitor, where she wrote about state government, City Hall and Barack Obama's 2008 New Hampshire primary campaign. Shira holds a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
Posted inCriminal Justice
Baker issues three more pardons
AFTER FAILING TO issue a single pardon or commutation in his first seven years in office, Gov. Charlie Baker continued to use his final months in office to wield his pardon power. Baker on Wednesday recommended three more pardons, building on the eight pardons he issued in October and seven in November. He also commuted […]
Posted inEducation
Foster care mentoring turns into 20-year relationship
MIKE SMITH was 5 years old when he met Justin Pasquariello and Vanessa Fazio. Pasquariello, then 22, had started a Boston-based mentoring program for kids in foster care, and Fazio was a college intern there. Smith, who was living in Dorchester, had been in foster care since he was three. Smith remembers Pasquariello taking him to […]
Posted inPolitics
Race heating up for Mass. GOP chair
AFTER THE CLOBBERING taken by Massachusetts Republicans in the 2022 election, as many as three candidates could be posing challenges to state Republican Party chairman Jim Lyons. The January election will be a debate over how to rebuild the party, which has been sharply divided between factions loyal to moderate GOP Gov. Charlie Baker and […]
Posted inEducation
Poll finds Boston teachers open to lessons on race, sexism
BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOL teachers believe issues of race and racism should be taught in public schools, particularly in the older grades, according to a survey conducted by Educators For Excellence, a national teacher-led organizing group. The survey of 110 Boston teachers, sponsored by the Barr Foundation, includes a number of revealing details about the position […]
Posted inMarijuana
Dairy farmers losing out in O’Brien pot licensing flap
A MONTH AGO, the Cannabis Control Commission deferred consideration of a license for a marijuana farm that Cannabis Control Commission chair Shannon O’Brien was previously involved with, to avoid concerns about a conflict of interest. But the farmers at the center of the high-profile dispute say they did everything regulators asked for – and the […]
Posted inPolitics
In-person Election Day voting boosted turnout to 2.5m
THERE WERE 2.5 million Massachusetts residents who cast ballots in the November 8 midterm election, and despite the availability of vote-by-mail, more than half of them returned to the tried-and-true method of in-person voting on Election Day. With 2,508,298 ballots cast, voter turnout was the second highest it has been for a midterm election, after […]
Posted inCourts, Criminal Justice
Breathalyzer scandal could reopen 27,000 drunk driving cases
IN A CASE that has echoes of the notorious drug lab scandals, the state’s highest court will consider whether to make up to 27,000 defendants in drunk driving cases eligible for new trials because of problems with the state’s use of breathalyzer tests. The Supreme Judicial Court is scheduled to hear arguments December 7 in […]
Posted inHealth Care
Hoping to deliver at a Massachusetts birth center? Good luck.
KATHERINE RUSHFIRTH, who lives in Lynn, had her first child three years ago with care from the North Shore Birth Center in Beverly, cared for by the same midwives who provided her pregnancy care. During her second pregnancy, the birth center announced plans to close, and Rushfirth, who is herself a nurse midwife, found nowhere […]
Posted inCourts
Baker pardons Amiraults in controversial daycare sex abuse case
GOV. CHARLIE BAKER on Friday pardoned Gerald Amirault and Cheryl Amirault Lefave, who were convicted of sexually abusing children in a day care center in the 1980s, in a famous case that has been widely criticized for its lack of evidence and for allegations that child witnesses were improperly pressured into making accusations. “The investigations […]