We are getting a glimpse of the world behind the walls at Bridgewater State Hospital, and it’s not a pretty picture. A week after the state agreed to a $3 […]
Courts
Posted inThe Download
Tsarnaev and the death penalty
Attorney General Eric Holder approved a motion for prosecutors to seek the death penalty for alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzokhar Tsarnaev, triggering an emotional debate inside Massachusetts about the ethics […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Probation listicles all the rage
Lawyers for embattled former Probation Department chief John O’Brien have long claimed that the federal racketeering case against the one-time Beacon Hill fixer represents an attempt to criminalize patronage. They’ve […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
Dookhan sentencing debate
Prosecutors are seeking a five- to seven-year prison sentence for former state chemist Annie Dookhan if she pleads guilty to falsifying evidence. The sentence is far longer than the one […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, The Download
The verdict
Whitey Bulger’s date with a jury had been decades in the making. It came to a close yesterday, as the former crime boss stood in a South Boston courtroom and […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, The Download
CSI: Boston
One of the best things the O.J. Simpson trial did was introduce the vast majority of Americans to the criminal justice system. One of the worst things the case did […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Voting rights ruling leaves protections in doubt
Did the sky fall with last week’s Supreme Court ruling invalidating a key section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act? You would certainly have thought so judging by some of […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
Galvin calls out Chief Justice
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. touched a nerve in Massachusetts on Thursday when he asserted that the Bay State has the worst record in the country on voting […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
Cahill mistrial all about perspective
And on the seventh day, they rested. The Christmas gift that jurors gave Tim Cahill in his corruption trial is looking to be the equivalent of 12 days of worth […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
The SJC’s drunk driving report
For the second time in less than three years, the state’s court system is marching to the tune of the Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team. The first instance came in 2010, […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, The Download
SJC chief sounds notes of caution on crime bill
The chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court raised two major concerns about the pending crime bill: the lack of judicial discretion on sentencing and the automatic appeals that could […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Coakley reshaping the race to the White House
With one move three years ago, Attorney General Martha Coakley set in motion events that now seem poised to position gay marriage as the new abortion. In 2009, she filed […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service, The Download
Latest pitch on three-strikes bill may have been a foul tip
If you’re having a hard time figuring this Legislature out, especially the House, join the crowd. Lawmakers overwhelmingly voted last week to override three of Gov. Deval Patrick’s vetoes in […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, The Download
Bulger shoots blanks
It was always going to come to this, and yesterday, J.W. Carney made it official: Whitey Bulger’s upcoming murder trial will be as much about Bulger’s sordid relationship with law […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
Bonin book stirs the pot
A book on Robert Bonin’s ouster in the late 1970s as chief justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court is rekindling some old feuds. The book, The Vidal Lecture: Sex and […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
“A constitutional crisis”
Seven of the state’s top jurists say a constitutional crisis is brewing in Massachusetts, with legislatively-imposed budget cuts creating a court system that is undermanned, overwhelmed, and increasingly unsafe. At […]