Massachusetts Criminal Lawyer Blog

In a recent decision – Garza v. Idaho – the United States Supreme Court opined that its prior holding in Roe v. Flores-Ortega, 528 U.S. 470, 484 (2000) — “that when an attorney’s deficient performance [in failing to file a notice of appeal] costs a defendant an appeal that the defendant would have otherwise pursued, prejudice to the defendant should be presumed” — “applies regardless of whether [as here] the defendant has signed an appeal waiver.”

The background was as follows. Petitioner Garza “signed two plea agreements, each arising from criminal charges brought by the State of Idaho. Each agreement included a clause stating that Garza ‘waive[d] his right to appeal.’…. The Idaho trial court accepted the agreements and sentenced Garza to terms of prison in accordance with the agreements. Shortly after sentencing, Garza told his trial counsel that he wished to appeal…. Garza’s trial counsel, however, did not file a notice of appeal. Instead, counsel ‘informed Mr. Garza that an appeal was problematic because he waived his right to appeal.’ The period of time for Garza’s appeal to be preserved came and went with no notice having been filed on Garza’s behalf…. [F]our months after sentencing, Garza sought post conviction relief in Idaho state court,” alleging “that his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to file notices of appeal despite Garza’s requests. The Idaho trial court denied relief, and … the Idaho Supreme Court affirmed that decision” on the grounds that Garza had waived his appellate rights. Garza sought certiorari. Continue reading →

In Commonwealth v. Pina, the Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the defendant’s conviction of first degree murder, ruling that although the judge erroneously deprived the defendant of two peremptory challenges, the error was not prejudicial and therefore did not require reversal.

The background was as follows. During jury selection at the defendant’s trial, “[t]he judge decided to empanel sixteen jurors. As a result, each party was entitled to sixteen peremptory challenges…. On the final day of the three-day empanelment,” after the defendant exercised his fourteenth peremptory challenge and therefore had two remaining, “[t]he judge mistakenly informed defense counsel, ‘That takes care of all

your challenges.’” Thereafter, when the judge seated additional jurors (no. 69 and no. 80), the defendant “did not object to the jurors … or raise a challenge for cause.” On appeal, he contended that he was denied a fair trial by the judge’s miscalculation of the number of preemptory challenges that had been exercised by defense counsel. Continue reading →

In Commonwealth v. Woods, the Appeals Court (1) reversed the defendant’s conviction of malicious destruction of property because the evidence was insufficient to prove that he acted with the requisite “malice”; and (2) reversed his conviction of possession of ammunition as duplicative of his conviction of possession of a loaded firearm.

The background was as follows. A team from the Massachusetts fugitive apprehension task force went to a certain address in Fitchburg to serve an arrest warrant on an individual they understood to be living in apartment 3 on the third floor. The defendant lived in an apartment on the second floor of the building. Upon becoming aware of the entry of the officers into the building, the defendant raced from his apartment to apartment 3, kicked in the door, entered the apartment, and placed “a child’s blue kick ball” in a closet. Ten or fifteen seconds later, as the officers arrived at apartment 3, they heard the female tenant (Wiener) screaming for help. The officers apprehended the defendant as he tried to escape. In the course of conducting a protective sweep of the apartment, an officer found the kick ball in the closet. The ball had been slit open and visible inside it was a loaded firearm and two smaller balls, also slit open, containing drugs. Wiener told the officers that she “had never seen the blue ball or its contents before” and that those items “did not belong to her or any other member of her household.” At trial, the prosecution procured multiple convictions on the basis of “an inference that the defendant had converted three balls previously used as children’s toys [in his own household] into storage compartments for the drugs and handgun [that he placed] in Wiener’s closet” when he invaded her apartment. Among the defendant’s appellate arguments, two are of interest here, first, that “the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction of malicious destruction of property [the door to apartment 3] … because it did not establish that he acted with malice”; and, second, that “his conviction of possession of ammunition [was] duplicative of his conviction of possession of a loaded firearm. Continue reading →

In Timbs v. Indiana, the United States Supreme Court ruled that “the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause [is] an ‘incorporated’ protection applicable to the States under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.”

The background was as follows. Petitioner “Timbs pleaded guilty in Indiana state court to dealing in a controlled substance…. At the time of Timbs’s arrest, the police seized his vehicle, a Land Rover SUV Timbs had purchased for about $42,000” “with money he received from an insurance policy when his father died. The State engaged a private law firm to bring a civil suit for forfeiture of Timbs’s Land Rover, charging that the vehicle had been used to transport heroin. After Timbs’s guilty plea in the criminal case, the trial court held a hearing on the forfeiture demand. Although finding that Timbs’s vehicle had been used to facilitate violation of a criminal statute, the court denied the requested forfeiture, observing that Timbs had recently purchased the vehicle for $42,000, more than four times the maximum $10,000 monetary fine assessable against him for his drug conviction. Forfeiture of the Land Rover, the court determined, would be grossly disproportionate to the gravity of Timbs’s offense, hence unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause.” The Indiana Supreme Court reversed, holding “that the Excessive Fines Clause constrains only federal action and is inapplicable to state impositions.” Timbs sought certiorari. Continue reading →