The current conservative and pro-2nd Amendment U.S. Supreme Court is upending decades of firearm law, tossing some long-stable anti-gun laws into question. Seemingly daily, new cases come to light in various state and federal courts that highlight the various approaches that judges are taking. In a recent Pennsylvania case that wound its way to a … Read More
“Privilege” is a work much discussed in American media, often directed at whiteprivilege, the set of social and economic advantages that white people have by virtue oftheir race in a culture characterized by racial inequality. In the criminal justice system,that institutional bias is as evident as it is in our cultural and economic lives.But the … Read More
In an age when corporations are asking us to trust them with our genetic confidences, we generally are exchanging it for something we crave: insight into our ancestral origins, connection with unknown relatives, solutions to family mysteries, an understand or our genetic traits, or to foster a sense of cultural, ethnic or racial identity. For … Read More
In one of the most anticipated opinions of recent years, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court recently considered whether sentencing 18–20-year-olds convicted of first-degree murder to mandatory life in prison without the possibility of parole constitutes “cruel or unusual punishment.” They ruled that it does. The case involved Sheldon Mattis, who was 18 when he was involved … Read More
Restraining orders, sometimes called “abuse prevention orders,” “209A orders” or simply “RO’s,” carry dire and potentially long-term consequences, and even may result in criminal charges and prosecutions in our state courts. Let’s explore more about the camouflaged hazards of being on the “defendant” side of one of these orders. A 209A order may be sought … Read More
I recently happened to stumble upon a YouTube lecture by a law professor named James Duane. Duane doesn’t soft-sell his point: he is in love with the 5th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. If this blog post doesn’t make you love it too, it should at least give you a deep crush. Most of us … Read More