MPG: Gateway

Welcome to MASSACHUSETTS CRIMINAL LAW: A PROSECUTOR'S GUIDE Online.

On this site, you will find the full text of the 45th edition of the Prosecutor's Guide. The Guide presents a timely and comprehensive analysis of Massachusetts criminal law and its practice in the courts of the Commonwealth and cites to over 7,000 Massachusetts criminal decisions by the Supreme Judicial and Appeals Courts. It is fully updated each fall and during the year as new developments in the law warrant. Please consult our What's New page for the most recent changes.

The text also cites and discusses significant criminal law cases decided by the Supreme Court, the federal Courts of Appeals, and state appellate courts from around the country. The principal focus, however, is on Massachusetts criminal law and its practice in the courts of the Commonwealth.

Access to the Guide is by annual subscription. If you are not yet a subscriber, please take the tour of a sample chapter from the Guide.

Please Note: If you are an employee of the Massachusetts Trial Court or an Assistant District Attorney, you have unlimited access to the Prosecutor's Guide web site thanks to licenses purchased on your behalf by the Massachusetts Trial Court Law Library and the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association, respectively. Please contact your office law library for access instructions. In the case of ADAs, access to the Guide is through your account on the New York Prosecutors Training Institute website.

Also law students at the following institutions have access through your school Law Library: Harvard, Suffolk, Boston College, Northeastern, Western New England School of Law, New England Law | Boston, Boston University, and the University of Massachusetts.

Please note:
11/17/25: Judge Stearns has revised the chapter on "Firearms Offenses" to note new developments with respect to ghost guns, the August 2025 amendments to chapter 269, section 10(a), burden-shifting, and the important recent case of Commonwealth v. Rodriguez, 496 Mass. 627 (2025), rejecting a facial challenge to the constitutionality of the licensing law and annulling a very recently decided case (Commonwealth v. Donnell) that had struck down the out-of-state resident permitting scheme). The chapter on "Search Warrants" has been revised to note among other developments, new cases on cell phone data extraction, the particularity doctrine, and Franks hearings. 11/4/25: "Admissions and Confessions" has been revised to highlight new cases touching on voluntariness, structural error, custodial interrogation, hearing-impaired defendants, the telephone privilege, safe harbor rule, and the poisonous tree doctrine, among other topics. Please see What's New for further details.

Please note:

11/17/25: Judge Stearns has revised the chapter on "Firearms Offenses" to note new developments with respect to ghost guns, the August 2025 amendments to chapter 269, section 10(a), burden-shifting, and the important recent case of Commonwealth v. Rodriguez, 496 Mass. 627 (2025), rejecting a facial challenge to the constitutionality of the licensing law and annulling a very recently decided case (Commonwealth v. Donnell) that had struck down the out-of-state resident permitting scheme). The chapter on "Search Warrants" has been revised to note among other developments, new cases on cell phone data extraction, the particularity doctrine, and Franks hearings.

11/4/25: "Admissions and Confessions" has been revised to highlight new cases touching on voluntariness, structural error, custodial interrogation, hearing-impaired defendants, the telephone privilege, safe harbor rule, and the poisonous tree doctrine, among other topics.

Please see What's New for further details.