1/15/26: Judge Stearns has updated the chapter on "Domestic Abuse" to take note of new penalties for cyber harassment ("revenge porn"). The introductory chapter to "Identification Evidence" has also been revised and updated.
12/23/25: Judge Stearns has revised the chapter on "Indecent Assault and Battery" to incorporate new case and statutory developments highlighting in particular the ever-vexing issues created by the exercise of peremptory challenges in a Batson-Soares context.
12/8/25: Judge Stearns has revised the chapters on "Public Order Offenses" and "Threshold Inquiries" to, among other things, bring into sharper focus the distinction between selective enforcement and selective prosecution and their separate constitutional groundings (aided by a recent Supreme Judicial Court opinion in Commonwealth v. Rodriguez, 496 Mass. 627 (2025)).
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: Judge Stearns has revised the chapter on "Admissions and Confessions", highlighting 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.
10/7/25: Judge Stearns has revised the chapter on "Identification Evidence" in anticipation of the expected amendments to the Model Jury Instructions on Eyewitness Identification.
10/3/25: Judge Stearns has revised the chapter on "Joint Venture", "Multiple Defendants", and the "Bruton Rule" to consider the impact of the Supreme Court's 2024 decision in Smith v. Arizona, 602 U.S. 779 (2024), on the Massachusetts common-law evidentiary rule governing the admissibility of substitute expert testimony, as assessed by the Supreme Judicial Court in an important recent case of Commonwealth v. Gordon, 496 Mass. 554 (2025).
9/8/25: Judge Stearns has revised the chapters on "Criminal Trespass" and "Motor Vehicle Offenses", the latter to include important new cases on the already relaxed meaning of "operating" a motor vehicle for purposes of an OUI conviction as well as an important new case on the nonconsensual extraction of blood samples, Commonwealth v. Zucchino, 493 Mass. 747 (2024), which trims back earlier cases which appeared to misread the aggravated drunk driving statutes.
9/3/25: Judge Stearns has revised the chapter in "Search and Seizure" on "Threshold Inquiries" to note new cases on topics such as the community caretaking doctrine and racial profiling, including the important new case of Commonwealth v. Diaz, 496 Mass. 210 (2025).
8/25/25: Judge Stearns has revised the introductory chapter on "Search and Seizure" to note new cases discussing wiretapping, inmate privacy, the GPS monitoring of detainees, and the attenuation doctrine, among other topics.
8/11/25: Judge Stearns has revised the chapter on "Multiple Defendants" and "Juvenile Justice" noting, among others, new cases discussing the joint venture doctrine, attorney conflicts of interest, and the sentencing of juvenile offenders.
8/8/25: Judge Stearns has revised the chapter on "Firearms Offenses" to take note of developments since the Governor's signing of the Act Modernizing Firearm Laws and more particularly, the First Circuit's decision in Capen v. Campbell, 134 F.4th 660 (1st Cir. 2025), turning back a constitutional challenge to the Act's ban on assault-style firearms and large capacity feeding devices.
7/21/25: We have previously hyperlinked citations in the text to opinions hosted at masscases.com. However, because masscases.com will shut down shortly, we have now replaced the case hyperlinks to masscases.com with links to Google Scholar. Following the new hyperlinks will trigger a search at Google Scholar for the citation for the case. You can follow the link on the search results page to view the text of the decision. This new arrangement allows us to hyperlink federal as well as Massachusetts cases cited in the text of the Guide.
6/4/25: Judge Stearns has revised the chapter on "District Court Procedure" with a principal focus on discovery obligations under the new Rule 14 and its four appended sub-chapters. As Judge Stearns notes, the new Rule substantially increases the burden on prosecutors to provide full and prompt disclosure of exculpatory evidence on a very tight time frame.
5/5/25: Judge Stearns has revised the chapter on "Assault and Battery" to take particular note of Commonwealth v. Rateree, 495 Mass. 610 (2025), and its reframing of the Adjutant first-aggressor evidence rule. Among other new cases and topics Judge Stearns notes a first-instance Appeals Court case, Pettiford v. Branded Mgmt. Grp. LLC, 104 Mass. App. Ct. 287 (2024), which expands corporate liability on a respondeat superior theory under the state Civil Rights Act to encompass violations of the public accommodation statute.
3/16/25: Judge Stearns has updated the chapter on "Narcotics Offenses" to note new cases and statutory developments. Of particular interest is the Supreme Court's recent decision in Diaz v. United States, which considerably loosens any restraints on the ability of an expert witness to opine on the ultimate issue of a defendant's guilt or innocence.
3/4/25: Judge Stearns has revised the chapter on "Public Order Offenses" to note new case law further clarifying the procedures to follow in dealing with prosecutions of "second chance" juvenile misdemeanors, so-called "true" threats, instances of virtual lewd behavior, sex trafficking, and claims of selective prosecution.
1/24/25: Judge Stearns has revised the chapter on "Searches Incident to Arrest" to bring into sharper focus the differences between federal and Massachusetts law on this important exception to the warrant requirement. The chapters on "Plain View" and "Consent Searches" have also been updated.
1/2/25: Judge Stearns has revised the chapter on "Assaults on Police" and "Police Misconduct" to note new cases on subjects including resisting arrest, state creation of danger, false arrest, malicious prosecution, the public duty rule, failure to train, and qualified immunity, among others.