Articles Posted in Drug Crimes

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Police made two arrests after pulling a car over on suspicion that the occupants were smoking marijuana, and found marijuana and several other illegal drugs.

Brookline Police stopped the car after police smelled burning marijuana coming from the vehicle and saw something smoking that was being passed between the passengers. According to the police report, when the officer inquired about what they had seen being passed in the car, the driver handed over the burnt marijuana cigarette. According to police, during the stop, they discovered a warrant for the passenger’s arrest for motor vehicle offenses. After placing him under arrest, police searched him and found the “Molly” along with Bupropion, and other drug paraphernalia.

The passenger was subsequently charged with possession of Molly, a powder form of Ecstasy, which is a Class B drug. He was also charged with possession of a class E drug, and cited for possession of less than an ounce of marijuana. One of the officers recognized the Molly due to increased awareness of the drug following a recent death of a young woman who took the substance.
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Two individuals were arrested by Cambridge Police earlier this month, following an exchange in which a detective witnessed what he perceived to be a transaction involving a firearm, drugs, or both.

An ununiformed detective spotted one of the individuals, and believed that the individual was concealing a firearm, and after following him witnessed what he believed was a transaction.

When the officer approached the men, they both attempted to flee, but were captured. One of the suspects had a firearm in his backpack, but no license to carry or firearm identification card. After searching both of the men, police recovered a bag containing 20 grams of marijuana and one firearm.
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Attorney General Eric Holder recently announced that he is mandating a change to Justice Department policy regarding no longer requiring charging of crimes with mandatory minimum sentences in the cases of individuals who have committed low-level, non-violent drug crimes who do not have ties to large-scale organizations, gangs or cartels.The current mandatory minimum sentencing requirements, which were a product of the 1980s war on drugs campaign, severely limit judicial discretion in imposing shorter prison sentences.

Under Holder’s proposal, defendants will be charged with offenses carrying sentences that are more in accordance with their individual conduct, rather than prison sentences, which are more appropriate for violent criminals or high level drug offenders.

Federal prisons are currently operating at an estimated 40% above capacity. Reportedly, some half of the inmates are serving time for drug related crimes, many of whom have some sort of substance abuse disorder. An additional estimated nine to ten million prisoners are processed through local jails each year.

The Attorney General believes that mandatory minimum sentences are counterproductive, don’t necessarily decrease recidivism, and make people distrusting of the justice system.

A group of bipartisan senators recently introduced legislation that would give federal judges more discretion in applying mandatory minimum sentences in certain drug offender cases.

The new approaches are being referred to as the “Smart On Crime” initiative. Additional suggestions include the diversion of state funds toward treatment and supervision, rather than new prison construction.
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A United States Attorney recently announced that an alleged Chinatown crime boss has been sentenced to more than five years in prison for his involvement in drug trafficking, money laundering, and prostitution related criminal activities.The U.S. Attorney said in a statement that the defendant, Wei Xing Chen, pleaded guilty in April to conspiring to the following charges:

  • money-laundering;
  • inducing travel for the purpose of prostitution;
  • conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), and benzylpiperazine (BZP), both are forms of the street drug ecstacy;
  • and possession with intent to distribute BZP.

The defendant was sentenced last week in U.S. District Court to 70 months in prison, with two subsequent years of supervised release, an additional $1,000 fine, and forfeiture of his Mercedes and $8,000 in cash.

The U.S. Attorney further reported that a co-defendant in the case pleaded guilty last November to his involvement in the prostitution ring, and was sentenced to two years of probation including six months of home detention.

In a separate sworn statement, the government revealed that the two defendants were among 26 individuals initially indicted in 2011, following a long term FBI investigation into organized crime within Chinatown. In addition to the indictments, government officials also seized 13 guns, $340,000 in cash, and nearly 13,000 of what they believed to be oxycodone pills, in addition to “extensive evidence” of prostitution and illegal gambling.
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Boston authorities announced the allegedly successful execution of a series of raids, which they referred to as “Operation H.”

The crackdown targeted various individuals suspected of drug trafficking, gang activity, and violent crime.

A spokesperson for the local district attorney’s office said that 75 people are potentially facing charges, which includes the 33 arrested Tuesday.

The Police Commissioner said in a statement, that this operation evidences the departments commitment to get drugs and violent criminals off of the street. He further stated that detectives have been videotaping the suspects selling illegal drugs in various location, by means of an undercover operation.

Thus far, at least 40 defendants have been arraigned pursuant to these raids, with bail set between $500 and $7,500.

Police stated that as of Tuesday night, they were still looking for 10 suspects.
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Massachusetts’ highest state court ruled last week that so called “social sharing” of marijuana is not a crime. The decision dealt with four separate cases that fell within the purview of a voter approved initiative which decriminalized possession of less than an ounce of marijuana.

In one case, a man was apprehended by police after they witnessed him sharing a marijuana cigarette with two of his friends, and also happened to notice a plastic bag containing marijuana sticking out of his pocket. Police then searched his backpack, which led to the discovery of an additional 10 small bags of marijuana, with the total weight of everything in the man’s possession amounting to less than an ounce.

The state had argued that the arrest was justified because the officer had reason to believe that the man was set to distribute the marijuana illegally. However, the court disagreed. It ruled in favor of the defendant, emphasizing the small amount in the man’s possession, and noting the fact that the man’s crime was only scrutinized in this situation because he was smoking with friends. Therefore, the law’s protection extends to group activity as well.

The other cases involve similar arguments, that individuals sharing marijuana were charged with intent to distribute based on their objective act of sharing the marijuana between them.

However, the court upheld the police’s actions in a case where officers found less than an ounce worth of plants growing in his closet, after he was served with a warrant. This finding dealt with the 2008 voter initiative’s reach regarding the cultivation of marijuana, which the court ruled it does not alter. Therefore, according to this ruling, the initiative protects the act of possessing an ounce or less, only.
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There have been multiple reports, and in fact even indictments of several employees of drug processing crime labs in Massachusetts in recent months. Additionally, two crime labs used by the state to process drug samples have been closed down until the allegations regarding the mishandling of evidence have been thoroughly investigated.In one of the cases under investigation, Sonja Farak, was charged with tampering with drug evidence, where she in some cases allegedly removed small amounts of heroin and cocaine from test samples for personal use, and then replaced the drugs with other substances. Officials maintain that she removed the drugs from already tested samples, which would in theory therefore not affect the outcomes of the tests, or the cases for which they were conducted. She handled drug evidence at the Amherst Drug Laboratory on the University of Massachusetts campus, which has been closed pending an investigation by the State.

Annie Dookhan, 34, was indicted following her September arrest for charges of falsifying drug evidence in thousands of cases. According to investigators, her mishandling or falsification of evidence may have affected some 10,000 people convicted or accused of crimes based on evidence that she processed at the Hinton lab in Jamaica Plain where she worked. State officials said that hundreds of people had been released from prison pending new trials.

Additionally unsettling, is the fact that according to sources, the Hinton lab was not ­accredited, unlike the Boston police crime lab, and other labs countrywide. It remains unclear why unaccredited labs would be used by the state for criminal cases, whereby the outcomes could determine whether individuals lose their liberty.
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Massachusetts government and law enforcement officials have introduced proposals in the hopes of expanding the limits of secret wiretapping. The reasoning behind the expansion is the purported goal of more easily gathering evidence against criminal suspects, such as with drug crimes.

According to state Attorney General Martha Coakley, the current wire tapping law has not been revised since 1968, and officials feel that it has become outdated. Coakley’s office released a statement summarizing the proposed changes. Most notably, authorities would still need a warrant to wiretap suspects, but the targets would not have to be members of a bona fide organized crime group, such as the Mafia. Additionally, once a warrant has issued for a wiretap under the new law, the revisions would extend the amount of time it could be used from 15 days to 30 days, which the statement claims is consistent with federal law
As a defense attorney, these proposals raise many concerns regarding the rights of criminal suspects. The intended purpose for using wiretaps, is to target individuals who may have sophisticated methods of evading law enforcement, such as those involved in organized crime. The use of wiretaps could lead to monitoring of individuals’ private conversations for long periods of time, and may additionally impinge on the privacy rights of the innocent individual engaged on the other end of the conversation. This could amount to the sort of unreasonable searches and seizures that are protected against by the Fourth Amendment.
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On September 6, 2012, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, the Commonwealth’s highest court, heard legal arguments on both sides of the issue of whether or not a judge should suppress the evidence seized from a defendant’s cellular telephone in circumstances where the phone was seized immediately from the defendant during a lawful arrest but searched about an hour later during the booking process at the police station without a search warrant.

The issue is one of first impression in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and one that other state courts and federal district courts have struggled with to find the proper balance between constitutionally protected privacy rights to significant information stored on a cell phone and allowing law enforcement to continue to do their jobs to further investigate crime. Neither the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts nor the Massachusetts Appeals Court have addressed the issue of whether or not a police officer is permitted to perform a warrantless search of a defendant’s cell phone content after the defendant has been arrested and the pending decision will have a significant impact on the search and seizure law in Massachusetts.

Attorney Patrick J. Murphy of the Boston based Law Office of Patrick J. Murphy presented oral argument before the seven justices of the Supreme Judicial Court on behalf of the Appellant, while Attorney Zachary Hillman presented the prosecution’s responsive argument.

Attorney Murphy stressed to the high court that the legal analysis must first begin by recognizing that the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article XIV of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights guarantees all people protection from unreasonable searches of their possessions and any warrantless search by the police is per se unreasonable and evidence gained therefrom should be suppressed. Additionally, Attorney Murphy argued that although there is a search-incident-to-arrest exception to the warrant requirement, that exception only applies in circumstances where the officers are searching for weapons or in a situation where there is a danger of the loss or destruction of evidence.
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It was recently reported on August 2, 2012, that Governor Deval Patrick signed new Massachusetts criminal law legislation that imposes harsh penalties for repeat violent criminal law offenders convicted in the Commonwealth. In doing so, Massachusetts now reportedly joins twenty-six additional states that have imposed strong habitual criminal offender laws. The new law takes away judicial discretion with respect to sentencing of repeat violent criminal offenders who have suffered convictions three times for certain enumerated violent crimes and makes these offenders ineligible for parole. In other words, repeat violent offenders now have to serve the full or maximum sentence with absolutely no chance for parole, probation, work release, furlough or reduction of sentence for good conduct while incarcerated.

The two previous convictions of a criminal defendant to be subject to the penalties imposed under the Massachusetts three-strikes law must have arisen out of distinct and separate incidents that must have occurred at different times. Also, these previous convictions must have carried sentences of at least three years each for the law to be applicable.

This law was sought by the father of Melissa Gosule, who was murdered by a convicted criminal who had been released early only after serving a two-year portion of a prison sentence and reportedly involved a history of twenty-seven prior felonies on his criminal record. Authorities argue that a tough three-strikes law may have avoided this and other similar, tragic losses of life.

In order to get that law passed there were certain concessions incorporated that actually decrease the mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug crimes for trafficking, distribution, manufacturing or possession with intent to distribute drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, heroin, morphine or opium. In some cases involving trafficking in cocaine or phenmetrazine, mandatory minimum sentences have been reduced by three years. Also, the weight requirements of certain narcotics to support a conviction for trafficking have actually increased making it more difficult for prosecutors to convict for trafficking cases.
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