"But police failed to explain why it was reasonable to wait a full 24 hours before stopping Arias, the court found, explaining that the state bears the burden of justifying the delay." #mapoli #bospoli
www.law360.com/articles/246...
ICE had 6 fucking vehicles at my local courthouse in Massachusetts this morning. They're here and they're terrorizing people. Just because the tactics have changed doesn't mean their impact on our communities has changed.
The Massachusetts Senate needs to pass the PROTECT Act ASAP.
I wrote about a landmark Pennsylvania Sup Ct ruling barring mandatory life in prison w/o parole for felony murder convictions. The court broke w/ state precedent to embrace an independent interpretation of the state constitution, rooted in PA’s Quaker history. statecourtreport.org/our-work/ana...
MA SJC holds today that police waiting 24 hours to make a civil traffic stop for an observed violation was unreasonable, violating art. 14 of the MA Declaration of Rights/4th Amendment. Pretextual nature of the stop not invalidated, though. #mapoli @statecourtreport.org
www.mass.gov/doc/commonwe...
A man who was deported after being released from a Massachusetts state prison wonders how the state can justify working in partnership with ICE. “The governor has the power to hold back. But they played a role to allow this to happen to me.”
Gang databases "represent yet another black box of U.S. policing—a system in which an individual can be labeled, tracked, surveilled, and harassed based on innocuous criteria." Sharon Brett on how police manufacture criminality—with life-altering consequences
Included on this list is Lt. Andres Lopez, who is a Lieutenant on SERT and has been accused of excessive force on multiple occasions, including in the assault that led to Shacoby Kenny's death in December. #bospoli #mapoli
Still no accountability or transparency about an independent investigation!
PRISON EDUCATION IN MASSACHUSETTS: ENROLLMENT VS. WAITLISTS (AS OF FEBRUARY) CRITICAL SHORTAGES IN EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMING TOTAL CRIMINALLY SENTENCED INDIVIDUALS: 5,656 MORE THAN 40% OF ALL CRIMINALLY SENTENCED PRISONERS ARE ON EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMING WAITLISTS 2,353 INDIVIDUALS ON WAITLISTS INDIVIDUALS ENROLLED IN EDUCATIONAL CLASSES: 897 INDIVIDUALS
Related story here in #mapoli from @binjreports.bsky.social on education access in prison:
"In Massachusetts, you can see that the correct response is to increase programming, education, vocational training, [and] out of cell time,” White of @plsma.bsky.social said.
binj.news/2026/04/08/t...
AP publishes a good multi-state rundown on pushback all over the country against plans for huge Trump prison camps:
apnews.com/article/immi...
The Waiting Game: Thousands Of Mass Prisoners Are Stuck On Education Waitlists
With waitlists nearly triple the size of enrollment, prisoner rights advocates say the DOC prioritizes punishment over preparation
binj.news/2026/04/08...
#LocalNewsDay
GiveToBINJ.org
2,353 people in Massachusetts prisons are waiting for educational programming. Only 897 are enrolled. The peer-led programs that actually work are not being allowed to expand. We are pushing to change that. Full story: binj.news/2026/04/08/t...
Among Healey's 32 District Court nominees, "18 (56 percent) come from law enforcement backgrounds, almost all former assistant district attorneys. Just three (9 percent) come from legal services backgrounds, meaning institutional public defenders or legal aid attorneys. That is a ratio of 6 to 1."
What This Means in Practice. In New York City, the mayor appoints Criminal Court Judges to 10-year terms. Our findings suggest that replacing a single former law enforcement judge with one that has neither law enforcement nor legal service experience would, over that term, result in: ~$8.7M in taxpayer savings detention costs, ~$6M less in cash bail imposed on defendants and families, ~65 fewer people detained, and ~17 years of jail time avoided.
The opinion piece builds on NEW research done by the QSIDE Institute and Scrutinize which found NYC judges with law enforcement backgrounds (former prosecutors, police officers) set cash bail 32% higher on average (~$9,200) and detain defendants more frequently than judges without those backgrounds
“…judges with law enforcement backgrounds — former prosecutors and police officers — are 3.9 percentage points more likely to order pretrial detention and impose cash bail than judges without such backgrounds.
When they do set bail, the amounts are roughly 32 percent higher.”
Despite some modest gains, Blacks and Latinos in Massachusetts are trailing whites in homeownership, business ownership, and wealth accumulation, state officials said during a State House hearing held last week, via @yawumiller.bsky.social
www.dotnews.com/2026/04/08/s...
NEW: After winning a public records lawsuit, I offered to waive more than $12,000 in legal fees if Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan’s office would adopt a policy of posting police misconduct records on its website.
Sullivan’s office rejected the offer.
#Massachusetts #mapoli
Graph showing the growth of mass incarceration and mass supervision in the U.S.
🚨NEW REPORT: Most people think of probation and parole as pathways away from the carceral system — but that couldn't be further from the truth.
New data reveal how community supervision has grown in parallel with mass incarceration and widened the net of social control 🧵
Judge blocks half-assed regime plan to force colleges to hand over six years of enrollment data in its zeal to find discrimination against white people
www.universalhub.com/2026/judge-b...
#Massachusetts #lawsuits
Included on this list is Lt. Andres Lopez, who is a Lieutenant on SERT and has been accused of excessive force on multiple occasions, including in the assault that led to Shacoby Kenny's death in December. #bospoli #mapoli
Still no accountability or transparency about an independent investigation!
A photo of Thomas Rosa with the case update that, more than 40 years after his arrest and 34 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, Thomas Rosa is finally exonerated!
More than 40 years after his wrongful arrest & after spending 34 years in prison for a Boston murder he did not commit, THOMAS ROSA is FINALLY EXONERATED. We are overjoyed that this nightmare is over. Mr. Rosa will be the 100th person officially exonerated in Massachusetts since 1989.
Prosecutors regularly cling to unreliable evidence & disproven junk science to send innocent people back to prison. Under DA Hayden, @scdaonews.bsky.social tried with Raymond Gaines & is trying again with Stephen Pina. Hayden lied on TV that he'd follow what the judge decided, then appealed. #mapoli
Changing theories after you get caught using folklore to convict a guy should be against the rules. You said it happened one way, so sure of it you caged a man for decades, it didn't. You lose. Go home and have a cry about it, don't keep using the system to help you sleep at night.
NEW: James Carver spent 36 years in prison after he was convicted of setting one of the deadliest fires in #Massachusetts history—but after reviewing new scientific evidence, a judge set him free.
However, Essex County prosecutors are appealing in an attempt to put Carver back in prison.
Last night the CO working the visiting room at South Bay jail in Boston was Thierno Diallo, one of the COs involved in the assault & death of Shacoby Kenny.
The officers are still at work & coming in contact with witnesses. There has been NO transparency or accountability. #mapoli #bospoli
Then, in 2020, as the nation erupted in outrage over the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, the Mass Legislature passed criminal justice reforms that included outlawing police shooting unarmed fleeing suspects.
Hers was the 7th police shooting in a 2 year period. She was the 34th unarmed motorist (rear seat passenger, actually) killed since 1990. A day after the Barros-Cepeda shooting, Commissioner Paul Evans issued a guideline barring police from shooting at fleeing suspects.
A Boston Cop has been indicted for manslaughter for the first time in more than 30 years. How did we get here? The '02 police shooting of Eveline Barros-Cepeda was a pivotal moment.
“A State Police sergeant [Scott Quigley] was indicted on a motor vehicle homicide charge Thursday after prosecutors say he was driving drunk when he caused a 2023 crash that killed a man in Woburn.”
#Massachusetts
