Articles Posted in OUI and Motor Vehicle

A Section 24D disposition is the Massachusetts first-offense OUI framework that combines probation, an alcohol education or treatment program, and a shorter license suspension. Section 24D is itself the probationary or sentencing disposition. It may take the form of a continuance without a finding after an admission to sufficient facts, or it may be the…

Not every Massachusetts OUI case begins with an arrest. When a driver is identified after a collision, interviewed at a hospital, or found beside a parked vehicle and sent home, the charge often arrives days later as a citation in the mail. That difference changes the first stage of the case entirely. A driver charged…

Massachusetts defines operating a motor vehicle broadly. Commonwealth v. Wurtzberger (2025) holds that turning the key to power the radio, with the engine off, can prove operation for an OUI. Here is how the operation element works and how the defense meets it.

A business owner from New Jersey came to this office with two problems at the same time: an outstanding Massachusetts warrant and a pending charge of operating under the influence. He lived and worked out of state, and any return to Massachusetts carried real risk while the warrant remained open. The office moved to remove…

How Hallinan affects past OUI dispositions, current prosecutions, and future retrials involving Alcotest 9510 results, with a Rule 30 review checklist.

Massachusetts has adopted regulations for social consumption of marijuana, but adoption of the regulations did not authorize an establishment to begin operating. As of August 16, 2026, the Cannabis Control Commission states that applications for Social Consumption Establishment licenses are not yet available. The Commission reported on June 23 that it was still developing application…

A Massachusetts OUI trial guide to field sobriety evidence, including police authority, NHTSA procedures, scoring, refusal evidence, video, and opinion limits.

A history of the 2002 OUI amendments, the District Court sentence, the Supreme Judicial Court’s decision in Cahill, and later changes to refusal law.

A Massachusetts traffic stop now generates evidence in places the traditional stop never touched. It often begins with a license plate reader hit or a database query before the blue lights, and it continues after the tow truck leaves, into the driver’s phone, the vehicle’s own computers, and months of location history. Massachusetts courts have…

By Attorney Joe Serpa | Georgetown University Law Center | Massachusetts Criminal Defense Since 1995 A common call to this office begins the same way. Someone who has not lived in Massachusetts for years goes to renew a driver’s license in their current state, and the clerk tells them the renewal cannot be processed because…