Articles Posted in Trial Strategy and Evidence Notes

A prosecutor decides not only what to prove but how to speak about the person sitting at the defense table. In the trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Commonwealth told the jury in its opening statement and again in closing that she was a murderer who coldly wanted to see her own children dead. It called…

By Attorney Joe Serpa | Georgetown University Law Center | Massachusetts Criminal Defense Since 1995 A motion to suppress and a motion to dismiss are the two filings that can end a criminal case before a jury hears anything. Other motions can be important in getting to a good outcome. These two can produce an…

By Attorney Joe Serpa | Georgetown University Law Center | Massachusetts Criminal Defense Since 1995 Most of the expert work in my cases is never heard by a jury. An expert who reads a laboratory file and tells me the analyst skipped a step has changed the case, and has done it without putting a…

By Attorney Joe Serpa | Georgetown University Law Center | Massachusetts Criminal Defense Since 1995 By the time a jury is empaneled, most of the work that will decide the case is finished. What was gathered, what was tested, and what was excluded in the months before set the limits on what either side can…

By Attorney Joe Serpa | Georgetown University Law Center | Massachusetts Criminal Defense Since 1995 The closing argument is the only time in a Massachusetts criminal trial when I get to say what the evidence means. Everything before it is questions. This is the one stretch where I speak in complete sentences to the jurors…

By Attorney Joe Serpa | Georgetown University Law Center | Massachusetts Criminal Defense Since 1995 Most of the objecting I do in a criminal trial happens before the jury walks in. By the time the first witness is sworn, the evidence I care about has usually been argued in writing, in front of the judge,…

By Attorney Joe Serpa | Georgetown University Law Center | Massachusetts Criminal Defense Since 1995 Almost every client asks me the same question in the first meeting: when do I get to tell my side. The honest answer is that in most trials the client never does, and that the case is usually better for…

By Attorney Joe Serpa | Georgetown University Law Center | Massachusetts Criminal Defense Since 1995 The opening statement is the only time in the trial when jurors who know nothing about the case will listen to me without interruption. They have just been told the defendant is presumed innocent, and most of them do not…

By Attorney Joe Serpa | Georgetown University Law Center | Massachusetts Criminal Defense Since 1995 A criminal trial is decided by people I have never met, and I get one short conversation to learn who they are. Empanelment is the only part of the case where I am gathering information instead of testing it. By…

On August 7, 2026, the Appeals Court decided Commonwealth v. Figueroa, No. 25-P-1027 (Mass. App. Ct. Aug. 7, 2026), a case about the use of a defendant’s statements from a police interrogation conducted in a language other than English. The defendant, whose first language is Spanish, was questioned in Spanish, and the Commonwealth never produced…