Attorney Joe Serpa has defended criminal cases in the Massachusetts District Courts and Boston Municipal Court for thirty years. These posts cover Massachusetts criminal law as it is practiced. Mr. Serpa explains statutes, case law, court-by-court procedure, and how charges are defended and resolved. These pages are written for defendants, licensed professionals, students, tradespeople, and non-citizens who need to understand what a Massachusetts criminal charge means and what the defense options are.
By Attorney Joe Serpa | Georgetown University Law Center | 30 Years Massachusetts Criminal Defense A dismissal is usually treated as a win, and in most respects it is: no conviction, no sentence, no admission. But in a Massachusetts domestic violence case, a dismissal is not the same as an acquittal, and the difference is…
Continue reading ›A history of the Massachusetts Alcotest 9510 litigation, the Office of Alcohol Testing misconduct, Hallinan motions, and the required case-specific showing.
Continue reading ›By Attorney Joe Serpa | Georgetown University Law Center | 30 Years Massachusetts Criminal Defense On June 2, 2026, the Supreme Judicial Court decided Commonwealth v. Grimaldi, SJC-13842, and answered a question that Massachusetts sobriety checkpoint cases have raised since troopers began wearing body cameras: can the Commonwealth use bodycam recordings of a driver’s field…
Continue reading ›Updated August 2026 A Massachusetts 209A or 258E order can end without disappearing from the statewide court record. Expiration, termination, denial of an extension, or appellate vacatur may change the order’s status, but those events do not ordinarily erase the registry entry. Expungement is a separate remedy. Under current Massachusetts appellate law, a court may…
Continue reading ›By Attorney Joe Serpa | Georgetown University Law Center | 30 Years Massachusetts Criminal Defense On April 15, 2026, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education issued guidance directing Massachusetts schools to respond to AI-generated deepfake images and videos of students. The guidance arrived against a criminal framework the Legislature completed in 2024: St. 2024,…
Continue reading ›By Attorney Joe Serpa | Georgetown University Law Center | 30 Years Massachusetts Criminal Defense On July 9, 2026, the Supreme Judicial Court decided Commonwealth v. Watson, SJC-13850 (July 9, 2026), and held that G. L. c. 278A, the postconviction forensic and scientific analysis statute, permits digital forensic analysis of cell phones. The Commonwealth had…
Continue reading ›By Attorney Joe Serpa | Georgetown University Law Center | 30 Years Massachusetts Criminal Defense Some of the hardest fought Massachusetts domestic violence cases I try are the ones where the accuser never takes the stand. The person who called 911 recants, refuses to appear, or has reconciled and wants the case gone. The Commonwealth…
Continue reading ›By Attorney Joe Serpa | Georgetown University Law Center | 30 Years Massachusetts Criminal Defense On April 15, 2026, the Supreme Judicial Court decided Commonwealth v. Arias, SJC-13816, and gave Massachusetts a rule it did not have before: when police stop a car for a traffic violation they observed earlier, the elapsed time between the…
Continue reading ›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…
Continue reading ›Be fair to the witness. Respect the jury. The two rules behind every Serpa Law Office cross-examination, from the rules of evidence to the last question that answers itself.
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