Boston Municipal Court West Roxbury Division Criminal Defense Attorney

A person arrested or summoned to court in West Roxbury, Roslindale, Hyde Park, Jamaica Plain, or the parts of Mattapan and Mission Hill that the division serves faces a criminal case in the West Roxbury Division of the Boston Municipal Court, at 445 Arborway, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130. The courthouse sits across from the Forest Hills MBTA station on the Orange Line.

• Clerk’s office and probation department: 617.971.1200
• Clerk’s fax: 617.983.0243
• Probation fax: 617.524.6142
• Clerk’s email: bmcwestroxbury@jud.state.ma.us

The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office prosecutes every criminal case in the Boston Municipal Court. The Commonwealth prosecutes a felony beyond the court’s final jurisdiction in the Suffolk Superior Court, at 3 Pemberton Square in Boston, after a grand jury indicts the defendant. The firm’s Boston Municipal Court guide explains what the court can and cannot decide, and the firm’s guide to each stage of a BMC criminal case explains what happens from the clerk-magistrate hearing through trial.

Attorney Joe Serpa has practiced Massachusetts criminal defense since 1995. He represents clients in the West Roxbury Division at arraignments, clerk-magistrate hearings, motion hearings, and jury trials, from the firm’s Boston office at 20 Park Plaza, Suite 400A. Call 617.936.0201.

The West Roxbury Division of the Boston Municipal Court hears criminal cases from West Roxbury, Roslindale, and Hyde Park, the residential neighborhoods in the southwest of Boston. Many of the division’s cases are domestic violence cases from family homes and motor vehicle cases from the parkways, and many defendants are working people whose careers and licenses are at risk.

These neighborhoods have streets of single-family and two-family homes, where families raise children, hold city jobs, and stay for decades. For these families, a criminal charge can threaten a job, a professional license, a pension, and sometimes the Boston residency that a city job requires. Attorney Joe Serpa has defended clients in this division against domestic violence, OUI, and assault charges. The firm’s Boston Municipal Court page describes each division of the court.

In a domestic violence case, the complaining witness cannot drop the charges. The Commonwealth, not the alleged victim, decides whether to continue the prosecution.

West Roxbury, Roslindale, and Hyde Park

Many police officers, firefighters, teachers, and nurses have lived in West Roxbury, Roslindale, and Hyde Park for generations, and many city employees must live in Boston to keep their jobs. West Roxbury has strong Irish-American roots, and most of its homes are single-family homes. Roslindale is a diverse neighborhood of families, centered on the shops and restaurants of Roslindale Square. Hyde Park is a working-class neighborhood with large Haitian and Latino communities. Hyde Park is also the southernmost neighborhood in Boston, and homes there cost less than in many other Boston neighborhoods.

Many residents commute downtown on the Needham Line from West Roxbury and Roslindale or drive on the parkways, and they come home to streets where neighbors know each other. Many residents own their homes, and many households include several generations, either in one home or in the two units of a two-family house. For these families, a criminal charge can cause serious harm, because the mortgage, the job, and the children’s schools are all in the same few square miles.

Many cases in this division begin inside a household or on the drive home. Domestic disputes, first-offense OUI arrests on the parkways, and neighbor conflicts that become assault complaints make up much of the division’s criminal cases. Many defendants have no record, a steady job, and a great deal to lose from a single CORI entry.

For a police officer or a firefighter, a criminal case can end a career however the case ends. For a nurse or a teacher, a licensing board can act after the criminal case. For immigrant families in Hyde Park and Roslindale, a conviction can have immigration consequences that last longer than any sentence. Attorney Serpa considers all of these consequences from the first phone call.

Domestic Violence Cases

The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office prosecutes the many domestic violence cases from this division’s family homes based on the evidence, not on the wishes of the complaining witness. Many families do not know this. A spouse or partner who calls the police during an argument cannot withdraw the complaint the next morning.

The prosecutor builds the case from the 911 recording, the responding officers’ body camera footage and reports, photographs, and statements taken at the scene. The prosecution proceeds on that evidence even when the complaining witness wants the case dropped. A family that expects the charge to disappear once everyone calms down often learns that the case is already moving toward arraignment, with or without the family’s cooperation.

Attorney Serpa begins work in the first days of a domestic violence case, because the arraignment creates a CORI entry that a later dismissal does not erase. A defendant who waits until the arraignment to hire a lawyer has already lost the period before arraignment. In this division, Attorney Serpa resolved a domestic assault and battery charge and a related 209A restraining order at the same time. No complaint issued on the charge, and the judge did not extend the order. He has also obtained the dismissal and sealing of charges for other clients in this division. The firm’s results page describes these cases.

Attorney Serpa tries to resolve the criminal charge and the restraining order together, because each proceeding affects the other. Testimony given at a hearing on extending the 209A restraining order can be used in the criminal case, and a pending criminal charge makes a judge more likely to extend the order.

For the city workers who live in these neighborhoods, a domestic violence charge has added consequences. Under federal law, a police officer convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence cannot possess a firearm, and that prohibition can end a police career. A firefighter, a teacher, or a nurse can face department discipline and licensing review because of the arrest itself. Attorney Serpa works on these cases before the complaint issues whenever possible.

OUI Cases From the Parkways

Many OUI cases in this division come from stops on the VFW Parkway, Centre Street, and the roads leading to Route 1 and I-95. American Legion Highway has similar traffic through Roslindale and Hyde Park. These are commuter roads, and a typical OUI defendant in this division is a commuter driving home from dinner or a work event who is stopped for a marked lanes violation or a broken taillight and then arrested.

Most of these drivers have never been in a courtroom before. Many hold jobs that require a clean driving record or a clean CORI, and for them the license suspension can cause as much harm as the charge itself.

In this division, Attorney Serpa obtained the dismissal of one OUI charge and a no-complaint result on another. In both cases, he challenged the stop and the tests rather than accepting the police report. An OUI case depends on a series of decisions by the police. These decisions include the reason for the stop, the exit order, the field sobriety tests and the conditions in which the officer gave them, and the breath test and its compliance with the regulations.

The defense can challenge each of these decisions. Field sobriety tests given on a dark parkway shoulder in bad weather show far less than the police report claims. A stop based on a vague claim that the car drifted within its lane may not survive a motion to suppress. The Commonwealth often cannot proceed after the judge suppresses the evidence from an unlawful stop. The case is then dismissed. In a first-offense case, Attorney Serpa seeks an outcome that protects both the license and the record, which is especially necessary for a client with a commercial driver’s license or a professional credential.

City Workers, Licensed Professionals, and Their Jobs

Many defendants in this division are teachers, city employees, nurses, and tradespeople, and for each of them the case affects the job. Boston’s residency requirement means that many city employees live in these three neighborhoods, so many defendants in the West Roxbury Division have jobs that depend on a background check.

A CORI entry can threaten the job itself. The city runs CORI checks for hiring and promotion, school districts screen employees regularly, and hospitals and nursing boards treat an arrest as a reportable event. For these clients, the difference between a charge that never issues and a charge that is dismissed months later can be the difference between keeping and losing a career.

Licensed professionals face a second problem beyond the CORI. Nurses, teachers, electricians, plumbers, and other licensed tradespeople answer to licensing boards that conduct their own disciplinary proceedings, and those boards use a lower standard of proof than a criminal court. A board can act on the conduct even when the criminal case ends in the client’s favor, so Attorney Serpa plans the defense with the board in mind from the start. An admission made to resolve a criminal case can become evidence that a board uses later.

Clerk-Magistrate Hearings in West Roxbury

When police seek a misdemeanor complaint after an incident that did not result in a warrantless arrest, G.L. c. 218, § 35A ordinarily entitles the accused person to a clerk-magistrate hearing. The hearing occurs before a criminal complaint and before arraignment. The clerk-magistrate decides whether the application establishes probable cause and, where discretion is available, whether to authorize a complaint despite probable cause. The guide to what happens at a clerk-magistrate hearing explains the procedure and possible outcomes.

If the application is denied, no complaint issues, no arraignment occurs, and the application creates no CORI entry. A case that begins with a warrantless arrest ordinarily proceeds directly to arraignment instead. In this division domestic violence cases commonly begin with an arrest, while an OUI investigated after a crash or other delayed report may arrive by summons. The separate page on a Massachusetts OUI complaint application and clerk-magistrate hearing explains that procedure.

Attorney Joe Serpa provides representation at Massachusetts clerk-magistrate hearings. His reported West Roxbury results include denied complaint applications involving domestic assault and battery and OUI allegations. Past results do not determine the outcome of a new application. The clerk-magistrate hearing FAQ addresses eligibility, privacy, evidence, witnesses, missed hearings, and records.

Dismissals, Sealing, and Clearing the Record

Not every case can be stopped before arraignment. For a case that continues past arraignment, Attorney Serpa works to end the case favorably and then to clear the record. In this division, he obtained the dismissal of a charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, as well as other dismissals followed by sealing.

A dismissal ends the prosecution, but the entry remains on the CORI until it is sealed, and a sealed record protects the client in the next background check. A continuance without a finding, pretrial probation, and diversion each leave a different kind of entry, and choosing among them requires knowing what a particular employer or licensing board will later see. Massachusetts law allows many dismissed charges to be sealed, in some situations immediately by petition to a judge. Most employers and landlords cannot see a sealed record. The firm’s guide to sealing and expunging a criminal record explains the process and who qualifies.

For the clients this division serves, the work after a dismissal is necessary. A teacher whose charge was dismissed still faces a CORI check at the next contract renewal. A tradesperson bidding on city work still faces the city’s vendor background screening. Attorney Serpa treats sealing as part of the representation. A person facing a charge in the West Roxbury Division should contact a lawyer as early as possible, before the clerk-magistrate hearing, before the arraignment, and before a record exists. Contact Serpa Law Office at 617.936.0201 for a confidential consultation.

Quick Answers

Related Serpa Law Office Resources:

• Massachusetts Criminal Court FAQs
• Clerk-Magistrate Hearing FAQ
• Sealing and Expunging a Criminal Record
• What to Do After an Arrest