Fall River District Court

The Fall River District Court serves the Bristol County city of Fall River and its neighbors, near the Rhode Island line, a dense urban docket that runs the full range of criminal matters. The Bristol County District Attorney’s Office prosecutes here, indicted cases move to the Bristol County Superior Court, and Attorney Joe Serpa has defended serious felony cases across Southeastern Massachusetts for thirty years.

Wherever a Massachusetts case is prosecuted, the rules on when a judge can dismiss it are the same. See who controls a dismissal and the grounds a judge can act on without the prosecutor’s agreement.

Location and Access. The Fall River District Court, 186 South Main St., Fall River, MA 02720, sits downtown near Route 79 and I-195. The court’s phone is (508) 491-3200.

Communities Served. Fall River, Freetown, Somerset, Swansea, and Westport.

Drug and Firearms Cases. Fall River’s drug and firearms calendars are built on stops and searches, litigated by motion to suppress, where the suppression ruling usually decides the case; firearms charges carry mandatory minimums and often a § 58A dangerousness motion.

OUI, Domestic Violence, and the Clerk Session. The court carries an OUI calendar with the four-day citation rule in play and busy domestic violence and 209A sessions, and its clerk-magistrate sessions screen the summons docket, where a denial ends the matter with no record.

Prepared for Trial From Day One. See Massachusetts Criminal Defense Results. Call 617.936.0201 for a confidential consultation before your Fall River date.

Related Serpa Law Office Resources: Clerk-Magistrate Hearings • Drug Crimes Defense • Firearms Charges • The § 58A Dangerousness Hearing • Domestic Violence Defense • Courts We Serve Nearby: New Bedford District Court • Taunton District Court