New Bedford District Court

The New Bedford District Court serves the Bristol County port city of New Bedford and its neighbors, a dense and diverse urban docket with a substantial immigrant population for whom the immigration stakes of a charge are paramount. The Bristol County District Attorney’s Office prosecutes here, indicted cases move to the Bristol County Superior Court in the same city, and Attorney Joe Serpa has defended across Southeastern Massachusetts for thirty years.

Many cases in this court are resolved long before trial. Knowing how a Massachusetts criminal case can be dismissed is often the first step toward the best result.

Location and Access. The New Bedford District Court, 75 North Sixth St., New Bedford, MA 02740, sits downtown near Route 18 and I-195. The court’s phone is (508) 999-9700.

Communities Served. New Bedford, Acushnet, Dartmouth, Fairhaven, and Freetown.

Immigration-Sensitive Defense. With one of the region’s largest immigrant communities, the immigration analysis in this courthouse is the ordinary case: the arraignment itself can matter federally, a continuance without a finding (CWOF) operates as a conviction under federal law, and every disposition is chosen against the federal categories first, with preventing the arraignment at the clerk-magistrate hearing treated as the most valuable outcome.

Drug, Firearms, and the Standard Calendars. The court’s drug and firearms cases are litigated by motion to suppress, and it carries an OUI calendar with the four-day citation rule in play and busy domestic violence and 209A sessions.

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

Related Serpa Law Office Resources: Immigration Consequences • Clerk-Magistrate Hearings • Drug Crimes Defense • Firearms Charges • OUI Defense • Courts Across Greater Boston Nearby: Fall River District Court • Wareham District Court