Our very own Great and General Court, a full-time, democratically-elected, deliberative body which occupies the very “hub of the solar system” (but hasn’t quite gotten around to formally criminalizing human trafficking)¹ hastily passed a misguided amendment to our criminal laws earlier this year which effectively attempted to regulate the entire Internet. Here’s how it (literally) went down.

Round 1: “If the Legislature wishes…”

On February 5, 2010, the SJC issued a fairly conservative, by-the-book decision in Commonwealth v. Zubiel, 456 Mass. 27 (2010), in which it strictly construed the text of the G.L.c. 272, §31 to find that the statutory definition of “matter harmful to a minor” did not include instant messaging. The defendant in that case was nailed in a classic To Catch a Predator-style sting following a series of online chats with an undercover officer posing as a 13-year-old version of herself. Over the defendant’s objection, the trial court determined that his Internet chats with the officer constituted an attempt to disseminate “matter harmful to a minor” under G.L.c. 272, §31. The SJC reversed this finding and agreed with the defendant that the statutory definition of “matter”—the most relevant portion of which included “handwritten or printed material”—could not have possibly meant to encompass text-only online communications. In conclusion, the Court quite reasonably found that:

While proscribing the activity in this case would be consistent with a legislative intent to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation, the definitions in §31 do not do so. If the Legislature wishes to include instant messaging or other electronically transmitted text in the definition of “[m]atter” under § 31, it is for the Legislature, not the court, to do so.

Whatever “judicial activism” may be,² clearly this ain’t it. The Court stayed well within the lines here and politely invited the Legislature—as, with mixed results, it so often does—to update one of the Commonwealth’s many hundreds of outdated laws.

So it did.

As of July 11, 2010, the new text of §31 defined “matter” as:

…any handwritten or printed material, visual representation, live performance or sound recording including, but not limited to, books, magazines, motion picture films, pamphlets, phonographic records, pictures, photographs, figures, statues, plays, dances, [the original text of the definition ended here] or any electronic communication including, but not limited to, electronic mail, instant messages, text messages, and any other communication created by means of use of the Internet or wireless network, whether by computer, telephone, or any other device or by any transfer of signs, signals, writing, images, sounds, data, or intelligence of any nature transmitted in whole or in part by a wire, radio, electromagnetic, photo-electronic or photo-optical system.

As someone behind this ridiculously overbroad definition must have known, this kind of thing has been tried on the federal level at least twice within the past fifteen years, and there is a good reason that it has failed both times.³ Rather than targeting creeps who directly and purposefully attempt to inappropriately communicate with children on the Internet, this amendment effectively attempted to criminalize anything on the Internet that a child might see… which is, of course, anything on the Internet.

It is reasonably simple to keep kids out of, say, an adult bookstore or the World Air Sex Championships.⁴ But, as anyone who has lived in a country with free and regular Internet access within the past twenty years should probably understand, it is nearly impossible to effectively prevent determined minors from accessing an adult book reprinted on a freely-accessible site via a Creative Commons license, let alone a particularly excitable blogger’s detailed description of the winning performance at the World Air Sex Championships.

To recap: In response to the SJC politely pointing out that the Legislature had failed to understand how a given law might apply to the Internet, the Legislature proceeded to demonstrate that it did not understand the Internet at all.

Round 2: If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Enjoin ‘Em

All of this is, of course, the kind of thing to which any given ACLU lawyer can whip up a written opposition before she has finished her first cup of morning coffee. The inevitable request for a preliminary injunction [PDF] came almost as soon as the new definition became law, with the plaintiffs arguing (as summarized above) that the amended statute was overbroad in that it is nearly impossible to control who might access content which might be deemed “harmful to a minor” on the Internet.

In its commendably-thorough briefing [PDF], the Attorney General’s office was effectively forced to concede that the statute as written would be unconstitutional without an explicit requirement that the sender know that he was purposely disseminating the material to a minor, rather than simply posting such material in a place where a minor might have an opportunity to see it. Although this proposition found little support in the text of the statute itself, the AG did its best to argue that a 2006 SJC case⁵  had judicially established this kind of purposeful dissemination as an element of the crime, and otherwise relied on the kinds of generalized public policy arguments which typically signal an appellate party’s own self-awareness that a losing battle is about to be lost.

U.S. District Court Judge Rya Zobel’s decision granting the plaintiffs a preliminary injunction came down almost exactly along welcome and expected lines today. The District Court held that Belcher had not squarely ruled on the level of intent necessary for a conviction under this statute, and that the new definition was otherwise simply so overbroad as to be “without question” facially violative of the First Amendment. Given the procedural posture of the case, the court found that it would be inappropriate to strike the statute down completely, and instead granted the plaintiffs a preliminary injunction while inviting both parties to submit a more formal permanent injunction.

Round 3?

We’ll see. It appears likely that the AG’s office will take the District Court up on its offer to come up with an injunction that both parties can live with, but it also has the right to appeal this decision to the First Circuit. More as it happens…

1. There’s also an argument to be made that we haven’t quite gotten around to criminalizing distribution of methamphetamine, but maybe more on that another time…
2. And I wouldn’t deny that something approaching this description does occasionally arise in Roberts-era American jurisprudence… but not simply because I disagree with the outcome of a given case.
3. A much narrower and more appropriately-targeted provision requiring certain schools and libraries to install user-side content filters  seems to have stuck, so far.
4. This was the only event I could possibly imagine might fall under the purview of the statute’s “dance” provision.
5. Commonwealth v. Belcher, 446 Mass. 693 [2006]

AAO Chief Perry J. Rhew

One of those visitors was new AAO Chief Perry J. Rhew, an accomplished public servant with a resume which includes significant experience and positions of authority in civil, criminal, and administrative law. I have recently had the privilege of conducting a very pleasant email exchange with Chief Rhew, and would like to take an opportunity to update my thoughts on the AAO in light of his gracious response to my concerns.

Chief Rhew initially contacted me with a personal invitation both to the AAO’s first-ever live public conversation with its stakeholders via an interactive conference call, as well as to consider the agency’s progress toward addressing my concerns over the past 12 months. Although I had originally marked my calendar for this unique event earlier this week, I was disappointed when unavoidable client obligations ultimately forced me to miss it.  While I by no means consider myself to be a journalist,² I wanted to be sure to permit the AAO a full and fair opportunity to respond to the issues raised by last year’s post.

While I would have preferred the opportunity to hear the more comprehensive presentation provided in this week’s session, Chief Rhew was kind enough to take the time to summarize his main points for me in his most recent email, which I have reprinted below in its entirety with his permission:

Matt,

I’m sorry you had to miss the call.  Unfortunately there is no transcript or live recording.  We had about 30 people in the room and another 300 or so on the phone, which resulted in a lively discussion for the two hours.

You figured prominently in my opening remarks.  I told those assembled that before coming on board I saw your blog and took the concerns to heart, keeping what you said in mind over the first couple of months to assess the need for change.  With the support of a terrific leader, Alejandro Mayorkas, here’s what we’ve focused on in the past year.  I discussed all of these issues on the call Wednesday.

• More information about the AAO is now available online.  I listened to external stakeholders and USCIS employees over the first few months, then sat down with the Office of Communications and crafted webpages for www.uscis.gov/aao, the first AAO website.  The pages went live in January and we are adding to them as additional information is developed.

• We’ve worked hard to increase our public presence by attending individual stakeholder sessions and listening events across the country.  I visited the Service Centers in Vermont, Nebraska, California, and Texas and field and district offices this past year, speaking to employee groups and at public events.  I was honored to work with the terrific Office of Citizenship and be able to give the keynote address at Naturalization Ceremonies at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta and at Fort Necessity Battlefield.

• We are adding adjudicators to our staff in an attempt to reduce delays in processing.  We expect to have the new adjudicators trained and drafting decisions by the first of the year, and hopefully will reduce our backlog of H1, I-601, and I-140 cases significantly in the coming months.

• Our stated goal for the year was to achieve a processing time frame of under six months for at least 25 of the 41 types of cases we report online each month.  We ended the year with 31 of the 41 averaging under six months.  Three times during the year we shifted resources and retrained adjudicators to move them to more pressing caseloads.

• We report and update our case processing timelines monthly online.

• After a months long effort yesterday, for the first time in 12 years, the AAO published two Precedent Decisions.

• As I mentioned on the call and have stated before, we hope to soon publish a proposed AAO Reg that will help streamline the appeals process and give the public a much better understanding of what to expect when they file an appeal.  We currently operate under a delegation of authority from the Secretary, but the new Reg will once again codify our jurisdiction.

• We are working with the USCIS Transformation Leadership Team to ensure that the AAO moves forward into the electronic environment.

• We worked with our colleagues at the Office of Chief Counsel, the Office of Policy and Strategy, the Office of Public Engagement, and the DHS Office of General Counsel to strengthen our relationships with those offices and hopefully move serious, high level discussions about common issues to the forefront of conversations.

• I hold frequent meetings with all of my Branch Managers at the AAO to discuss case concerns and resource allocation.

That’s it in a nutshell . . . so far.  I want to thank you again for raising these concerns last year.  It is certainly not always the case, but we now know the answer to that age old question:  What’s the sound of one lone voice crying out in the blogosphere?  In this case, positive moves in the right direction.

Take care,

Perry

Chief Rhew’s summary of his commendable efforts since assuming leadership of the AAO speaks for itself. I would like to reiterate, as I hope was evident from my original post, that it was never my intention to question the AAO’s integrity, efficiency, commitment to its stakeholders, or unquestionable utility to the American immigration system. My only serious stated qualms were with the agency’s (a) transparency (in line with the recommendations of the 2005 ombudsman’s report) and (b) proper subject-matter jurisdiction, an issue which is of enormous importance to me as an appellate advocate. I am fully satisfied that Chief Rhew has personally committed himself to taking significant steps toward improving the former, and I look forward to seeing the proper regulatory restoration of the latter.

On a personal note, I would like to thank Chief Rhew for taking the time to engage in this direct, effective, and (perhaps most importantly) enjoyable dialogue, both with me on a personal level and through the public conversation I was sorry to miss earlier this week. This is open and responsible government at its finest, and a nice reminder of why I have continued to appreciate the opportunity to assist deserving individuals from around the world toward fulfilling their dreams of full participation in our democracy.

1. For as much as I would like to take credit for all of this traffic, this fact likely says more about the historical dearth of publicly-available information on the AAO (one of the main points of contention within my post) than it does about my Google ranking.
2. Or at least tend to sprinkle my writing with several times more miserable puns and references to Scotch than AP style would typically allow

Your responsibility under the circumstances is pretty clear here, at least unless you’re prepared to pay for a wardful of kiddie-sized artificial limbs: you’re going to have to clear out, rope off, or otherwise mitigate an obvious hazard to the public on your property.

Easy enough. Now try this one: what if it were a January morning, and you awoke to find that your sidewalk had naturally frozen into a solid sheet of slippery snow and ice? Until recently, you could have thrown some popcorn in the microwave, eased into your favorite bunny slippers, and enjoyed the hilarious slip-and-fall antics with your morning coffee.

The ice was, you see, merely a “natural accumulation.” It came from the sky! It wasn’t your fault!

That’s right: Massachusetts law for the past 150 years has held property owners responsible only for injuries resulting from “unnatural accumulations” of snow and ice. While the “natural” vs. “unnatural” distinction is about as unnatural as it gets, the best I’ve been able to discern is that accumulations caused by any kind of “synthetic” means (i.e., your mother going a little crazy with the snowblower) incur liability, while those which have fallen into place “naturally” (i.e., Mother Nature) do not.

This rule, eliminated at long last today in Papadopolous v. Target, was so stupid that it has been known nationwide as “The Massachusetts Rule” for at least the past century. (This kind of special treatment is not generally proportionate to a given rule’s logic or correctness.) It is an ancient holdover from a time when a completely different legal standard was applied to the duty owed by landowners to people who might be passing over their property in the normal course of business (”invitees”) as opposed to paying tenants.¹

I don’t have much of a stomach for torts,² but anyone who was mostly conscious through their first year of law school will recall the “duty of reasonable care” which homeowners owe to those—even, in some cases, known trespassers—who may be crossing over their property. The principle is pretty straightforward: Every man’s home is his castle, and if you want to cover your floors in rancid butter, rusty caltrops, and used medical supplies, you have every right to do so—so long as you don’t expose anyone else to these conditions. If you know (or have reason to know) of a hazard which might be encountered by others, you have a legal³ responsibility to employ all reasonable means available to clean it up. Hence the banana peels-and-bear-traps hypothetical above, and the simple logic of today’s decision. While a general duty of reasonable care to anyone who might cross their property has been the law for property owners in the Commonwealth since at least the 1977, the courts never bothered to shovel up the old “natural” vs. “unnatural” distinction for snow and ice—and plaintiffs have been tripping up on it ever since.

This weird little exception to the reasonable care rule is somewhat understandable on a practical level: clearing out snow in the middle of a New England winter is a lot of work. But even Rhode Island⁴ snidely parted ways with Massachusetts on this years ago, laconically noting that:

We believe that today a landlord, armed with an ample supply of salt, sand, scrapers, shovels and even perhaps a snow blower, can acquit himself quite admirably as he takes to the common passageways to do battle with the fallen snow, the sun-melted snow now turned to ice, or the frozen rain.

–-Fuller v. Housing Auth. of Providence, 108 R.I. 770, 773 (1971)(emphasis added)

The SJC has basically adopted this reasoning, albeit in slightly less-quotable form, and scattered enough quick-melt salt on the old “natural accumulation” rule to do away with it forever. It even liked this development so much that it opted to make the rule fully retroactive—complete with the usual inevitable assurances that, really, there’s no reason to think that any litigation-minded plaintiff would actually be impolite enough to reach for the blank checkbook this might present for anyone who has taken a spill on some ice in the past 150 years.⁵

As of Papadopolous, the SJC has now finally—mercifully—brought Massachusetts to the very cutting edge of postmodern snow law. Bonus: this decision lands in the middle of one of the Commonwealth’s hottest summers on record.

Happy shoveling!

1. The SJC has provided a perfectly serviceable review of the 150 years of relevant law within its opinion which I don’t feel any need to retread here.
2. at least those not served a la mode
3. if not moral and social
4. Rhode Island! A place so married to tradition that it is the last American state to continue to openly celebrate Victory over Japan Day!
5. I kid. This was, of course, a major change to a common law rule, a circumstance which generally demands retroactivity. I just love how every time any court announces a groundbreaking retroactive rule it always seems to feel obligated to add that this won’t really, y’know, change anything, and there’s certainly no reason to believe that it will inspire a fresh wave of legal action.

(1) Padilla is the single most significant stand that the Court has taken on behalf of the rights of non-citizens in my lifetime. It will provide a massive, widespread, immediate benefit for innumerable deserving¹ people, including many of my clients.

(2) Padilla has created the single most burdensome obligation that the Court has ever imposed upon the criminal defense bar.

(3) I have never had such thoroughly mixed reservations about a case that I should otherwise love so much.

Okay, deep breaths. Let’s break this down:

(1) What does Padilla mean for non-citizens?

As of today, any non-citizen present in the United States who enters a guilty plea to a criminal offense which will carry a “truly clear” consequence of future deportation (and, arguably, other immigration consequences) who is represented by counsel must be advised by their attorney of this consequence. In cases in which the immigration outcome is less certain (as it is in many, if not most criminal cases), counsel is obligated to advise that the plea may carry a risk of deportation. Non-citizens who have not been properly advised of these risks and/or consequence may be eligible to withdraw their pleas based upon ineffective assistance of counsel.²

(2) What does Padilla mean for criminal defense attorneys?

In a perfect world, the Supreme Court would have mailed courtesy copies of this decision to every criminal defense attorney in the United States firmly affixed to a very large bottle of J+B. Once the full implications of this ruling really start to sink in, most of them will be needing a stiff pour.

Simply put: Padilla requires the defense bar to learn a lot about federal immigration law, and very quickly. Imagine a baker who specializes in artisan breads arriving in the kitchen one morning to find that his boss has amended his job description to include the creation, production, and presentation of French pastries—with no concomitant training opportunities or salary increase. It’s kind of like that.

As of today, criminal defense attorneys throughout the United States are now required—upon pain of Constitutional ineffectiveness—to be conversant in all 33 definitions of the term “aggravated felony” outlined in the Immigration and Nationality Act as well as specific federal interpretations of each of these definitions and applications of these definitions to their local jurisdiction’s criminal statutes [PDF]. They will be expected to know exactly what does and does not constitute a “conviction”—a term which, under federal immigration law, is defined far more broadly than its equivalent in many states, including Massachusetts—and to have a working knowledge of how a client’s past criminal record may combine with the plea in question to raise a serious risk of deportation. They will be expected to have a working knowledge of “crimes of moral turpitude,” and to be able to articulate the legal and semantic differences between inadmissible and deportable offenses. They should probably learn a bit about mandatory detention [PDF] and the mechanics of immigration removal proceedings. This is, needless to say, a lot to learn at once, and replete with moving parts.

If you’ll allow me one more analogy: Padilla has drafted criminal attorneys to serve in the ranks of the armies of Immigrationland. It may not be what most of them signed up for, but they now have their marching orders and it seems that “theirs is not to make reply / theirs is not to question why.”

(3) What else is going on here?

Plenty. I’ll have more to say about this shortly, but here are a few immediate thoughts:

Padilla is kind of an interesting counterpoint to last year’s monumental Sixth Amendment ruling in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, in which the Court held that the government must introduce live supporting testimony from the chemist responsible for the analysis of a controlled substance before evidence of that substance may be used against a criminal defendant. Where Melendez-Diaz has caused massive systemic migraines for prosecutors and law enforcement, Padilla will now impose what I have to assume will be a comparable burden of time and resources upon the defense bar. In both cases, of course, the Court has been suspiciously quick to claim that these two sweeping, transformative decisions really won’t “commence [a] parade of horribles” (Melendez-Diaz) or “open the floodgates” (Padilla).

This is also the first time of which I’m aware that the Supreme Court has gone as far as to require defense counsel to be aware of a “collateral consequence” of a guilty plea. For as much as I hate slippery-slope arguments, there is a serious question here as to potential future challenges. What if a defendant isn’t informed that his conviction will leave him ineligible to receive federal student loan assistance? To serve in the U.S. military? To obtain a real estate license, or sit for a state bar exam? Do we need to provide each defendant with a checklist for these and every other possible potential future foreseeable consequence?

For as much as I wholeheartedly agree with Justice Stevens’s contention that the possibility of a lifetime of exile from the United States is perhaps the most serious collateral consequence imaginable, the fact remains that it is still a federal issue which is entirely separate from state-based criminal systems. Just a thought.

Again, though, these are all initial impressions within hours of first reading this decision. I’ll likely have more to say—including Massachusetts-specific analysis—once I’ve digested this thing a bit more, but my overall response (as an immigration practitioner, as least) is a feeling that justice has been done here. Despite my quibbling above, I fully agree with Justice Stevens:

Our longstanding Sixth Amendment precedents, the seriousness of deportation as a consequence of a criminal plea, and the concomitant impact of deportation on families living lawfully in this country demand no less.

1. And, arguably, not-so-deserving…
2. Far more will likely be limned from this 18-page opinion in the coming years, but I think that this is a pretty fair summary of the basic holding.

Contrary to the motion judge’s findings, there was no evidence that pill-bottle sized weapons had “proliferated” nor was there evidence that the defendant had a specific history of using tiny weapons.

Cruz-Rivera was subjected to a traffic stop after he was observed operating his vehicle in “an unsafe manner.” Although there was some belief that he might somehow be a person of mild interest in connection  an incident in Lowell,¹ there simply wasn’t enough to hold him or charge him with anything. Following a routine patfrisk for officer safety, the defendant was declared free to leave just before officers decided—and hey, why not, while we’ve got him here—to perform a detailed, comprehensive, fine-tooth search of his vehicle for reasons never really clearly stated on the record in any kind of way that should have passed the laugh test.

Almost immediately at the outset of the search, officers proceeded to examine a large-ish “vitamin pill bottle” in the vehicle’s center console, in which they found… well, you can probably guess. Nothing my mother ever made me take—although it might have gotten me through my chores  a lot faster.

The defendant moved to suppress the evidence as the result of an unlawful search, and the motion judge found that “[b]oth officers [had] received training indicating a proliferation of smaller weapons that are easily concealed in small containers…. which include razors, knives, and pen-sized single-shot guns, ” although it was “perhaps a relative longshot” that they might find a “small knife or a one-shot revolver.”²

On appeal, the Appeals Court reversed the motion judge, holding that:

On this record, it simply was not reasonable to believe that the defendant might, upon his release with a message that he was free to go, enter his car, reach into the console, open a pill bottle, extract a weapon smaller than four and one-half inches by one and three-fourths inches and use it in an effort to harm the two nearby, fully armed police officers who had just released him. Indeed, allowing police to search the pill bottle under the circumstances this record reveals would, as a practical matter, essentially remove most constitutional brakes on police power to search the contents of motor vehicles stopped for routine traffic incidents.

Exactly the right result. Remember:  this was a vitamin pill bottle. We’re not talking about a massive bottle of Vicodin with someone else’s name on it, a green plastic box labeled “Rebekah’s Pot,” or, indeed, a dodgy titanium cylinder marked “CAUTION! TINY WEAPONS INSIDE!” Having found no other reason to hold the defendant, the police conducted an invasive search of his vehicle which included areas that no reasonable person would ever believe to contain weapons, and then attempted to justify the whole thing after the fact with a weird explanation of how small weapons can be, sometimes, in the known universe. (Also, quick protip: Any true collector knows that tiny weapons begin to lose their value pretty much immediately unless they are protected from the elements in a childproof screwtop vitamin bottle.)

As I have discussed in this space more than once already, officer safety is serious business. I don’t discount the entirely-valid concerns that should arise when police engage a suspect for even the most routine traffic stops, and officers should be encouraged to take all reasonable measures to protect themselves—but there’s nothing wrong with an appellate court stepping in to ensure that the limits of these searches are properly circumscribed. Having already decided that a suspect is free to go, there is simply no defensible reason to conduct an invasive search of every container in his vehicle.

Well, anyway. If you are the kind of person who is inclined to believe that criminals are always “getting off” on “technicalities,” (and it happens far less often than you might think, anyway) you may want to read these facts again—and kindly remember that the Constitution is never a technicality, at least not here in the Commonwealth.

1. Not quite as bad as it sounds: see footnote 2 in the opinion
2. Unless, of course, the defendant was wanted for questioning in connection with the assassination of President Garfield.

Melendez-Diaz was, of course, the most important criminal law ruling from the Supreme Court’s last term. As I’ve already discussed (more than you ever really need to know here and here) it was an elegant and, at base, nearly inarguable Scalia decision which held that introducing certifications of drug lab results without the opportunity to cross-examine their authors at trial is a violation of a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to confront all witnesses against him. There was never any question whether Melendez-Diaz would be extended to ballistics evidence—as, indeed, it recently formally has been in Morales v. Massachusetts, 129 S. Ct. 2858 (2009)—but the real question was always “how far?” Hollister provides an interesting signpost in that direction.

Hollister concerned an unlicensed possession of a firearm charge arising from a loaded gun found in the glove compartment of the defendant’s truck. During a bench trial, the judge had an opportunity to inspect the weapon itself, as well as a certificate from a ballistics technician who had tested the gun and determined that it fit the statutory definition of a “firearm.” This definition includes:

…a pistol, revolver or other weapon of any description, loaded or unloaded, from which a shot or bullet can be discharged and of which the length of the barrel or barrels is less than 16 inches or 18 inches in the case of a shotgun as originally manufactured.

—G.L. c. 140, § 121 (emphasis added)

This definition necessarily requires that each and every weapon at issue in a gun possession case must be tested by a certified ballistics technician to determine whether the thing is actually operable, just as the chemical makeup of suspected illegal substances must be scientifically confirmed in a drug lab. While the process of testing out guns may be a bit less science-y (if not a lot more fun) than that of spectrographically analyzing dodgy powders, it is still evidence prepared in anticipation of trial which, if properly proven, will provide definitive proof of a significant element of the charge.

It is, in other words, squarely within the kind of evidence which Melendez-Diaz has held must be supported by live testimony at risk of violating the defendant’s Constitutional rights. Under traditional appellate review standards, it becomes the Commonwealth’s burden in each case in which such a violation may have occurred to prove that this Constitutional error was “harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.”

It’s easy to imagine a drug case in which failure to give the defendant the chance to cross-examine the lab tech on his findings might be held to constitute harmless error, and Massachusetts courts have been happy to do so more than once in the months since Melendez-Diaz came down. There are plenty of circumstantial factors—smell, appearance, results of field testing, the presence of scales, cash, and drug paraphernalia, and/or your massive library of live Phish bootlegs, etc.—which may be considered in order to find that any given substance is an illegal drug, and the Commonwealth routinely introduces these right along with lab certificates in such cases. But the only truly reliable way to determine if a given gun is a “firearm” in the statutory sense¹ is to shoot it at something and see what happens. (To be fair, the [admittedly slight] odds that the loaded gun found in the defendant’s truck in Hollister was not actually a “firearm” were probably actually much better than those that one of the plastic sandwich baggies full of white powder in Melendez-Diaz was not some kind of illegal substance. On a purely practical level, there is at least some rationally justifiable reason to keep a fake or broken gun handy—never know whom you may need to scare off, I suppose—at least more so than stashing baggies full of baking soda or whatever).

Hollister was tried and appealed pre-Melendez-Diaz, and really doesn’t have much practical use in a world where prosecutors have already taken to introducing the supporting testimony of analysts of every kind to preclude this issue altogether. Still, it’s a natural and welcome development in post-Melendez-Diaz caselaw, and the Appeals Court has [marksmanship metaphor of your choice here] on this one.

1. Assuming that no one is prepared to testify that they had seen it fired before

For as eminently debatable as this week’s arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates and its aftermath may be for people who are properly qualified to discuss the state of race relations in America, I am not one of those people.² But I have been excited to see how much attention this story has brought to the Commonwealth’s colonial-era disorderly conduct statute, and this is as good a time as any for us to review once again why its continued existence is nothing but an embarassment to us all.

Professor Gates, as we all know by now, was arrested for disorderly conduct on his own front porch in Cambridge last week. Police had been called by a concerned citizen who reported a burglary while watching Gates and his driver attempting to strongarm a door to which Gates had misplaced his keys after a trip to China. The police arrived and established Gates’s identity with a photo ID which included the address in which they were standing.

According to the police report, Gates then became upset and expressed his opinions regarding the injustice of the situation, the Cambridge Police Department, and the treatment of African-American men by police in the United States, at which point he was cuffed and arrested for disorderly conduct as a small crowd gathered. The charge was subsequently killed several days later, together with the usual “not our best moment, not his best moment” statement from the Cambridge PD.

Letting this go was the right move for all concerned, obviously. But what if the case had gone forward?

As I have previously discussed as thoroughly as I cared to, the Commonwealth’s disorderly conduct statute is a facially unconstitutional 400-year-old mess that has been preserved only through willful acts of judicial alchemy. Unfortunately, its many vagaries and moving parts have made it a reliable standby in the collective arsenal of law enforcement officers throughout the Commonwealth and, right or wrong, it is all too common to see this charge brought after an arrest in which the defendant has forgone his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent in favor of his First Amendment right to express his opinion about the situation.

The defense’s first strategy would almost certainly have been to move to dismiss the charge. Looking at only one of this crime’s many possible elements, it is highly unlikely that Gates’s alleged conduct (even assuming that it was just as obnoxious as reported) caused or created a risk of “public inconvenience or alarm.” According to the police report, his confrontation with police began in his own kitchen after he had provided them with evidence of his identity; he was then was invited to step out and continue the discussion on his own front porch. Although the police report alleges that a small crowd was gathering at this point, the fact remains that the officers had no reason to be there once they had established that Gates had not just burgled the place, and it seems highly unlikely that that this gracefully-aging gentleman with a cane, a bronchial infection, 12 hours of jet lag, and a Harvard ID was otherwise likely to pose any risk of “public inconvenience or alarm.”³

The “public” element aside, however, there is the basic issue of a citizen’s right to vocally disagree with the police. While most reasonable people can agree that it’s probably best to keep calm in the face of possible arrest, it is also understandable that, as the U.S. Supreme Court has previously held, your average law-abiding citizen is going to get a little worked up if he feels that he is being treated like a criminal for no good reason. Despite the best efforts of the police to work the magic words “tumultuous” and “served no legitimate purpose” into the affidavit in support of the criminal complaint [page 4], Gates’s conduct closely resembles that of defendants in at least two other Massachusetts appellate cases⁴ in which disorderly conduct convictions have been reversed:

In Commonwealth v. Lopiano, 60 Mass. App. Ct. 723 (2004), police had just witnessed the defendant assaulting his girlfriend before they moved in to arrest him; he then began flailing his arms and yelling loudly about his civil rights and such. In reversing his conviction for disorderly conduct, the Appeals Court noted that his behavior was not “extreme” or otherwise threatening, and was not therefore statutorily “tumultuous.”

Commonwealth v. Zettel, 46 Mass. App. Ct. 471 (1999), my personal favorite in this line of cases, held that a difference of opinion with a police officer is a “legitimate purpose” that may provide a proper defense against a charge of disorderly conduct. Although the defendant in Zettel had actually kicked a cop in the shins following an argument with him over her right to a parking spot in Fall River, the court held that her conduct arose from a “legitimate purpose” for causing a scene. But this is consistent: Massachusetts and other jurisdictions have found “legitimate purpose” for causes as diverse as protecting your water supply and attempting to save your marriage, so why not challenging a police officer who is expressing an intent to arrest you?

For as much fun as this little Gedankenexperiment may be, we are still talking about a criminal offense which carries up to six months of committed time. Disorderly conduct charges are regularly and routinely brought against defendants of every description around the Commonwealth—most of whom do not have Al Sharpton on speed-dial—under nearly identical circumstances. Let’s hope that all of this publicity will finally shame the legislature into putting G.L.c. 272 Sec. 53 out of its misery.

1. Note: Nobody should ever call this incident “Gatesgate,” for any reason.
2. For what it’s worth, I believe that the heartless and disturbingly insensitive prosecution of UMass Amherst student Jason Vassell is a far better example of the point that Gates and his supporters have been trying to make… it was really only the fact that it happened in Western Massachusetts that has kept it out of the conversation.
3. This is generally defined as “affecting or likely to affect persons in a place to which the public or a substantial group has access.” Commonwealth v. Molligi, 70 Mass. App. Ct. 108 (2007). So maybe a few people could hear him from the sidewalk—but so what? I just don’t see it. “Public” really should mean “public.” As a policy matter, this statute is supposed to preserve public order, not the sensibilities of police officers.
4. There are many more, but these are the two that immediately came to mind when I read the Gates police report

The defendant lastly contends that the electricity and the gas sold by NSTAR do not constitute “property”…

Commonwealth v. Catalano, No. 08-P-1340 (July 1, 2009)

This is, of course, yet another appellate argument that sounds totally crazy when you say it out loud. Sure, the appellant is saying, maybe the electric company generates, manages, and distributes electricity, but that doesn’t mean that they own it! As The Rascals once never sang: All the world over, so easy to see… Currents of electrically charged particles passing by means of conductors from one body to another just got to be free!

Although perhaps morally questionable, this position is actually legally defensible. On first read, the definition of “property” outlined in the larceny statute really doesn’t seem to include electricity, or anything that resembles electricity.² While it is otherwise remarkably thorough—e.g., ”data while in transit,” “a beast or a bird which is ordinarily kept in confinement”—the statute makes no mention of household utilities as property subject to larceny.

Of course, the court also doesn’t want to be responsible for converting the Commonwealth’s entire electric grid into some kind of wacky Napster-style free-for-all. So, soldering iron in hand, the panel expertly grafts public utilities into the larceny statute’s “personal chattel” provision.

“Chattel” is, of course, one of the grande ensemble of Frenchified lawyerin’ words which came to dominate English common law after the  Norman Conquest. It’s really just a fancy way to say “movable property,” and is best defined as pretty much anything that could logically complete the phrase: “Hey, that guy just stole my _________!” As the Appeals Court is quick to note, gas has been viewed as a chattel subject to larceny in the Commonwealth since at least 1853. But no one had ever bothered to ask about electricity before now.

Bereft of any relevant Massachusetts caselaw, the court reluctantly resorts to actual science. After (presumably) dispatching a law clerk for a field trip to the Museum of Science’s Van de Graaf generator exhibit, the Court reports back that:

…electricity, like gas, also may be stored and conveyed. Storage is possible in a capacitor, and may be transmitted through wires.

Well, that and the U.S. Supreme Court already found that there is a property interest in electricity 70 years ago, as have several other states. So while this “would have been a novel question one hundred years ago,” and “the defendant is correct that this precise issue has never been addressed in Massachusetts”:

…it is a well-established legal principle that electricity and gas are personal property that may be the subject of larceny.

1. Better them than 3-2-1 Contact, which no doubt would unleash the unchecked extralegal vigilantism of  The Bloodhound Gang.
2. ”The term “property”, as used in the section, shall include money, personal chattels, a bank note, bond, promissory note, bill of exchange or other bill, order or certificate, a book of accounts for or concerning money or goods due or to become due or to be delivered, a deed or writing containing a conveyance of land, any valuable contract in force, a receipt, release or defeasance, a writ, process, certificate of title or duplicate certificate issued under chapter one hundred and eighty-five, a public record, anything which is of the realty or is annexed thereto, a security deposit received pursuant to section fifteen B of chapter one hundred and eighty-six, electronically processed or stored data, either tangible or intangible, data while in transit, telecommunications services, and any domesticated animal, including dogs, or a beast or bird which is ordinarily kept in confinement.” G.L. c. 266, § 30(2

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts [PDF] was released earlier today as a followup to its critically-acclaimed performance in Crawford v. Washington. To the surprise of pretty much no one I know who cares about these things, Justice Scalia’s majority opinion came down almost exactly as I predicted it would a few days ago. (Just a warning: The following might get a little confusing if you haven’t read that post, or any other review of the issues in this case.)

As sequels go, Melendez-Diaz is a formula job. Scalia revisits everything that we loved about Crawford, and once more finds that the Confrontation Clause was intended to mean exactly what it says: a criminal defendant “shall enjoy the right… to confront all witnesses against him.” As of today, this is true even—or perhaps especially?—if those witnesses happen to be wearing lab coats. Melendez-Diaz has emphatically held that evidence of the chemical composition of an alleged controlled substance may not be introduced without the supporting live testimony of an analyst responsible for this testing. It’s a good result, and I’m happy to see it.

I don’t know about you, but I hate it when sequels re-cast major characters.³ While Scalia reprises his Crawford role as the dorky-but-likeable strict constructionist leading man here, Thomas⁴ plays the plucky swing voter, and Kennedy⁵ serviceably captains a grumbly dissent that is a full ten pages longer than the majority opinion. It’s all kind of confusing.

Justice Thomas, still riding high from recent cases in which he was the lone voice in favor of both gutting the Voting Rights Act and giving the government the green light to probe the underpants of our nation’s 13-year-old girls on a whim⁶, filed a one-page concurrence in which he basically agreed with Scalia on every point (nothing new there), but also made it clear for the record that he only supports Crawford as it relates to “formal testimonial” statements.⁷

This was more the kind of thing that I was expecting from Chief Justice Roberts⁸, but Roberts joined Kennedy’s rambling 33-page⁹ dissent together with Alito and Breyer. I would dig into this dissent more, but I’m just not up to it right now, mostly because: (1) caselaw, like history, is written by the winners and (2) I don’t like it very much. While I do agree that Scalia has overstated the efficacy of the so-called “burden-shifting statutes” used in many states, I was otherwise entirely unpersuaded by Kennedy’s arguments. I will note only that the idea that 21st-century chemists are in any way comparable to 18th-century copyists simply doesn’t pass the laugh test, and that I think that he otherwise vastly overstates both the import and the potential impact of this decision even as he indulges in an unbecoming display of haughty pragmatism. Besides, lengthy contextual examinations of what the Framers were thinking at any given moment is the kind of thing that really only works for one of the Court’s current members—and he’s on the other side of this one.

It’s really unfortunate that a case of this significance had to be so closely divided, but it is especially interesting to see who ended up where. The Court’s three (arguably) most “liberal”¹⁰ justices have teamed up with its two avowed conservatives against four of its most consistently moderate thinkers. Like so many Supreme Court-worthy cases, however, Melendez-Diaz presents issues that are far more important than the typical “conservative” or “liberal” distinctions with which the rest of the country has become so obsessed. As Walter Dellinger just noted in a Slate post, these two unlikely combinations of justices can be viewed as “legalists” (what does the law say?) versus “pragmatists” (what will this result achieve?), and Justice Sotomayor can’t necessarily be counted upon to reliably fall upon either side of this split if and when she takes the bench.

Well, anyway. This case may not be as much fun to talk about as today’s Redding “strip-search” ruling, but I’m fairly confident that it will ultimately prove to be far more important, both here in Massachusetts and elsewhere.

1. Or, better yet—don’t.
2. Yeah, I know: it’s a prequel. So maybe I’m assuming that the Supreme Court and Star Wars attract totally different packs of fanboys. Throw me to the Sarlacc.
3. E.g., Katie Holmes’s replacement by Maggie Gyllenhaal during the course of the Batman reboot. It’s a small thing, I know, and I actually like Gyllenhaal better—but still: Why?
4. Yeah, that Thomas.
5. Yeah, that Kennedy.
6. Seriously, I wish that were just a stupid joke. Today’s wantonly authoritarian dissent in Redding is one of the single scariest things I’ve ever read in a Supreme Court opinion issued in my lifetime.
7. Read: Barely agrees with Crawford at all.
8. This was, after all, the essence of the position taken by his mentor William Rehnquist in his Crawford concurrence, and it is otherwise fairly consistent with Roberts’ brand of moderate conservatism
9. Including not one, but two appendices full of [mostly pre-Crawford] cases that this decision will allegedly disturb or overturn…
10. This is relatively speaking: I continue to maintain that there have been no true “liberals” on the Court in my lifetime.