3.1.2024 Guest Speaker Superior Court Judge Michael Cahillane

those of you who are just joining us remember um headphones earbuds everything's out phone's off and Away foration um we're lucky enough to have Superior Court Judge Michael Catalan here so I'm going to open up the the presentation he can start and then after you know he's done giving you his intro let's ask the the good questions that we created and uh have a nice robust discussion so welcome good morning

everyone my name is Michael K L if you want the real Irish pronunciation so uh just to let you know my uh background I've been a superior court judge uh since December of uh 2023 prior to that I worked for the Bristol County District Attorney's office I was uh assigned to the Superior Court Prosecuting major felony cases I was assigned to oversee all investigations in Fall River

involving non-fatal shootings and I was also assigned as a member of the homicide unit so I've worked uh Prosecuting a number of the murders that took place here uh in Fall River before I came to uh to Fall River I was an assistant district attorney out in the western part of the state out in uh Franklin County and Hampshire County and Northampton up by where UMass amrest is located and I worked there for uh 10

years started out in the uh the district court which handles uh misdemeanor cases and some felony cases that I work my way up into the Superior Court Prosecuting major felony uh cases uh there as well prior to becoming a lawyer I attended St Anam college and then I uh attended suffk law school at night I was working full-time so the reason I ended up in fall river is I ran for a district

attorney in Hampshire and Frankford counties and didn't win so uh it was quite a humbling experience uh to lose an election and to uh something you pour your heart and soul into and uh after the the election then district attorney Sam Sutter called me and asked me if I would come to uh to Fall River and join the Bristol County District Attorney's office which I did and turned out to be a great career move

for me so I tell you that story because there's some sure as you know there's going to be lots of uh bumps along the way and there's things that you're going to run into to that things don't go your way but I just want to let you know that there is definitely when coming out of those very difficult situations that uh it does get better so the um education uh piece I

worked with a lot of uh people at the bristell County District Attorney's Office who uh who attended uh der high school went on to to college went on to uh to law school so um is there anyone in the group who's interested in going to law school all right so what have you started looking at to uh figure out what uh how to get into law school how to prepare for it what to

do well has um you I want okay great so for those of you who don't know typically the the path is four years of college and then law school is generally uh 3 years I went at night worked full-time so it took four years uh to get through uh through law school and then uh I went to work for the the DA's office uh after that so it is quite a uh a longer process to get

through that uh when I was in high school I wasn't exactly sure uh what I wanted to uh to do I was a politics major at at St anel I was looking at a lot of different uh careers but I was uh I ended up doing internship with the DA's office at the time and that's really where I found my interest in the law and the interest in uh working as a prosecutor I worked closely

with the uh state police detective unit who was assigned to the district attorney's office so that was a way where I kind of found my uh my footing and then after college I looked around and I actually did worked at healthcare for a while and did something completely different and then when I was in law school changed things back to uh the criminal justice side of it interests me

more than the the healthcare and that's how I ended up back in the uh in the DA's office so it's um you know in college there's a lot of people who study different things figuring that they want to be lawyers my wife is a lawyer also and she was an English major uh which uh has proven to be very uh fruitful for her because she's an excellent writer so she's uh part of uh

our job now as judge I'm responsible for writing decisions on cases so typically what happens is when a case comes into the Superior Court I'll back up a little bit to the way that cases get to the superior court is we are a court of General jurisdiction which means that we can pretty much hear any type of case that comes up so we are uh the only Court in the Commonwealth that can handle

first-degree murder cases they can only be uh heard in the Superior Court we handle all controversies over $50,000 and we also uh are able to hear Equity claims so I'll get into that a little bit later but those are that's our general uh jurisdiction of the cases that we hear so criminal cases come into the uh into the Superior Court by way of presentment to a grand jury which is people who are from the

community who come instead of getting called for regular jury duty they get called for grand jury and they would sit for 3 months at a time they listen to evidence that's presented uh to the grand jury make a decision as to whether this problem caused to believe that a crime was committed and there's also probable cause to believe that this is the person who committed the crime so

it's a screening uh process that cases move from The District Court up into the Superior Court the civil cases so that's criminal cases came in how civil cases came in is the filing of a lawsuit so someone can either uh do it the term is called proos meaning that they're representing themselves or they can uh be represented by a lawyer they would file a complain with the court that that

gets uh filed basically alleging what the the facts are a lot of times it could be someone's hurt in a car accident someone's uh at a store and slips and Falls um um it's a contract dispute a business dispute a real estate dispute so those types of things are filed with the court and then what happens is is to ensure that people have due processes the other side is required

to have notice of it so that there's a notice that goes out it's called summons that lets the person know that they're being sued gives them a chance to answer the complaint to be able to respond to defend themselves and then the case progresses through the uh through the system by way of discovery which means just getting all the information figuring out what's out there and sharing it with the other side and then

eventually the case is brought to a resolution by way of a settlement of the Civil side or uh by way of a plea on the criminal side or the case could go to trial so what of the biggest uh rights that we have as Citizens is to be able to have have a right to a jury trial so that right goes back to the the founding I'm sure a lot of you are know our uh

studying history so that uh it it goes back to the founding of our country that the uh way that things used to act when we were a British colony is that the king would control and the king would just order things to happen and that the government would do things but this uh change when our country started to be able to have a right to a trial to be able to put put the uh dispute before

fellow citizens and have them make a decision uh as to what the facts are and uh and be able to apply the law as the judge uh instructs them so there's a lot that that takes place for a case to go through the court system I'm sure that you see when in your studies there's times when it takes years for cases to get through uh to a to an end so that

typically is the reason why because there's a lot of steps that have to go through we have to make sure that uh there's protections along the way for uh people when they come into court so one of the things that we ensure is that uh people have have representation if they're entitled to it to have lawyers appointed to them so that they can be assisted by uh a lawyer so uh Mr

Brownell has uh represented a lot of people who a court appointed lawyer and private attorney who's been able to uh represent people so the court would appoint somebody who is Indigent meaning that they don't have the funds to pay for it themselves so that way we can ensure that uh that people who need it have uh have quality representation when they come in to the court system so the

things that we want to make sure from our end is that as judges that we preserve an independent Judiciary what I mean by that is that we're not swayed by popular opinions or by any outside pressures that we make a decision based on the law and based on the facts that are there so I know that some of the uh the questions that were put out there too is people how do you make that type

of decision and a lot of that's based on research and looking at the case law and making a determination so the way that uh cases after they go through the the district court and the Superior Court can be appealed so there's two appell courts in Massachusetts uh one is the uh the appeals court what is the Supreme Judicial Court and they review our decisions and they make sure that we're

applying the law correctly so that if people they gone through the system and don't feel that something was handled appropriately it can be reviewed by an appell court and then when the appell court reviews it they issue a decision and they're applying uh the law for that particular area so it's always changing in some respects but it all goes back to the uh the Constitution and the rights that were that were put

out in the Massachusetts Constitution which sered as the framework for the United States Constitution so that was drafted uh original draft by John Adams if you learn that in your class a little little bit of history for you so there's a lot of ways that cases uh can come in has anyone have to to go to court before not as a defendant but if you had the opportunity to go and to just observe a a court

okay so our cour houses are open they're a public building you can come in at any point you come down to 186 South Main Street to the Fall River Justice Center and on the fourth floor is the district court on the fifth floor is the Superior Court you could come in anytime that the court is open and just come in and observe so typically on the the fifth floor there are there are four different

courtrooms up there there that are simply for trial so there's generally there's a a trial that's happening there every single day whether it's a murder case whether it's a an assault case whether it's a robbery or there's also a session that handles all of the pre-trial matters motions to suppress motions to dismiss and so anytime you can walk in and see what's happening yes ma'am do you have to is there any AG

re I'm sorry I couldn't hear you is there any age requirement to get inside the trial an age requirement to to observe to observe no no you can come in so we can arrange something too with the class to uh to come in and spend time there and observe uh what's happening and we try to be aware there are younger students that come into the court so we try to be uh aware of that and certainly

you're all uh older so we try to make sure that uh it's appropriate for the type of trial that uh that's happening so unfortunately a lot of the cases that take place uh at the Justice Center involve uh sexual assaults and child sexual assaults so they're not the cases that you really want to you want to sit in listen to a lot of the testimony graphic it's very difficult to hear but

the experience of uh going and observing and watching what happens I would certainly encourage it we can make arrangements to uh to have you do that if anyone's interested in that um so I know you said like uh the suprior court can take it like any cases because you know General six like that but I was wondering um because I feel that's a lot of laaw to go into like one

person's brain so I was wondering if like judges focus on certain um like aspects of the law when like for the cases that they take or if it's like you guys have to know every well it's an excellent question so over the course of my legal career I was a prosecutor the entire time so I was focused on criminal cases I had some background on the Civil side of like I said there I worked in

healthcare so I had some exposure uh to that when I was appointed uh by Governor Baker I was initially put into a civil session and so it was a completely new area for me and I felt like like you did I felt like I was back in school because I literally had to take uh out the books and in my it's called the lobby it's my office that's off of the the courtroom

there are all the law books are in there for all the statutes all the case decisions and also everything's online too I can also just bring it up on my laptop but I literally had to if there was a motion that was filed asking for some type of relief or there was a hearing hearing that was coming up or a trial that I Was preparing for I literally would break out the books and

spread them out in front of me break out the rule books and just look and see so I've had to teach myself a lot of the the Civil side of it part of what we do in the superior court is we also have judicial mentors so I have uh I work with another judge who has been on the bench for a long time that she's available to me at any time to if I have

a question to be able to reach out to her I also have all of my other uh colleagues that I can reach out to if there's an issue that after I've researched it I want to get other opinions on get other people's thoughts on that we could do that we could reach out uh to them and ask them I was in the middle of a medical malpractice trial it was a um wrongful death case where a

woman was suing her doctor claiming that he had done something wrong that led to her death by failing to diagnose something and while we were having what's called our our charge conference which we I sit with the lawyers and go over the law that the jury is going to be instructed on to make sure everything is covered as to an explanation of all the elements of the claims and what they

have to apply and the defense attorney said to me you can't do that you're going to destroy the way that medical malpractice cases have been tried for the past 30 years that I've been doing this and so I said okay appreciate your argument I'll take it under advisement which is the key part of our job is taking something under advisement which means that we can step Off the Bench go into our lobby and

him an email said this is situation I have this is what they're claiming this is what I'm planning on doing and within about 2 seconds one of my fellow judges sent an email back saying what phone number are you at I'll call you right now and called me and said no you're absolutely right that's the way that they're doing it they're testing you they want to make sure that uh you um

they want to see how you're going to handle it so that that happens too some of the some of the attorneys like to push the envelope and you try to get away with uh you know push things as far as they can so that was uh one of those situations so as I've pretty much been in civil sessions um I've been in a few criminal sessions but primarily civil so

a lot of it is going back and learning but we also do a lot of judicial education conferences so the other judges will that that our specialists in certain areas will teach so we're actually next Wednesday I believe it is that we'll be at UMass and dart there's a whole group of the judges that get together that we have an hourong training where half of 4 or it's actually an hour and a half 45 minutes

is on civil topics 45 minutes is on criminal law so we're always learning keeping up to date and keep fresh with all the the case law that comes down the other thing that we get is typically every single day during the week that the appell courts that I talked about will issue their decisions so I get an email Monday through Friday at 10:00 a.m. from the Appel Court saying these are the decisions we've made

today and soon as that hits my email I need to open it up review it keep myself up to date of of what the um most current law is sometimes it's a two page decision sometimes it's a 151 page decision so it's um you know there's the joke is among the uh the lawyers that are or the judges in the district court one of my uh good friends who I worked

with for a long time as a district court judge she said that at the end of the day uh we're leaving at 4:30 and carrying our lunch boxes and you guys in the Superior Court are walking out carrying your homework so we're always having to work night work on weekends to keep up with uh with everything that's going on so it's definitely not a a 9 to-5 job yes absolutely so there's a few that

from when I was working here in Fall River there was a murder case that I prosecuted that uh unfortunately took a long time to get through uh the court system because there was different lawyers that have changed representing the defendants in the case uh and also as we were gearing up before trial Co had so the courts were shut down for two years where no trials were taking place

you can imagine the backlog that there's cases that are still happening that people are still being charged with crimes cases are still coming in but we weren't able to try any cases so things got got backed up so we had a real push once things lifted after Co to get first the all the murder cases tried and then move on to the the serious valy cases so there was a case here in in Fall River

where a young man um who went to schools here at Fall River was walking to his girlfriend's house that he ran into two of his old Pals that he used to run with that they thought that he had snitched on them on a prior case when they got caught with uh ammunition uh in a car after being chased by the state police and as soon as they saw him they recognized him his two former buddies

pulled out guns and began to shoot at him they fired 21 shots uh one of the shots went through his back came out through his uh chest he was able to run several blocks uh running down behind St an's Hospital uh almost made it to the emergency room he collapsed out behind the hospital and passed away way there so it uh took a lot of uh investigation to figure out who the uh

the perpetrators were and to uh bring the case through the grand jury and to get the case to uh trial and both of those young men were convicted of first Dee murder and are both uh serving life sentences this point um the young man who was killed uh his family uh from Portugal his parents were older and I was concerned because of the delays that happened in the uh in the case whether

they were going to make it um to the trial because of health issues that they had as well but they were able to see the case through and to be able to um have some sense of of Justice after the the case was finally resolved that's definitely one case that is es stap with me I know you spoke like upon how you like approach judge but how do you the how do you the so the

there's in Massachusetts with the SJC issues decisions they're always interpreting like I said and they're issuing decisions that we are we're bound to follow as trial judges so when we are um applying our own Common Sense the decisions and reading them and then having to apply the facts of the particular case uh to it to make sure that the the rights of you know could be any um type of case where you have say

it's a case of um ineffective assistance of councel where a case is being brought back before you because the person is uh been convicted of a crime they're claiming that their uh lawyer was ineffective didn't do the the job that they were supposed to do so there's certain standards that you have to review and look at to look at the performance of the lawyer to look at what happened

during the course of the trial and then to be able to uh to see whether the the rights of the individual person were protected so it's always it's changing in some respects but it's always there's a usually a big pattern one of the big things that's happened recently that you may have seen is there was a case that came down from the Supreme Judicial Court which is Commonwealth versus maaps

which changed the way that um juveniles were sentenced to their convicted of murder so there has been a tremendous amount of study that has been done on juvenile brains and what is called now emerging adults so people like yourselves and the research that has been done is looked at studying medically looking at MRIs looking at other forms to be able to examine people's brains and see how they

develop and also to study people individually to see how they are so as a teenager or young adult what the research has shown is that until you 26 years old that your brain is not completely developed so that typically what that means and I'm sure all of the uh female students will uh will agree with me that high school boys young uh young adults are prone to do impulsive

things are prone to do dumb things and a lot of times that can get them into trouble when it's a dumb impulsive criminal thing uh that they do so the studies that have been looked at um have really shown that that that is a something that can be Quantified that uh the brain isn't fully developed so that uh those bad decisions that uh that I made back in high school and uh that I'm

sure many of you have made that they are not an excuse but an explanation for certain types of conduct so the way the law was is that if you were over 18 years of of age and you were convicted of first-degree murder that you you were sentenced to the term of your natural life that's the the language that the clerk reads at the sentencing that you were sentenced to the term of your

natural life and the Massachusetts Correctional Facility what the this case Kwo versus Mattis they spent a lot of time working with the research working with the particular cases involving young adults and applying that medical side to it to say that yes you can still be convicted of first degree murder however that group of um young adults between 18 and 21 are entitled to see the parole board

doesn't mean that they're necessarily going to be pared but when you sent to prison there's another group part of the Executive Branch the parole board that review your particular case to see whether you have redeemed yourself whether you have been rehabilitated and that's the whole goal is for people to have Rehabilitation and they found that uh having a life sentence without the possibility ofle for this group of

individuals between 18 and 21 was unconstitutional so it it's changed the law drastically for people now to be able to to have the opportunity to see the uh the PO goad I thought you were raising your hand too okay how you um it's can you I'm sorry can you say the question Lou how do you feel about the overturning I won't get into my personal comments on it but I can tell you that

certainly in in Massachusetts that things are different than they are in a large portion of the the country that there's certainly other protections that are built in here uh legislatively where the uh the governor took uh actions uh to protect access to Reproductive Rights and then also the legislature took action so um as you'll see in in some other states that there's uh cases that are brought uh to

challenge restrictions uh that are placed on Reproductive Rights I think that the the rights here are very strong and that um you I think it' be very unlikely that a challenge uh to that would uh would affect that um so like when you were talking before it just reminded me of the idea of like Restort of Justice in the sense that like um the justice system is like or or uh justice system that is meant to

get people rehabilitate people and get people back into like the working role so like I guess my question is like how do you feel about that and what do you think the justice system um like do Superior Court and just like justice system whole in America like what do you think its role is in regards to it lot to impact it so the The District Court typically what happens when people come

into the district court so I don't know if you know I'll just give you a brief overview say someone's arrested for breaking an ENT that they are caught by the police the police arrest them bring them to the station book them they have to type up a report explaining what the facts are that support probable cause to charge that person that person would then be uh brought to the Justice Center the

complaint would have to be put before a clerk magistrate who refuse it to say yes there's probable cause to believe that crime was committed this is the person who committed it and then the complaint issues then that person's brought into the district court there are reigned meaning that they're brought before a judge and publicly the charge chares against them are read to them and

it's determined whether they're going to have a lawyer appointed to them whether they're going to represent themselves and that's how the process starts typically in the district court the focus there is to help people a lot of times there's is try to identify what got the person to that that particular point to be charg so is it um their homeless they don't have they were stealing to a loaf of

bread for something to eat uh do they have a substance abuse problem do they have a mental health issue there's something there um that the system can work to help them at that point so really the focus in the district ort there's now there's a number of they called specialty ports that have started that are there for U substance use that as opposed to being incarcerated that you

can agree to go into this um program and to be closely monitored to receive intensive treatment to uh basically comply with it so it's to get the person help on that front there's also mental health pts that are working with people uh to try to address uh any of the mental health issues to keep them where they're seeing a therapist where they're receiving inpatient treatment where they're receiving their medications

anything of of that nature there's also Al veterans courts where if a person's veteran may have experienced some type of trauma when they were uh serving the country that there's a focus there also to get them help on that front to be able to address that that specific area so really in the district court that focus is there all the time the probation officers who work in the district court are always working

closely with their their clients to make sure that any of their issues that they have are addressed um so that really is the focus on the district court there's people obviously who are sentenced to jail out of the district court depending on their record what their Primal history is you know for someone who this is their first time into the system that there's always that Focus to get the

personel to try to identify the issue the things change as people's behaviors escalate so if you have someone who goes from breaking in and Ste steing something in a house or going rumaging through a car and stealing change out of the car to breaking into someone's home when they're there and assaulting the person in there or having a weapon or carrying a gun or something of those

things get ratchet up so typically the people that we see in the spe report on the criminal side it's not their first rodeo when they've they've made it that they usually it's very rare that someone commits a very serious felony crime right from the jump to end up in Superior Court so in the Superior Court there is still a focus that there certain people who are there to to rehabilitate to U Get services but the

the other end the carrot you have the stick and the stick on the other side is state prison so that that is always uh a potential for people when they they come in and there are msit we have what called sentencing guidelines so it's not left really to there's a lot of discretion by the judges involved in sentencings but there's also guidelines so you have a range of sentences that are um typically imposed

you hold that question for one second because I just realized I didn't answer your ultimate question which was UN restorative uh justice so a lot of that restorative justice takes place in the district court primarily where there is a an agreement for a victim in the case and for a defendant in the case to basically sit down and it's almost like a mediation to be able to kind of hash

out let the victim have the opportunity to explain how this crime has affected them and then also for a defendant to explain kind of how they got to that point as well too and a lot of the things that we see along the way that uh with permal defendants is that they they've had some trauma in their life as well so a lot of the people that we see in the court

system are people who lived in a in a home where there was domestic violence they've lived in a home where one of the parents had a substance abuse uh issue so those those traumas build up so these these things don't happen in at a vacuum where people just become a a bad person that there's usually things that are identifiable along the way where you can see how the person got to this point and

then try to to work with them to to rehabilitate them so the restorative justice piece is actually recently was introduced into the Superior Court as well and there's a a model that's being developed to implement that and there's actually a number of um inmates at the correctional facilities who are instrumental in bringing that in that they've wanted to be able to have that ability

to apologize to be able to meet face to face uh with the victims to talk to them and and to really explain um the sorrow that they feel for what they did and to be able to try to to reconnect and to heal that piece of it in court the victims have a right there's a victim's Bill of Rights that victims are entitled at the time of sentencing to address the judge and to

be be able to give what's called a victim impact statement where the person can talk about how this crime has affected them what it's done to them any physical pain mental Pain any issues they can they can share that with the Jud and that's something that's taken into consideration during sentencing uh so but this uh it' be interesting to see how the restorative justice piece in the supremor court uh works but it's

definitely uh something that's that's coming shortly so back to your question on gun laws so part of my job in the DA's office that I was uh in charge of the fire on sh so any gun crime that was committed in Bristol County I oversaw the prosecution of those uh cases so far River New Bedford adoro Totton all the other towns of Bristol County any gun crimes came through me what mess Massachusetts has some of

the strictest gun laws in Massachusetts there's requirements uh that you have to go through in order to obtain your license carryer or your Firearms identification card uh to show that you are a the term is suitable person to be able to to have your license over the 23 years that I was a prosecutor was extremely rare I can think of probably two instances where gun crimes were committed by people who were

licensed gun H owners one was an incident actually that happened here in Fall River I was mad his uh girlfriend started dating someone else and he shot up her house so a very uh drastic uh response to uh a breakup uh but that's it stands out of my my mind because it's it's very rare that you have people who are are licensed car typically what you will see is uh people people who get

access to guns that a lot of times it's done in the area of people who are involved in drug distribution that it's used either to intimidate somebody or to uh protect the the operation if you will so the laws in Massachusetts are written in a way that if you carry a gun either on school grounds that you carry begun outside on the street that the legislature has made the determination

that you're going to jail that's the that's the bottom line you're going to serve not less than 18 months in the house of coren if you are convicted out of the superior court for first offense you're facing a maximum 5 years in state person that's just for possessing so that doesn't mean if you shot at somebody that doesn't mean if you you threaten somebody with it that's just for tucking it in your pants and

walking around with it so there's an escalation that happens as well too so if you are involved in drugs or you like to beat people up and be in fights and you're convicted of certain crimes in Massachusetts we have What's called the armed career criminal statute which means that if you are caught with a gun or with ammunition and you have either a prior conviction for a serious drug offense for for a

violent uh crime that you could be sentenced for your first possession not less than 3 years not more than 10 years and stay prison if it's two of those uh prior crimes then it's not less than five not more than 15 and if you are not bright enough to get it after that and you come back for a third time it's a minimum sentence of not less than 15 years in state prison not more than 20

years in state prison so there's also um offenses for if you threaten someone with a gun if you shoot at someone and you miss you shoot at someone and you hit them uh there's other assault and crimes that go on with it but the gun possession um laws in Massachusetts are very strict one of the other things in Massachusetts that works is you're also required to lock your guns up so if you

are a gun owner that you are required to have safe you required to have have a disabling device whether it's a cable lock or something else to secure your gun so someone can't get access to it and there's also escalating penalties as well if you um allow your vent to be accessed by some is not trespassing Meed by someone who's living in your house or where there's a minor living in the

house too there's an enhanced penalty for that to make sure that people own guns keep them safe because we see most of the the gun crimes that happen are guns that are stolen guns that are bought in other states with less restrictive gun laws and brought into Massachusetts to commit crimes with and also that we're seeing what you probably heard you referred to as ghost guns which are guns that are um when they're

purchased they're only 80% complete and then you can buy the components to build them and to uh make it a working firearm and I can tell you that I have uh spent since I was a a young boy going to the range with my dad I've been around guns a lot and uh you know personal life and professional life and I can't imagine building a gun on my own and then having

uh the hooks but to pull the trigger after I build something like that but that's a lot of what we're we're seeing now is guns that are um these ghost guns that are being built so that those are being targeted right now by the legislature to put in specific provisions for those um guns as well for the building of those particular we was there any case so the verdict piece of it is so

what happens is when we have a case that comes in and goes to trial that we have what's called a verdict slip which is where on a civil case the jury has to answer a number of different questions was Joe Smith negligent uh when he left a broom lying across the uh the floor at Home Depot and somebody tripped over um what were the damages that were um part of what did the the person suffer in

that particular case on the criminal side it's person charged with murder is Joe Smith not guilty guilty and then the jury uh returns their verdict it's read in open court so everyone sees it it's not done in the any back room it's it's open and uh put out there so typically on a civil case the jury is the one who's making the determination as to what the damages are what the person's injuries are what the

monetary compensation will be for their injuries on the criminal side with the sentence impas that's where there's the discretion to it so there are certain um cases like I said with the the gun cases where it's not L than 18 months as a judge the leg legislature has said you don't have discretion in this area you cannot sentence someone to less than this amount and you can't sentence him to

more than this amount so there's a range on every Prime uh that's out there so the difficulty and the challenge for us is fashioning something that is addresses all the issues of crime so you have someone that punishment is a legitimate part of of the system that is something that is recognized that if you commit a crime you're going to be punished but with that being said there's also the other pieces of it twoo

the rehabilitation pie so a lot of times what you see is in sentences is individuals who are sentenced to a term of incarceration whether it's at the on the county side for the the house of correction in Dartmouth or Ash Street in Bedford or to the state prison but there's all also a component of probation afterwards where the person's going to have to report to the probation officer they're going to have to check

in every two weeks they're going to have to remain drug or alcohol free they're going to have to find a job they're going to have to continue their education uh so there's those signs of it to try to make sure that people who are coming out of incarceration it's very difficult obviously you've been off the street for 3 years 5 years 10 years 15 years life changes and you know hopefully they've taken advantage of the

programs that are in the Department of Correction there are educational programs you can get your college degree uh while you're there you can learn skills um certainly not like learning here it's a very different uh environment but that's a big piece of it afterwards to keep to get people educated and get people working so that there are not out on the screen not getting themselves involved in in situations

that's why I'll preach it I'm sure your teachers preach it every single day that's why education is is so important because it opens doors to you to be able to to get certain jobs to be able to do certain things so without that education you're really going to hamstrung yourself so um yes we have a question up here um I want to know what the most difficult decision or what are the most

difficult decisions that you make in your position as a so really the sentencing piece of it determining what is what is an appropriate sentence because you're you really have to balance you know recognizing that a criminal defendant is human being they a person that recognizing the fact that like I talked about earlier that most of them have had some type of trauma in their lives of well that have brought to

that point and then also to balance that that you have a uh victim or a victim's family that's lost their son that they've had their you know life terms upside down to be able to to find that balance of the appropriate amount of punishment putting together a plan for a rehabilitation where um the victims in the case are satisfied but also that the defendants you'll understand the

magnitude of what they're what they've done so that's probably the most difficult piece is finding that that balance and it's it's very difficult because it's obviously it's a very very emotional piece where you're dealing with with people's lives so that's that's the most difficult side I would say yes sir I'm not sure if you're can answer this but what is your thoughts or interpretation on

death so in Massachusetts we haven't had the death penalty in a in a very long time and it was um in talking with victim's families and unfortunately I've prosecuted a lot of a lot of murder cases and had to sit with uh families who have lost a love them whether it's their son their grandmother um multitude of of situations so um that when people lose someone like that in a violent way most people's reactions

are that they want Vengeance not justice so what I tried to do was to be able to explain how our system works what the uh how the sentencing structure works and to be able to explain that know someone who's convicted of murder in the first degree which is murder with either uh deliberate premeditation or extreme atrocity or cruelty or during the course of a felony murder that those um that person is if

they're convicted to first degree they're going to go and they're going to go for life that there's no chance of them getting out unless the governor commutes their sentence and like I talked about earlier there's some people if you're convicted of second degree uh murder or if you're an emerging adult that you can be have the opportunity to go for a parle so there are those things

in talking with the the families who have lost loved ones in those cases that after talking to them about the system and how everything works that most of them are satisfied with that and are understanding that they don't um want the death penel to be imposed because I think they feel certain sense of pressure on themselves even though they've lost the love on they don't want to feel like they're taking someone

else's life as well um I don't know if you can answer is but like how do you interpret like States it's as theying say one more time um how do you in state not come off contition right well we'll see with the now that the uh Supreme Court has agreed to hear that uh so they'll be the ones to decide whether um whether it's something that is in the rights of the

states to be able to do that and to be able to make a finding that he engaged in Insurrection or Insurrection conduct and that they're entitled to take them off as part of the state's rights or whether it's something that they're going to say should be put to people on that they should be allowed to to vote so that's with that being a pending matter before the the Supreme Court that

I'm sure they'll make a pretty quick decision on that and we'll know fairly

soon that's a very interesting question that's out there too on the issue of presidential immunity whether that the president has the right to do certain things under the guise of acting within rights it's also a a Hot Topic uh issue that I'm sure you've probably heard that kind of goes into the areas of uh police brutality and those issues that were raised there in the term of qualified

immunity so qualified immunity deals with uh police officers or other uh state employees doing things in the course of their um career and doing making certain decisions taking certain actions that you're protected from being sued so they was put into place to try to um protect people that so there's you're not getting sued every day for just doing your job so there's some people

who think that that's gone too far that uh that certain people are protected too much by that and that they're allowed to basically run rough shot over people's rights with that type of protection so that is an area that is being looked at now by the legislature and also would be definitely subject to interpretation of whether that qualified Community uh stands or whether people are going to be

protected certainly isn't a situation that uh you want to protect just to pick up police officers but that cops you don't what um I unfortunately also prosecuted a number of police officers who stepped outside the law and did something wrong so that as a uh as a prosecutor my job is to to enforce a law no matter who the other person was and everyone's equal under the law you don't get some benefit just

because of your rank or the the job that you have so we have about five more minutes okay okay so that um so that piece so people who go beyond that who uh intentionally break the law under the guys of their their Authority they going to get prut so you may have seen some of the cases that have happened uh here in the city and and other places as well

too so I I spent a lot of time working with police offic spent a lot of time um I joke with my wife that I probably spent more time with the detectives here in Fall River than I did with her a lot of times when getting called out at 2:00 in the morning for a shooting or for a murder uh that happened so I know from from working closely with law

enforcement for 20 plus years that the police officers don't want that con SE they want these people red out that are doing doing that thing so any other what was your favorite subject of criminal law that was really that what got me back into it in law school you have so many areas that you're studying you're studying constitutional law you're studying property you're studying contracts you're studying uh and like I

said earlier though all those things I have to study again now uh but criminal law was my my favorite sector CU I think there's a real practical sense to it that's easy to apply um after like being a prosecutor so long uh how do you if you do like how do you st how do you not get jaded I guess here in all these especially hearing a bunch of murder faces and

things that are kind of like heart how you like I guess stay passionate about what you do you have to compart compartmentalize certain things that um it took me a while to be able to try to let things go and to try to leave it when I got home uh because you know I mean these there's horrible things that happen out there and you don't want to you don't want to bring them home so I

try to keep it out of my house and just leave it at the door when I walked in uh but there's there's things that it's very it's difficult work it's very if you want to do it right you have to be passionate about it you have to pour your heart and soul into it there's you can't half step that because victims demand that you give it your all the community does so you pour

yourself into it so being able to separate it be able to take breaks and be able to have good colleagues that you work with that you can share um you know the experiences you're going through and be able to talk it through and try not to to uh to bottle it up I guess maybe just one last thing uh for anyone in here who is thinking about going into law or having a legal career

any words of wisdom or pieces of advice you would give them on their Journey towards that study hard it's it's challenging work that it is it's a lot of it's a lot of research it's a lot of um writing it's uh so pay more attention in the English class than I did and uh it would be very helpful for you for your uh your writing uh side of it but that um it get out

there go and come to the court and come see it that and see it up close and personal and I'm happy to uh if any of you want to come I'm actually sitting in Brockton now so if any of you come up to Brockton in the Brockton security rept but if there's U any of you that want to come to the uh the court here and see what's happening there happen to make

those arrangements to to get you there when there's an interesting case that's going on and and be able to see it start to finish to see um lawyers make their opening statements to give their closing argument it's it's it's really incredible to watch when people are are good at this there's certain people who are excellent that have honed their craft and that when you hear their closing argument it's like watching a

movie that really you are drawn into it you feel like you're there you picture everything that's happening and it happened in the course of that case in your mind so I would encourage you to do that thank you judge Kathleen for for taking the time um ladies and gentlemen you're going to advisory so please just make your way there