There have been several recent court decisions in Massachusetts OUI Law that deserve special attention. Please contact Stephen Jones, your Massachusetts OUI Lawyer, to learn how these decisions affect your case.

Judicial Authority

Commonwealth v. Rose

54 Mass.App.Ct. 919 (2002)

Judges have no authority to reduce charges without the consent of the Commonwealth.

In the event that you are faced with judges reducing charges over the Commonwealth's objection, this recent appeals court decision is a good source of "ammunition" to remind judges they have no authority to do so.

In this case the judge, over the objection of the prosecutor, reduced a charge of OUI 4th offense to OUI 3rd offense and, upon the defendant's guilty plea, sentenced him to a standard 3rd offense disposition. The Commonwealth appealed and the court rather sternly re-stated the long-standing proposition that, "as a matter of constitutional law, judges do not possess authority unilaterally to reduce the level of charge brought by the prosecutor."

Contact your MA OUI Lawyer to learn more about how these OUI Case decisions affect you.

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