MASSACHUSETTS COALITION OF POLICE
“The Only Union for Police Officers and 911 Dispatchers”
Scott A. Hovsepian, President sah@masscop.org
John E. Nelson, First Vice-President jen@masscop.org
Robert W. Murphy, Secretary/Treasurer rwm@masscop.org
(508) 581-9336 fax (508) 581-9564
TO: All MassCOP Locals
FROM: In-House Counsel Tim King
DATE: March 31, 2025
RE: Rule 14 Update
The Massachusetts Coalition of Police legal team has been working tirelessly for the past month to work our way through the recent changes to Massachusetts Rule of Criminal Procedure 14.
For those of you who do not know, Rule 14 is the criminal procedure rule that deals with discovery (what needs to be turned over to the defense in a criminal matter). A recent case that made its way to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court CPCS v. AG, 480 Mass. 700 (2018), set the groundwork for an advisory committee to be established to make changes to Rule 14 that would outline the procedure for the Commonwealth to fulfill its duty to “learn of and disclose…any exculpatory evidence that is held by agents of the prosecution team…”. Graham v. District Attorney for the Hampden Dist., 493 Mass.348 (2024) and Commonwealth V. McFarlane, 493 Mass. 385 (2024) expanded the police misconduct exculpatory evidence rules in Brady v. Maryland 373 U.S. 83 (1963) and were also included in the creation of the new rule.
One of the first things you need to understand about the new rule is that exculpatory evidence needs to be turned over for everyone on the prosecutions team. Rule 14 (a)(1) “…the prosecution team includes all persons under the prosecuting office’s direction and control. (A) Personnel of police departments or other law enforcement agencies who were or are involved in the investigation of the case, before or after charges were issued, or were involved in the prosecution of the case.”
It is no longer the rule that if you are testifying you need to turn over exculpatory information, it is everyone involved in the case. In the case of police officers, if there is a doubt as to whether you are a member of the prosecution team, it will likely be resolved in favor of disclosure.
Rule 14 (a)(23) The prosecutor has a duty to inform, inquire, collect, disclose, preserve, notify, and record information. Most counties have chosen to do this via a form consisting of specific questions designed to elicit the information called for under Rule 14 as well as the additional police misconduct case law. We have worked with a number of counties who have deyeloped forms that we felt were not initially within the scope of Rule 14. We went as far as drafting a petition to the Supreme Judicial Court to get a hearing in front of a single justice to parse out exactly how these questions should be asked and bring non-complying counties into compliance.
Fortunately, we did not have to file the petition, as the county in question decided to work in conjunction with the police chiefs and MassCOP in creating a questionnaire that was within the scope of Rule 14. We have met with DAs and staff to review most county’s forms and feel they are now complying.
When the initial forms started coming out, we had sent some marked up forms to many of our locals advising not to answer certain questions. Please discard – Member of National Association of Police Organization, N.A.Р.О. those marked up forms and notify your members that at this time we are advising members to complete the latest version of the form supplied by the ADA. If there is a case specific issue that needs advice, please reach out to your Area VP.
These inquiries must be done on a case-by-case basis after the prosecution team for a particular case has been determined. Rule 14 (b)(1) mandates that the prosecutor must disclose to the defense RELEVANT investigative materials that are in the possession, custody, or control of any member of the prosecution team. 14(c) states that the prosecutor shall provide discovery at arraignment that is in the possession of the prosecutor. They need to have the remainder in by the first pretrial conference. If more exculpatory evidence is discovered after that time, the prosecutor has a continuing duty to notify the defense of the additional items.
In conjunction with Rule 14, the relevant aforementioned case law also requires that the prosecutor review and turn over any evidence of exculpatory police misconduct to the defense. They also have a duty to turn over any adverse credibility finding by a judge. This information will be supplied by you to the prosecutor via the forms that the ADA will present to you. For the purposes of the “Have you ever been convicted of a crime” question, a CWOF is an admission to sufficient facts and is considered a conviction.
Unfortunately, the rule does not separate work related and non-work-related crimes and does not only consider those that have happened since your employment. Any conviction, even if prior to employment must be disclosed, except for expunged records. (There is still some question about sealed records and if you have a sealed record, please talk to the ADA and your Area VP for further guidance).
One of the concerns is that active police officers will constantly be filling out these forms. What you should do is complete the form on your computer and save it. If nothing has changed since your last submission, you can simply submit the already completed form to the ADA. This is new for the DAs offices as well as all police officers in the Commonwealth.
We will continue to stay on top of this matter as it evolves. We are here to assist our membership with questions and concerns relating to the implementation of this new rule. It is something we all must deal with, but we want to ensure that all the involved parties are playing by the rules and remain in compliance. If you have any issues, please reach out to your Area VP.
I want to thank everyone involved in this this work to date. Our legal team working in conjunction with my office has included Sandulli Grace, Pyle Rome, and our litigation firm of White and Williams. We have also had assistance from our Area VPs, and a special thanks to Area VP Chris Kelsey for his boots on the ground up to the minute updates and involvement.
Our local leadership/members also participated by added input, kept us apprised as to what local district courts were doing, and were listed as plaintiffs in our actual and proposed court filings. We also networked with other organizations such as the State Police Association of Massachusetts, Southeast Chiefs of Police, and the NEPBA. It takes a strong team to come together as quickly and potently as we did to produce positive results, and I am proud to say this team did just that.
