Legal Question in Criminal Law in Massachusetts

Re: Criminal Offender Record Information in Mass.

I suspect you may be looking for the wrong thing here. A persons CORI record is his entire criminal record, including juvenile offenses, restraining orders, and sex registry registration. This record is only available to the owner's attorney, the Commonwealth (District Attorney and the Court), or if ordered produced by a judge. It could be voluntarily given to you by the individual, but that does not appear likely. If you are in a lawsuit with this individual, you could request his CORI, and if he produced it -- then you got it. If not, you could go to court and argue why you need it, and the judge would decide.

On the other hand, if you are interested in just the one case, the court records for that case are public information. You will need to figure out the docket number, which may be available from an index kept at the Court. Docket numbers in Massachusetts, at least today, follow a coding convention as follows: 9831CR00001, the "98" is the year that the complaint was brought, the "31" is the code for the court where the complaint was brought ("31" = Taunton, each court has its own code), "CR" for Criminal, and "00001" is the serial number assigned. If you know the Court where he was tried, you could go there, speak with the clerk in the criminal department, and ask how you might find that file. It could be archived offsite, and you might have to wait to get it.

As to what plea could have been made, a defendant has the absolute right to tender any plea he wants (involving serving time) to the judge, as long as the law at the time the offense was committed does not limit the judge's discretion, and the judge has the right to accept that plea over the objection of the Commonwealth. The DA would have to agree to reduce the charges, however. What options you have depend greatly on who you are, what your relationship to the offender is, and why you are seeking the information. Records from 1981 would be available as public information (the records on the specific case), but only if you can figure out what to ask for. An attorney in the area of the court could be a real help to you, otherwize you may spend hundreds of hours, and end up in a situation where you will never get the records (an attorney, getting involved after you have tried and failed, often will also fail -- where he could have succeeded if you came to him in the first place. The courts do remember cases, they have files, and once they have decided to tell you "no", the best attorney in the world may not be able to change their mind).

Thomas Workman

Law Offices of Thomas Workman

41 Harrison Street