Defense bar hails new guidance from SJC on sex offender GPS monitoring

[Jim Burton]

https://masslawyersweekly.com/2026/01/0 ... on-ruling/

Criminal defense lawyers are hailing a recent decision from the Supreme Judicial Court that, in determining the reasonableness of GPS monitoring of certain sex offenders as part of their probation, trial judges must consider the duration.

Under the GPS monitoring statute, G.L.c. 265, §47, defendants convicted of certain sex offenses “shall” be subject to GPS monitoring “at all times for the length of [their] probation.”

However, the SJC ruled in its 2019 Commonwealth v. Feliz decision that mandatory imposition of GPS monitoring without an individualized reasonableness determination constituted an unreasonable search.

In 2012, before Feliz was issued, defendant Richard Arnold pleaded guilty to several counts of child rape and received a 10-year prison sentence followed by 10 years of probation with GPS monitoring.