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By STEVE LeBLANC

BOSTON — The highest court in Massachusetts ruled Thursday to raise from 18 to 21 the minimum age at which a person can be sentenced to mandatory life without parole — a narrow 4-3 ruling that juvenile justice advocates are hailing as progress.The...

By JAMES PENTLAND

SPRINGFIELD — A Belchertown man who stole more than $114,000 in disability benefits over 16 years was sentenced last week in federal court to 10 months in prison and three years of supervised release.Kenneth Pontz, 59, was previously convicted in...

STAFF REPORT

AMHERST — An Amherst man is being held at the Hampshire County Jail and House of Correction in Northampton following his arrest and arraignment this week on possession of child pornography, the second time he has been taken into custody on those...

By CHRIS LARABEE

SPRINGFIELD — Tree House Brewing Co.’s majority owners have filed a formal response to a lawsuit brought by the brewery’s only minority shareholder, denying allegations of a breach of fiduciary duty. In documents filed in Hampden County Superior Court...

By DOMENIC POLI

The backlog plaguing courthouses across much of the state seems to have spared Franklin and Hampshire counties, where the Northwestern district attorney’s office put many cases to bed while in-person jury trials were suspended during the COVID-19...

By JAMES PENTLAND

NORTHAMPTON — A Florence man who last week pleaded guilty to 13 counts of possessing child pornography was sentenced Wednesday to serve four years in jail followed by five years probation.Hampshire Superior Court Judge James Manitsas also ordered...

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

NORTHAMPTON — Sonya Epstein was crystal clear before a Hampshire District Court judge Thursday afternoon when explaining why she took part in a protest outside the Northampton facility of defense contractor L3Harris that led to her arrest two months...

Seven years after the Cara Rintala case was first featured on NBC’s “Dateline,” the popular investigation and interview series returns Friday night with an updated episode, 2½ months after a jury found Rintala guilty of voluntary manslaughter in the...

By CHRIS LARABEE

GREENFIELD — Massachusetts Environmental Police arrested two brothers Saturday night after they allegedly shot a deer from their truck while in Colrain.Police arrested Colrain resident Seth Doull, 51, and Worthington resident Ira Doull, 46, on...

By JAMES PENTLAND

SPRINGFIELD — The family of a woman who died after suffering an asthma attack from working in a Holyoke cannabis production plant is suing the corporation that employed her, a health and safety manager and a contractor.Lorna McMurrey, 27, died in...

By CHRIS LARABEE

SPRINGFIELD — A civil lawsuit filed in Hampden County Superior Court by a minority shareholder of Tree House Brewing Co. alleges the company’s two majority shareholders paid themselves “excessive” salaries, secretly invested in real estate and caused...

By DOMENIC POLI

WHATELY — The owner of Tea Guys in Whately is in hot water for not shipping products to paying customers and failing to respond to Franklin County Superior Court matters.Oliver Rich is being sued by Zest Tea LLC, a Baltimore company that alleges...

By SAM DRYSDALE

BOSTON — A Superior Court judge on Wednesday denied a request to put a temporary hold on the Healey administration’s plan to cap the number of families in the state’s strained emergency shelter system.The decision followed an emergency court hearing...

By CHRIS LARABEE

DEERFIELD — With climate change a present threat, Michael Pill and Carol Holzberg have been exploring installing a dual-use solar array on their farmland.The Shutesbury couple’s project, though, has run into a roadblock due to the agricultural...

STAFF REPORT

NORTHAMPTON — A state appeals court has upheld the 2020 attempted murder conviction of Christopher Conley in a long-running case over the poisoning of his 7-year-old daughter.The Massachusetts Appeals Court’s decision Wednesday ends a case that began...

By JAMES PENTLAND

NORTHAMPTON — Weighing emotional stories of loss from the victim’s family members and a tearful plea for leniency from the defendant’s daughter, Hampshire Superior Court Judge Francis Flannery sentenced Cara Rintala to 12 to 14 years in prison for...

By JAMES PENTLAND

NORTHAMPTON — Police and crime scene analysts who responded to 18 Barton St. in Granby in the wake of Annamarie Cochrane Rintala’s 2010 slaying shed light in court Thursday on the extensive blood evidence found at the scene.A State Police sergeant...

By JAMES PENTLAND

NORTHAMPTON — Jurors on Wednesday watched surveillance videos and police interviews with Cara Rintala, while the defense tried to show that investigators failed to thoroughly question other possible suspects in the strangulation death of Annamarie...

By JAMES PENTLAND

NORTHAMPTON — A few hours after finding her wife’s lifeless body on their home’s basement floor, Cara Rintala sat for a 2½-hour interview with police in which she described feeling threatened and bullied in her marriage.During the interview, she...

By JAMES PENTLAND

NORTHAMPTON — Audio recordings of a 911 call from Cara Rintala and of a hearing before a judge after she and Annamarie Cochrane Rintala had each filed restraining orders against the other were among the evidence presented for jurors Monday as trial...