Massachusetts Witness Intimidation FAQs

Section 13B covers three kinds of conduct, done directly or through another person: threatening, attempting, or causing physical, emotional, or economic injury or property damage; conveying a gift, offer, or promise of anything of value; and misleading, intimidating, or harassing. The people protected include witnesses and potential witnesses, anyone with relevant information, judges, jurors, police, court staff, and family members of those people. The Commonwealth must also prove that the defendant intended to interfere with an investigation or proceeding, acted in reckless disregard of that effect, or intended to retaliate.

It is always a felony, and there is no misdemeanor version. The ordinary maximum is ten years in state prison or two and one half years in a house of correction, with a fine of $1,000 to $5,000. Where the underlying matter concerns a crime punishable by life imprisonment, the maximum rises to twenty years and the fine to $10,000. The District Court and the Boston Municipal Court have final jurisdiction, but the Commonwealth may indict and prosecute the charge in the Superior Court.

Possibly, and the phrasing of the question contains a misunderstanding worth correcting first. A complaining witness does not control whether a prosecution continues. That decision belongs to the prosecutor, and a request directed at the witness cannot produce it. As to the charge itself, a bare request is not automatically intimidation. The Appeals Court reversed a conviction where a defendant asked a witness to recant and offered favors, because nothing put the witness in fear. Commonwealth v. Ruano, 87 Mass. App. Ct. 98 (2015). Context can change that result, and offering anything of value to shape testimony violates the statute on its own.

No, not without speaking to counsel first. Three separate prohibitions can apply at the same time, and a person can violate one while complying with another. A bail order or a condition of release may forbid contact. A 209A or 258E order may forbid contact independently, and violating that order is its own criminal charge. Section 13B applies to the content and purpose of the communication regardless of either. Not every communication with a witness is intimidation, but a person under investigation is rarely in a position to judge which category a particular message falls into.

Neither. The standard is objective, measured by what the conduct would do to a reasonable person rather than by what the particular witness felt, and the statute covers attempts and offers that fail. Conduct does not have to be overtly threatening. Pointing a cell phone camera at a waiting witness supported a conviction. Commonwealth v. Casiano, 70 Mass. App. Ct. 705 (2007).

It can be. The Supreme Judicial Court has held that depriving a potential witness of a phone when that person seeks to report a possible crime can qualify, and no investigation needs to exist yet. Commonwealth v. Fragata, 480 Mass. 121 (2018). The limit runs the other way as well. In Fragata the conviction was reversed, because at the moment the phone was taken no possible criminal violation had yet occurred. The sequence of events decides these cases.

Yes. The statute says “whoever” and contains no exception for a complaining witness, so a complainant who threatens or pressures another witness fits the text. A complainant’s own refusal to testify is a separate matter, addressed through the contempt power rather than under § 13B. The evidentiary questions raised by a witness who changes an account are discussed in the article on recantation in a Massachusetts domestic violence case.

Ordinarily it is a different felony. Destroying or concealing evidence with intent to impair its availability in a proceeding is tampering under G.L. c. 268, § 13E. Section 13B addresses conduct directed at people, and the Supreme Judicial Court has held that destroying evidence in plain view is not “misleading” within the meaning of § 13B. Commonwealth v. Tejeda, 476 Mass. 817 (2017).

They become the case. Calls from a house of correction are recorded and routinely produced in discovery, and message threads are obtained by summons or by extraction from a device. A selected screenshot or a clipped excerpt frequently reads differently once the surrounding exchange is included, which is why the complete source material and its metadata matter more than the summary in a police report. The rules governing authorship, authentication, completeness, and hearsay are set out at admitting and objecting to digital evidence and in the text message and phone evidence FAQs.

Yes. Section 13B is an enumerated predicate under G.L. c. 276, § 58A, so the charge by itself permits the Commonwealth to move for a dangerousness hearing and pretrial detention. That is frequently the most immediate consequence of an intimidation count added to a domestic violence case.

Yes. The protected proceedings are listed expressly and include criminal investigations at any stage, grand jury proceedings, dangerousness and motion hearings, trials, probation and parole matters, administrative hearings, Probate and Family Court matters, clerk-magistrate hearings, and other civil proceedings. Conduct around a clerk-magistrate hearing has supported convictions. The separate charge for violating a protective order is covered in the 209A and 258E violation FAQs.

Yes. A potential witness at any stage of a criminal investigation includes a person likely to participate in an investigation that has not yet begun. Preventing someone from calling police about a possible crime can support the charge even though nothing has been filed.

No. Section 13B stands on its own, and the intimidation count frequently survives the case it grew out of. The grounds on which a Massachusetts criminal case can be dismissed or stopped before trial apply to the intimidation count separately, and each count must be evaluated on its own evidence.

Potentially a second felony. Massachusetts prohibits secret recording of oral communications, and a recording used to pressure a witness adds that exposure to the § 13B count. The rules, including those for telephone calls and home cameras, are set out at Massachusetts wiretap law and secret recordings.

A separate evidentiary doctrine, not an element of the charge. If a judge finds by a preponderance at an evidentiary hearing that a defendant helped procure a witness’s unavailability and acted with that purpose, the witness’s out-of-court statements may be admitted and the confrontation objection is treated as waived. A forfeiture ruling does not follow automatically from a § 13B charge, and the two must be litigated separately. The requirements are set out on the practice page.