John H. Cunha, Esq.

John H. Cunha Jr. is a partner at Cunha & Holcomb, P.C. since 1981, which focuses on litigation, particularly family law and criminal defense, trial and appellate, with additional expertise in personal injury and civil rights litigation. He is a graduate of Boston College and Boston College Law School. Jack is a former criminal clinical instructor at Suffolk and Harvard Law Schools. He represents clients charged with a broad variety of offenses in state and federal courts, including many homicide trials and appeals.

In one of two federal RICO cases in which he prevailed at trial, U.S. v. Green, his Daubert challenge to so-called ballistics testimony precluded government examiners from testifying that they had determined crucial evidence from a shooting scene matched to a handgun. Jack also litigated Com. v. Patterson post-conviction, in both the Superior Court and the SJC, in which his Daubert/Lanigan challenge succeeded in excluding “simultaneous” fingerprints. He also brought two Daubert/Lanigan challenges in Superior Court to “ballistics” evidence.

He lectures nationwide at training seminars for the National Institute of Justice, the Federal Defender/Criminal Justice Act national training division, The Innocence Project, NACDL and state criminal defense bar associations, as wells as MCLE, the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (MACDL), and other CLE programs. He is a past-President and current Board member of MACDL. He is currently serving on the State Sentencing Commission.