Kevin Connelly

faculty

Kevin Connelly

Full Time Lecturer

Law School / Faculty

Contact

508-985-1164

508-985-1115

kconnelly@umassd.edu

UMass School of Law 229

Education

Boston College Law SchoolJD
Indiana UniversityMA
University of Massachusetts - AmherstBA

Teaching

  • Legal Writing
  • Criminal Procedure
  • Criminal Law
  • Trial Practice
  • Torts, Evidence, and Massachusetts Evidence

Teaching

Programs

Teaching

Courses

A study of criminal law, covering the essential principles governing the criminalization of conduct, substantive crimes, and defenses, including statutory analysis, actus reus, mens rea, causation, inchoate offenses, intentional and unintentional homicide, rape, theft and property offenses, attempt, solicitation, conspiracy, accessory liability, justification and excuse, self-defense, battered person defenses, insanity and intoxication.

A study of the limitations placed on police practices by federal and state constitutions and statutes, focusing on the law of arrest, search and seizure, pre-trial identification procedures and trial rights, electronic surveillance, the right to confrontation, the privilege against self-incrimination, and the right to counsel, including the application of the Miranda rule.

A study of the limitations placed on police practices by federal and state constitutions and statutes, focusing on the law of arrest, search and seizure, pre-trial identification procedures and trial rights, electronic surveillance, the right to confrontation, the privilege against self-incrimination, and the right to counsel, including the application of the Miranda rule.

A study of the rules and standards regulating the admission of evidence at trial. Topics include competency of witnesses, qualification, examination, cross-examination, and impeachment of witnesses, objections, waivers, offers of proof, relevancy, the hearsay rule and its exceptions, the opinion rule, expert testimony, privileges, judicial notice, and demonstrative evidence.

A study of the rules and standards regulating the admission of evidence at trial. Topics include competency of witnesses, qualification, examination, cross-examination, and impeachment of witnesses, objections, waivers, offers of proof, relevancy, the hearsay rule and its exceptions, the opinion rule, expert testimony, privileges, judicial notice, and demonstrative evidence.

Professional background

Professor Connelly began his legal career as an Assistant District Attorney in Boston. From 1986 to 1988, he served as chief of the Major Offenders’ Bureau of the Suffolk District Attorney’s Office. Thereafter, he worked in personal injury practice as Claims Counsel for the Commercial Union Insurance Company and engaged in the private practice of law, with an emphasis on criminal defense at trial and on appeal. 

From 1990 to 1992, Connelly served as an Assistant Attorney General in the Massachusetts Environmental Crimes Strike Force. From 1992 to 2005, he served as an Assistant District Attorney for the Bristol District in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He was chief of Homicide from 1998 to 2001 and chief of Appeals from 2001 until his retirement in 2005. He has extensive trial and appellate experience.

Professor Connelly began teaching at the Southern New England School of Law in 2003, first as an adjunct professor and later as a visiting lecturer. He served as Faculty Advisor to SNESL’s Family Law Moot Court team in Albany Law School’s 2006 Gabrielli National Family Law Competition.

In 2000, Connelly was elected Prosecutor of the Year by the Massachusetts District Attorneys’ Association. From 2004 to 2007, he served on the Board of Regents of National College of District Attorneys, in Columbia, South Carolina. During that time, he also served as a member and co-Reporter of the Ad Hoc Committee on Revision of National District Attorneys’ Association’s National Prosecution Standards. His committee assignments were in the areas of pretrial discovery and trial conduct.

Professor Connelly is a contributing author to the Massachusetts Superior Court Criminal Practice Jury Instructions, published in 1999 by the Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education Foundation. He is co-Author (with Hon. R. Marc Kantrowitz and Jennifer Bush, Esq.), of Closing Arguments: What Can and Cannot Be Said, 81 Mass. L. Rev. 95 (1996).

In 2006, Professor Connelly was appointed as a member of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s Advisory Committee on Massachusetts Evidence Law. In September 2008, the Committee produced the Massachusetts Guide to Evidence.