Massachusetts General Laws

Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 278, § 15 (2026)

Discontinuance of prosecution under by-laws, ordinances, etc

✓ current as of July 2026

Find cases: SyfertCases citing this section MAmalegislature.gov (official) JustiaChapter on Justia CornellLII Search CasesGoogle Scholar

Section 15. In a prosecution before a district court under the by-laws, ordinances, orders, rules or regulations of a city or town, the city solicitor, town counsel or other person appointed to represent such city or town may enter a nolle prosequi or do anything relative to such prosecution which may be done by the district attorney.

Notes of Decisions

Cited in 2 cases, 1980–1983 · leading case: Town of Burlington v. Dist. Attorney for the N. Dist., 412 N.E.2d 331 (Mass. 1980).

Sort: Relevance Newest Treatment

Town of Burlington v. Dist. Attorney for the N. Dist., 412 N.E.2d 331 (Mass. 1980). “We put to one side here G. L. c. 278, § 15 — the special power of town counsel in District Court prosecutions under municipal by-laws to “enter a nolle prosequi or do anything relative to such prosecution which may be done by the district attorney.”

Town of Burlington v. Labor Relations Comm'n, 454 N.E.2d 465 (Mass. 1983). “278, § 15, the Legislature has enabled city solicitors, town counsel, or other persons appointed to represent a city or town in prosecutions in District Courts, under the municipality’s by-laws, orders, rules, or regulations, to “enter a nolle prosequi or do anything relative to…”

Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.