Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

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The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) is the highest court in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The SJC has the distinction of being the oldest continuously functioning appellate court in the Western Hemisphere.

Jurisdiction

According to the Massachusetts Constitution, "all causes of marriage, divorce, and alimony, and all appeals from the judges of probate shall be heard and determined by the governor and council, until the legislature shall, by law, make other provision."^[1]

Case load

For fiscal year 2008, there were 194 net entries for the Supreme Judicial Court, 221 total opinions and 222 total appeals decided.^[2] The seven Justices hear appeals between September and May. The court divides its tasks by sitting as single justices as well as the full bench. Single justices determine a total of roughly 600 cases each year, while the full court renders written decisions in the amount of roughly one third that number.

The court's justices

Selection of justices

The Court consists of a Chief Justice and six Associate Justices. Each justice is appointed by the state Governor with the consent of the Governor's Council. Additionally, justices on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court hold tenure until the age of mandatory retirement, age 70. "Massachusetts judges may be removed in one of three ways: The commission on judicial conduct investigates complaints of judicial misconduct. Following a formal hearing, the commission may recommend to the supreme judicial court removal, retirement, or reprimand of a judge. The governor, with consent of the governor's council, may remove judges upon the joint address of both houses of the general court. The governor, with consent of the governor's council, may also retire judges because of advanced age or mental or physical disability. Judges may be impeached by the house of representatives and convicted by the senate."^[3]

Qualifications

Current justices

The current justices are:

Chief justice

Margaret Hilary Marshall has been Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court since 1999.

• William Cushing later served on the U.S. Supreme Court
• Horace Gray later served on the U.S. Supreme Court
• Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. later served on the U.S. Supreme Court

List of Chief Justices

Notable decisions

• Rex v. Preston (1770) - Captain Thomas Preston, the Officer of the Day during the Boston Massacre, was acquitted when the jury was unable to determine whether he had ordered the troops to fire. The defense counsel in the case was a young attorney named John Adams, later the second President of the United States.

• Rex v. Wemms, et al. (1770) - Six soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre were found not guilty, and two more — the only two proven to have fired — were found guilty of manslaughter.

• Commonwealth v. Jennison (1783) - The Court declared slavery unconstitutional in the state of Massachusetts by allowing slaves to sue their masters for freedom. Boston lawyer, and member of the Constitutional Convention of 1779, John Lowell, upon the adoption of Article I for inclusion in the Bill of Rights, exclaimed: "...I will render my services as a lawyer gratis to any slave suing for his freedom if it is withheld from him..."^[4] With this case, he fulfilled his promise, and Slavery in Massachusetts no longer had any legal standing.

• Commonwealth v. Hunt (1842) - The Court established that trade unions were not necessarily criminal or conspiring organizations if they did not advocate violence or illegal activities in their attempts to gain recognition through striking. This legalized the existence of non-socialist or non-violent trade organizations, though trade unions would continue to be harassed legally through anti-trust suits and injunctions.

• Roberts v. Boston (1850) - The Court established the "separate but equal" doctrine that would later be used in Plessy v. Ferguson by maintaining that the law gave school boards complete authority in assigning students to schools and that they could do so along racial lines if they deemed it appropriate.

• Goodridge v. Department of Public Health (2003) - The Court ruled that the denial of marriage licenses to same-sex couples violated the Massachusetts Constitution.

History of the court

The court can trace its roots to 1692, when it was called the Superior Court of Judicature; the name changed in 1780 to the Supreme Judicial Court after the ratification and adoption of the Massachusetts Constitution. The court has a supervisory role over all courts in Massachusetts. The court has oversight on the Board of Bar Overseers, the Board of Bar Examiners, the Clients' Security Board, the Commission on Judicial Conduct, the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation, the Massachusetts Mental Health Legal Advisors’ Committee, and Correctional Legal Services, Inc.

The SJC is located at the John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Boston, Massachusetts 02108, which also houses the Massachusetts Appeals Court and the Social Law Library.

2009 election

Justice John Greaney retired in November 2008, following the mandatory retirement age of 70 for Massachusetts judges.^[5] Greaney's tenure was the longest in Massachusetts history. Replacing Justice Greaney is Ralph Gants. Justice Gants was appointed by Governor Deval Patrick on January 29, 2009. Justice Gants heard oral arguments for the first time on February 2.

External links

• Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Official Site
• List of Chief Justices of the Supreme Judicial Court
• Supreme Judicial Court, Office of the Reporter of Decisions
• About the Supreme Court
• Supreme Judicial Court Historical Society
• Gay-Marriage Decision: Just the Beginning of the Debate
• Memoirs v. Massachusetts
• Simpson's Contemporary Quotations

References

Portions of this article have been taken from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Copyright Notice can be found here.

The Massachusetts Project on Judgepedia

Supreme Court Appeals Court

Federal district for Massachusetts Federal court of appeal