From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Coordinates: 42°21′33″N 71°03′39″W / 42.359297°N 71.060954°W / 42.359297; -71.060954

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Seal of Massachusetts
Established	1692
Jurisdiction	Massachusetts , United States
Location	Boston, Massachusetts
Composition method	Executive appointment with quasi-legislative consent
Authorized by	Massachusetts Constitution
Decisions are appealed to	Supreme Court of the United States

John Adams Courthouse, home to the SJC

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.

History

The court was established in 1692 as the "Superior Court of Judicature". It was formed by order of the British Crown in response to the large number of prosecutions stemming from the Salem Witch Trials. Its name was changed to the Supreme Judicial Court after the adoption of the Massachusetts Constitution in 1780. In 1804 an official case reporter was created to publish the court's decisions, and the first officially reported decision was Gold v. Eddy (1804).

Functions

The seven Justices hear appeals on a broad range of criminal and civil cases between September and May.

Single Justice sessions are held each week throughout the year for certain motions pertaining to cases on trial or on appeal, bail reviews, bar discipline proceedings, petitions for admission to the bar, and a variety of other statutory proceedings. The Associate Justices sit as Single Justices each month on a rotation schedule.

The full bench renders approximately 200 written decisions each year; the single justices decide a total of approximately 600 cases annually.

In addition to its appellate functions, the SJC is responsible for the general superintendence of the judiciary and of the bar, the creation or approval of rules for the operations of all the state courts, and, in certain instances, providing advisory opinions, upon request, to the Governor and General Court on various legal issues.

The SJC also has oversight responsibility in varying degrees, according to statutes, with several affiliated agencies of the judicial branch, including the Board of Bar Overseers, the Office of Bar Counsel, 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 sits at the John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Boston, Massachusetts 02108, which also houses the Massachusetts Appeals Court and the Social Law Library.

Landmark cases

• 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. Nathaniel 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 Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1779, John Lowell, upon the adoption of Article I for inclusion in the Massachusetts Constitution, exclaimed: "...I will render my services as a lawyer gratis to any slave suing for his freedom if it is withheld from him..."^[1] With this case, he fulfilled his promise. Slavery in Massachusetts was denied 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.

Composition

The Court consists of a Chief Justice and six Associate Justices appointed by the Governor of Massachusetts with the consent of the Governor's Council. The Justices hold office until the mandatory retirement age of seventy, like all other Massachusetts judges.

Current composition

The currently serving justices are:

Notable members

• William Cushing, Horace Gray, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. served on the Supreme Court of the United States after leaving the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
• Charles Fried served as United States Solicitor General from 1985 to 1989 under Ronald Reagan

List of Chief Justices

Pre-Revolution

#	Chief Justice		Took office	Left office
1	John Stoughton		1692	1701
2	Wait Winthrop		1701	1701
3	Isaac Addington		1702	1703
4	Wait Winthrop		1708	1717
5	Samuel Sewall		1718	1728
6	Benjamin Lynde		1729	1745
7	Paul Dudley		1745	1751
8	Stephen Sewall		1752	1760
9	Thomas Hutchinson		1761	1769
10	Benjamin Lynde		1769	1771
11	Peter Oliver		1772	1775

Post-Revolution

#	Chief Justice		Took office	Left office
1	John Adams		1775	1776
2	William Cushing		1777	1789
3	Nathaniel Peaslee Sargent		1790	1791
4	Francis Dana		1791	1806
5	Theophilus Parsons		1806	1813
6	Samuel Sewall		1814	1814
7	Isaac Parker		August 24, 1814	July 25, 1830
8	Lemuel Shaw		August 30, 1830	August 21, 1860
9	George Tyler Bigelow		September 7, 1860	December 31, 1867
10	Reuben Atwater Chapman		February 7, 1868	June 28, 1873
11	Horace Gray		September 5, 1873	January 9, 1882
12	Marcus Morton		January 16, 1882	August 27, 1890
13	Walbridge A. Field		September 4, 1890	July 15, 1899
14	Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.		August 2, 1899	December 8, 1902
15	Marcus Perrin Knowlton		December 17, 1902	September 7, 1911
16	Arthur Prentice Rugg		September 20, 1911	June 12, 1938
17	Fred Tarbell Field		June 30, 1938	July 24, 1947
18	Stanley Elroy Qua		August 6, 1947	September 6, 1956
19	Raymond Sanger Wilkins		September 13, 1956	September 1, 1970
20	G. Joseph Tauro		1970	January 10, 1976
21	Edward F. Hennessey		1976	April 19, 1989
22	Paul J. Liacos		June 20, 1989	September 30, 1996
23	Herbert P. Wilkins		October 1, 1996	August 31, 1999
24	Margaret H. Marshall		October 14, 1999	Incumbent (faces mandatory retirement on September 1, 2014)

All members after 1800

Citation

The proper legal citation for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is "Mass. S.J.C".

References

External links

• Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
• List of Chief Justices of the Supreme Judicial Court
• Supreme Judicial Court, Office of the Reporter of Decisions

Resources

• 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

Current statewide government officials of Massachusetts U.S. Senators John Kerry · Paul Kirk U.S. House Massachusetts's congressional districts · List of Representatives from Massachusetts State constitutional officers Deval Patrick (Governor)  · Tim Murray (Lieutenant Governor) · William Galvin (Secretary of State) · Martha Coakley (Attorney General) · Timothy Cahill (Treasurer)  · Joe DeNucci (Auditor) State Senate leaders Therese Murray (President)  · Frederick Berry (Majority Leader) · Richard Tisei (Minority Leader) State House leaders Robert DeLeo (Speaker) · James Vallee (Majority Leader) · Bradley Jones (Minority Leader) Supreme Judicial Court Margaret Marshall (Chief) · Roderick L. Ireland · Francis X. Spina · Judith A. Cowin · Robert J. Cordy · Margot Botsford · Ralph Gants

Government of Massachusetts Executive Governor (List) • Lt. Governor • Office for Administration and Finance • Office of Education • Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs • Office of Health and Human Services • Office of Housing and Economic Development • Office of Labor and Workforce Development • Office of Public Safety and Security • Department of Transportation Legislative General Court • Senate (Members, President) • House of Representatives (Members, Speaker) Judicial Trial Court • Court of Appeals (Judges) • Supreme Judicial Court • Land Court Constitutional offices Attorney General • Auditor • Secretary of the Commonwealth • Treasurer and Receiver-General Independent agencies Board of Library Commissioners • Commission Against Discrimination • Commission on the Status of Women • Disabled Persons Protection Commission • Massachusetts District Attorneys • Massachusetts Inspector General • Office of Campaign and Political Finance • Office of the Comptroller • Massachusetts Sheriffs • State Ethics Commission Law Constitution of Massachusetts • Massachusetts General Law • Massachusetts Code • Taxation