“What I found interesting was what the case was not about,” zoning expert and consultant Amy Dain said on The Codcast. “The justices and the lawyers in the courtroom were not debating whether there’s a housing crisis. “
Courts
Posted inCourts
Post-Bruen decision, everyone has to be a gun-law historian
The decision has opened almost all aspects of the state’s gun safety law regime to challenge and sent lawyers scrambling for history books. As recent Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decisions have shown, if a policy is not tied to a founding-era law or practice – a so-called historical analogue – it likely will not survive judicial scrutiny.
Posted inCourts
SJC greenlights electric substation in E. Boston
The Conservation Law Foundation and the Chelsea-based advocacy group Greenroots had argued that the state’s Energy Facilities Siting Board approved the East Boston substation location – across the street from a school — without adequately considering “the equitable distribution of energy and environmental benefits and environmental burdens.”
Posted inCourts
In case of $70,000 Tiffany ring, SJC judges fully engaged
Justices at the state’s highest court appear open to doing away with the traditional approach to answering a very niche question: should it matter whose fault it is when an engagement goes sour, even with a $70,000 diamond ring on the line?
Posted inBallot Questions
SJC green-lights tipped wages ballot measure
A ballot initiative that would raise the minimum wage for tipped workers and let employees pool tips cleared the state’s highest court, with justices concluding the petition’s language is just fine to put before voters.
Posted inCourts
State solicitor tapped as Healey’s first SJC pick
Gov. Maura Healey has picked Elizabeth “Bessie” Dewar, the state solicitor and a former US Supreme Court clerk, as her first nomination to the state Supreme Judicial Court.
Posted inCourts, State House News Service
Feds tell automakers not to comply with Mass. law
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE FEDERAL TRANSPORTATION officials dealt a major blow to a voter-approved Massachusetts law boosting access to motor vehicle telematic data, warning that the measure on the state’s books “poses significant safety concerns.” The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Tuesday effectively told major automobile manufacturers not to comply with the state’s “right […]
Posted inCourts, State House News Service
Cypher stepping down from SJC, giving Healey a pick
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE SUPREME JUDICIAL Court Justice Elspeth Cypher plans to step down in January, giving Gov. Maura Healey a chance to appoint someone to the state’s highest court early in her first term. The SJC announced Monday that Cypher, who turned 64 in February, will retire from the court on Jan. 12, 2024 […]
Posted inThe Download
Lawsuit alleges racial discrimination in tenant screening tool
Two Black women from Massachusetts are at the center of what could become a landmark federal case about whether software that screens potential tenants is illegally biased against Black and Hispanic applicants. Rachael Rollins, the US attorney for Massachusetts, weighed in on the case, Louis vs. SafeRent Solutions, in a court brief this week, arguing […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
SJC judges pose dismissal of 27,000 tainted drunk driving convictions
THERE IS NO QUESTION that for years, state breathalyzer tests were not certified correctly, and Massachusetts’ Office of Alcohol Testing acted egregiously when it withheld evidence about failed calibrations of breathalyzers. But what happens to all those drunk driving cases where breathalyzer evidence was used? The Supreme Judicial Court on Wednesday heard arguments in a […]