The Supreme Judicial Court today tossed a Lynn ordinance that barred serious sex offenders from roughly 95% of all residences in the city.

The state's highest court ruled that the 2011 Lynn ordinance, which barred Level 2 and 3 offenders from living within 1,000 feet of schools and parks, was illegal because the legislature gave the state exclusive control over the monitoring of sex offenders after their release from prison or treatment. The ruling could also affect similar ordinances in some 40 Massachusetts communities. Read more.

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today Suffolk County prosecutors cannot use a gun that fell down a man's pant leg after he was stopped by police as evidence against him because officers didn't have enough evidence to warrant "seizing" him in the first place.

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today Suffolk County prosecutors can use a gun found in a car occupied by suspected gang members as evidence in a trial against two of them on gun charges. Read more.

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today a law that attempts to criminalize public falsehoods about political candidates violates the state constitution's free-speech protections. Read more.

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that Louis Costa deserves the chance to convince a judge he should have a chance at parole for the 1986 execution-style murder of two men in a North End park because he was only 16 at the time. Read more.

The Supreme Judicial Court today reversed the assault-and-battery conviction of a Brockton man arrested after spanking his three-year-old daughter in view of two police detectives.

The court noted that corporal punishment "as an integral aspect of parental autonomy" remains widely accepted in American society and so in the absence of specific laws on the subject, "we must guard against the imposition of criminal sanctions for the use of parenting techniques still widely regarded as permissible and warranted." Read more.

In a ruling today on a land dispute in Templeton, the Supreme Judicial Court came close to overturning the idea that you can't sue the state without its permission, but pulled back because the justices figured it would be better for the legislature to hash it out. Read more.

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that people facing new drug trials because their evidence was handled by convicted state chemist Annie Dookhan cannot be brought up on more severe charges the second time around - and can't get sentences more severe than the ones originally imposed. Read more.

The Supreme Judicial Court today ordered a new trial for James Brescia, convicted for first-degree murder for the 2006 death of a Newton man his wife had been seeing.

The court agreed with Brescia's attorneys that symptoms from a mild stroke he suffered the night after his first day of testimony - the next day, under cross examination, he had problems understanding and answer questions - could have been interpreted by the jury as evasion, since jurors were not told about the stroke, and that that meant Brescia did not get a fair trial. Read more.