The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today the state can't force companies in New Hampshire to collect the Massachusetts sales tax on sales to Massachusetts residents (so New Hampshire can continue to proclaim Tax Free or Die).

The Supreme Judicial Court narrowly ruled today a man who pleaded guilty to raping a child does not have to wear an ankle bracelet during his probation because the law requiring GPS monitoring was passed after his plea.

The Supreme Judicial Court today overturned the first-degree murder conviction of a Cape Cod man because a key witness was allowed to take the stand even though he refused to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that the state Board of Registration in Medicine has the right to see information compiled by hospitals on possible past misdeeds by their doctors.

But the court also ruled that the board itself can keep that information private as it investigates possible misdeeds by doctors, under a state law designed to protect the privacy of "medical peer review" by physicians and their hospitals.

The Supreme Judicial Court today overturned a Worcester man's conviction for the death of a rival gang member in 2004, but said he could be tried again without violating his constitutional right against double jeopardy.

At issue is exactly what sort of first-degree murder Timothy Zanetti was convicted of for the July 15, 2004 murder of a rival gang member in a car on Main Street in Worcester.

The Supreme Judicial Court today upheld Martin Guy's first-degree conviction for a savage 1998 murder in Walpole's Bird Park.

Guy was initially identified as a suspect in the murder of an elderly woman out for a walk with her husband by a match in a federal DNA database with DNA taken from saliva on her bra and chest. He sought a new trial in part because of widely publicized, ongoing problems in the Massachusetts State Police crime lab in Sudbury - his appeal cites everything from a 2000 New Yorker article on the problems to a 2006 Department of Justice audit that showed problems with the way the lab handled DNA samples.

Ironically, those very problems led the court to reject his argument:

The Supreme Judicial Court has once again upheld the constitutionality of State Police roadblocks aimed at catching drunk drivers - and arresting them for any contraband they might have with them.

The court decided two sobriety-checkpoint cases today. In one, the court ruled that even though roadblocks involve "warrantless seizures" of both vehicles and their drivers, they are legal as long as they are "not arbitrary," are conducted quickly and are done according to a specific set of rules. In the second, the court ruled that sobriety checkpoints are not random sweeps for contraband - which is unconstitutional - and that police officers do not have to overlook any possible illegal items or activity when they initially check for drunkenness.

In the second case, the court ruled:

Nothing in our cases suggests that an officer participating in an initial lawful encounter with a driver must, or even should, turn a blind eye to contraband or evidence in plain view that provides reasonable suspicion that a crime has been, or is being, committed.

Complete rulings:

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that neither judge nor jury did anything wrong in awarding the verdict to a Cape man who died because of a 2003 accident involving a parking-lot gate that crashed into the bus the man was on.

The Supreme Judicial Court today overturned a Fall River man's conviction on an indecent assault and battery charge because his lawyer failed to produce the phone records that might have helped prove the sex was consensual.

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that tough Massachusetts consumer-protection laws apply to companies that operate here but which are based in other states that don't care as much about consumers.