In 1976, Larry Watkins of Louisville, KY was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the murder of a man who'd given him and his girlfriend a ride in Roxbury. After unsuccessful appeals over the years, a Superior Court judge ordered a new trial. But the state's highest court today overturned that, in a decision which likely means Watkins will now die in prison. Read more.
The Supreme Judicial Court today upheld the sentence of life without parole for Garrett Jackson for putting a bullet in the back of a rival crack dealer's head in the Lenox development in 2009. Read more.
A Randolph man who is charged as a pimp says he doesn't want to go to a hearing in his case because of the risk of Covid-19, but also says he doesn't want his hearing to be conducted on Zoom because it would violate his constitutional rights. Read more.
The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that FBI records related to the shooting death of an alleged ISIS sympathizer in a Roslindale parking lot became Massachusetts "public records" once the bureau shared them with Massachusetts investigators, and that the Suffolk County District Attorney's office has to do a better job explaining why the man's mother shouldn't get copies of them. Read more.
People have a First Amendment right to panhandle on public streets, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled today, striking down a law that bars panhandling while allowing others to try to sell newspapers, solicit charitable contributions or hail a cab at the very same street corners. Read more.
The Supreme Judicial Court today re-affirmed Keron Pierre's first-degree murder sentence for killing two women and a man outside a Mt. Ida Road house party in 2009 because the women wouldn't give him and his buddies their phone numbers. Read more.
The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that Gov. Baker has the power to order businesses shut and to limit the size of gatherings during a public-health emergency, such as the current Covid-19 pandemic. Read more.
Frederick "Drano" Henderson got a fair trial before he was convicted of first-degree murder for the murder of Derrick Barnes on Fayston Street in Dorchester in 2011, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled today. Read more.
The Massachusetts court system announced today it's postponing the resumption of jury trials until at least the week of Jan. 11 due to "the expectation of rising infections during the holiday period." Read more.
The Supreme Judicial Court today ordered a new trial for a man convicted on OUI charges for a 2014 crash because state troopers handcuffed him and restrained him so a nurse could withdraw two blood samples that were then used against him at his trial. Read more.
The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that, aside from one very specific set of documents that almost nobody uses anymore, Massachusetts notaries can charge whatever the market can bear and that a man's legal demand for damages for what he feels were overcharges for getting documents notarized should fail because his claim relies on a law written in 1836 about those documents. Read more.
The state's highest court today rejected an injured worker's request that the company that paid him worker's comp pay for his purchases of the medical marijuana that eased his pain following complications from surgery for a work-related injury. Read more.
The Supreme Judicial Court today upheld the first-degree murder conviction of Laquan Miller for repeatedly shooting two men in the back in the Archdale housing complex in 2011, killing one of them. Read more.
The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that an attorney for Khamal McCalop of Dorchester can pursue an investigation into whether some of the jurors who convicted him on three gun charges screamed racist remarks about him while pressuring one holdout on the jury to convict. Read more.
The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that in the absence of state-mandated data on the race and ethnicity of drivers pulled over for traffic stops, minority drivers who feel they were targeted for enforcement no longer have to provide detailed statistical analysis of an officer's traffic stops to prove they were pulled over because of their race or ethnicity. Read more.
Black teens and young adults have legitimate reasons to try to run away from police in Boston, but prosecutors can use testimony by the officers who arrested Tykorie Evelyn after he ran away from them - and present the gun they found in evidence - when he comes up for trial for the 2017 murder of Khisean Desvarieux outside the Orchard Gardens Community Center Boys and Girls Club in Roxbury, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled today. Read more.
Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Ralph Gants, who had begun to focus the judicial system on issues of racial and ethnic inequalities, died today. He was 65.
A committee of Massachusetts judgets has published a series of recommendations for how to re-start jury trials in Massachusetts that would balance the right to public trials with the need to reduce the risk of jurors, defendants, lawyers, court officers and judges not to contract a potentially fatal virus. Read more.
Rayla Campbell in West Roxbury last month.
The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that the state does not have to print Rayla Campbell's name on the Republican ballot for the 7th District congressional seat, because she failed to collect even the reduced number of signatures the court had earlier allowed due to Covid-19 issues. Read more.
The Supreme Judicial Court yesterday told the district attorneys from the Cape and Islands and Norfolk, Essex and Plymouth counties that no, they cannot intervene in a Suffolk County murder case that has nothing to do with their rural and suburban communities, even if it could ultimately lead to a decision that they don't like. Read more.
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