State's highest court blasts Charlestown court for sitting on possible assault-and-battery case for nearly three years

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that if a Boston Police officer wants to pursue a potential assault-and-battery charge against her district commander, she needs to first file an appeal in the court where a clerk-magistrate found no probable cause for the charge.

In its ruling, which rejected the unnamed officer's request that it take up the matter, the court noted the case's tortuous path through the court system - the officer first filed it in West Roxbury Municipal Court, but it was transferred to Charlestown and ultimately to Dedham District Court as both she and her supervisor sought to have the case moved out of West Roxbury and then all of Boston due to potential conflict-of-interest issues.

The justices issued a stern rebuke to the Charlestown court:

The nearly three-year delay in the Charlestown Division of the Boston Municipal Court Department is unacceptable. There is no excuse for this period of delay in any case scheduled for a clerk-magistrate's hearing. See G. L. c. 218, § 35A. The delay in this case is particularly troubling. The parties and the community are not just entitled to a fair and just adjudication of this matter. The perception of justice must also be scrupulously protected. Here, it was not. As a result, no matter how just the result in this case may be, to the petitioner and perhaps others, justice is tainted by the delay.