125 results for 'court:"Massachusetts Supreme Court"'.
Per curiam, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts affirms the denial of relief to protesters and advocates’ challenge to the constitutionality of a 200-foot buffer area around a courthouse where protest is not allowed to occur, as a way of protecting the right to a fair trial and prevent jurors, witnesses and others coming to or leaving the courthouse from being obstructed. Protesters may still protest, just not within the buffer zone.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Per curiam, Filed On: May 2, 2024, Case #: SJC-13589, Categories: Judiciary, Equal Protection, First Amendment
J. Gaziano affirms in part the granting of summary judgment mandating disclosure of documents requested by a man whose brother was fatally shot by police after he violently resisted arrest. The privacy exemption does not apply to documents related to police misconduct investigations, and whether or not documents count as being related to a police misconduct investigation is not limited to cases where officers are found guilty of misconduct. Affirmed.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Gaziano, Filed On: April 26, 2024, Case #: SJC-13468, Categories: Discovery, Police Misconduct
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J. Kafker upholds a city board’s decision to uphold a tax assessment of a media company using city signs for its advertisements, which it pays the city to do. The signs are not exempt from taxation because they constitute a for-profit use of the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority’s property in connection with a business. Affirmed.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Kafker, Filed On: April 22, 2024, Case #: SJC-13489, Categories: Municipal Law, Tax, Business Practices
J. Wendlandt upholds the denial of a juvenile’s motion to dismiss a care and protection case to give her father permanent custody over her. A custody order, without the care and protection case, is not sufficient for the father to maintain custody because the default custody arrangement for nonmarital children is for the mother to have custody. Affirmed.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Wendlandt, Filed On: April 17, 2024, Case #: SJC-13494, Categories: Family Law, Juvenile Law
J. Kafker affirms defendant’s murder conviction after he shot a man four times, killing him, after they argued at a barbershop. Although the warrant to search defendant’s apartment was not signed by a judge, the judge did sign the search warrant affidavit and submitted a sworn affidavit that indicated she planned to sign the warrant, so the lack of signature on the warrant itself was a clerical error, and not one that would make the warrant invalid. Affirmed.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Kafker, Filed On: April 12, 2024, Case #: SJC-09903, Categories: Firearms, Murder, Search
J. Gaziano upholds the denial of a new trial for defendant. The decision in Commonwealth v. Brown, which stated that “felony-murder is no longer an independent theory of liability for murder,” should not be applied retroactively because the rule in that case is meant to be applied on a prospective basis only. Affirmed.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Gaziano, Filed On: April 8, 2024, Case #: SJC-12836, Categories: Fair Trial, Murder, Manslaughter
J. Budd supports the denial of the defendant’s motion to suppress analysis of his blood samples. His consent is not needed where he is being charged for operating under the influence resulting in serious bodily injury and death rather than simple operating under the influence. Affirmed.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Budd, Filed On: April 1, 2024, Case #: SJC-13384, Categories: Evidence, Dui, Vehicle
Per curiam, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts reverses the suppression of the defendant’s blood sample analysis. The consent requirement governing blood sample analysis in a charge of simple operating under the influence case does not apply to a charge for operating under the influence in a way which causes serious bodily injury. Reversed.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Per curiam, Filed On: April 1, 2024, Case #: SJC-13458, Categories: Evidence, Dui, Vehicle
J. Massing vacates summary judgment in favor of a hotel being sued by children’s clothing sellers who were told to leave the hotel after they arrived to conduct business with retailers, were told by the hotel that there was an unwritten policy against conducting business at the hotel and then they argued against the imposition of this new unwritten policy that they hadn't been told about previously. While the hotel didn’t violate a consumer protection statute, the hotel arguably referenced a “fictitious policy” as a “deceptive means of forcing them out.” Reversed.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Massing, Filed On: March 18, 2024, Case #: 23-P-178, Categories: Commerce, Consumer Law, Business Practices
J. Kafker does not find that the defendant’s counsel was ineffective because it didn’t call a cell phone expert on her behalf. A cell phone expert would have been unlikely to change the jury’s conclusions about the defendant, who killed a pregnant woman and cut her baby out of her to keep as her own. Affirmed.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Kafker, Filed On: March 18, 2024, Case #: SJC-12100, Categories: Murder, Kidnapping, Experts
J. Kafker reverses in part the granting of summary judgment in favor of a university against members of its tenured faculty suing it for requiring them to obtain 50% of their individual salaries from external research funding to avoid salary cuts and being reduced to part-time employees, and for requiring that their external funding maintain a specific cost recovery rate to avoid reductions in the size of their labs. While summary judgment is appropriate concerning lab sizes, because nothing in the faculty members’ tenure documents guarantees lab space, it is not appropriate where it concerns economic security, which is included in the tenure documents and could limit the university’s ability to reduce salary and full-time status.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Kafker, Filed On: March 14, 2024, Case #: SJC-13472, Categories: Education, Employment, Contract
J. Gaziano supports the lower court’s decision to deny defendant’s motion to stay execution of his sentence. While his appeal has a high likelihood of success, his history of frequent travel to foreign countries and his connections are evidence that he could be a flight risk and his history of violent, impulsive, racially motivated attacks is evidence that he poses a danger to others. Affirmed.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Gaziano, Filed On: March 13, 2024, Case #: SJC-13428, Categories: Evidence, Sentencing
J. Wendlandt determines the allocation of over 98% percent of a divorcing couple’s marital liabilities to alimony is not an equitable division of the couple’s marital estate. It is appropriate to consider a couple’s regular contributions to their savings plans when determining alimony. Reversed.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Wendlandt, Filed On: March 7, 2024, Case #: SJC-13473, Categories: Family Law, Partnerships
J. Budd confirms a former employee’s eligibility for unemployment benefits after she was fired by her employer for refusing the Covid-19 vaccines on religious grounds. The employee did not engage in deliberate misconduct because she tried to comply with her employer’s policy by using its application process in place to apply for a religious exemption. Affirmed.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Budd, Filed On: March 4, 2024, Case #: SJC-13440, Categories: Employment, Covid-19
J. Kafker finds that it is correct to allow a university’s special motion to dismiss various claims brought by a developer against the university for intending to build a dormitory on a sub-parcel of land where it originally planned to build a hotel with the developer. The university attempted to advance the hotel project multiple times with the developer unsuccessfully before moving forward to benefit itself by creating a dormitory instead. Affirmed.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Kafker, Filed On: February 29, 2024, Case #: SJC-13405, Categories: Anti-slapp, Real Estate, Contract
Per curiam, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts affirms a judgment denying relief to a woman charged with violating a harassment prevention order. The rulings she’s challenging can be addressed through an appeal if she is convicted, but the denial of a motion to dismiss in a criminal case isn’t appealable until after the trial has concluded. Affirmed.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Per curiam, Filed On: February 23, 2024, Case #: SJC-13508, Categories: Speedy Trial, Harassment
J. Wendlandt denies the defendant’s motion for a new trial, after he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after he and two others attempted to rob a victim, who fought back and then was shot and killed by the defendant. The court decided not to apply its abolition of felony-murder, as an independent theory of liability for murder in the first and second degrees, retroactively to the defendant’s case or any other case. This does not violate his equal protection rights because, even though the theory was abolished for disproportionately adversely affecting racial minorities, its impact cannot be “traced to a discriminatory purpose.” Affirmed.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Wendlandt, Filed On: February 22, 2024, Case #: SJC-12405, Categories: Murder, Robbery, Equal Protection