According to the Boston Globe, Deval Patrick will announce Thursday his nomination of Suffolk Superior Court Judge Margot G. Botsford to fill the Supreme Judicial Court opening left vacant by the death of Justice Martha B. Sosman.
Botsford is said to share the same ideas and values which Patrick holds. Currently 60 years old, she would only be allowed to serve on the court for ten years, given that there is a mandatory retirement law for judges at the age of 70.
Botford is no stranger to this process, as she has been a finalist for consideration to sit on the SJC under several administrations.
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some machiavellian way to get the progressive movement to not support Judge Botsford. Good Show EB. đŸ˜‰
I echo the above comments that Margot Botsford will make an excellent SJC Associate Justice. Her intellect and experience makes her highly qualified to handle the diversity of difficult cases the state’s highest court encounters on its annual docket.
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Nevertheless, when he gets a chance to make a second appointment to the SJC and subsequent appointments the lower state courts, I would like to see Gov. Patrick demonstrate some (dare I say, radical) creative thoughtfulness and appoint judges whose life experience reaches beyond the contours of the state or federal government.
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As anyone who has had to interact with the civil or criminal court system in Mass. can attest, litigants are subjected frequently to protracted delays and inattentive judges and court personnel. Appointing men and women as judges who have an appreciation of the frustration encountered by civil and criminal litigants and witnesses as well as adequately funding the administration of the criminal justice system, including the critically important State Police crime lab, would go a long way to restoring my lost faith in law and justice in Massachusetts.
More appointments like those made by Republican governor weld, in 1996.
I may have had with Welducci’s policies, one thing I’ll give them both unequivocal thumbs-up for is judge-picking: both of them did a fine job, almost entirely without regard to ideology. Deval’s first SJC pick is a welcome return to that philosophy after some bad moves away from it by Romney (who, mercifully, did not get to name anyone to the SJC).
what you mean when you say that patrick should appoint someone outside the legal establishment to the SJC? In my opinion, the best picks for the highest court in the Commonwealth are individuals who have had prior experience as judges. The justices of the SJC must have a grasp on the caselaw of the Commonwealth that is very difficult to obtain without having previously been a judge. Frankly, many individuals in private practice simply don’t have the breadth of knowledge of both the civil and the criminal law which is absolutely essential for an appellate judge, and which is best gained through experience in the trial court. Might there be exceptions? Sure. Justice Marshall and Justice Cordy, for example, have done alright for themselves. But the best way to ensure that a lawyer understands both the judicial system and the laws of the Commonwealth is to appoint judges with prior experience in the Superior Court or Appeals Court- which is probably why 4 (soon to be 5) of the justices of the SJC are former trial or appellate judges. And honestly, I think that those most likely to understand the problems that litigants face in the courts of the Commonwealth are former judges, who have witnessed firsthand the congestion and delays that plague our judicial system. Although, to be fair, almost any lawyer in Massachusetts probably has a pretty good understanding of exactly how congested our courts are.
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Also, Botsford is a great pick. She is a truly fair judge with an incredible grasp of the law, and a great deal of empathy for everyone that appears in her courtroom- whether they are civil litigants, criminal defendants, victims of crime, or reluctant witnesses. And as some of you might remember, Bill O’Reilly loathes her, so she must be doing something right!
As anyone who has had to interact with the civil or criminal court system in Mass. can attest, litigants are subjected frequently to protracted delays and inattentive judges and court personnel.
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…is usually an example of problems at the trial court level, not the appellate level. The trial court level is apparently starved for resources, which leads to the protracted delays.
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Quite frankly, the odd way that judges at the trial court level are assigned to cases (actually, they are not assigned to cases, they “ride the circuit” and pick up whatever motions are before them without knowing the cases) is what also leads to the delays.
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At the federal level, a trial court judge is assigned to a case for its duration, which adds to the efficiency of the case at the trial court level.
but will not like taking a pay cut.
I just learned that this woman once sentenced a man convicted of raping 5 children to only 8-11 years in prison.
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Is anyone else familiar with this?
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If true, that’s ridiculous. How can someone rape five kids and not spend the rest of their life in jail?