1. It WILL be a direct appointment “like chief Justice Roberts” probably… though it could be one of the other Justices, each very accomplished and well known in their own right, some of them with long term service as judges on the Superior court;
2. Here is the “cast” of Massachusetts Supreme Court Justices:
A. Margaret Marshall herself As a former anti-apartheid activist and judicial scholar, I do not think her timing is political. Her union with Anthony Lewis, the author of Gideon’s Trumpet is a well known, long term union of unusual depth, commitment, and agape. Margaret Marshall and Anthony Lewis have put one another first for decades.
B. Roderick Ireland the first African American Justice appointed to the SJC in its 300 year history. Formerly, a judge in the Juvenile Court well acquainted with the role of the court in addressing the social needs of the community before they become lethal emergencies. He is a graduate of Columbia University Law School, also holding an LLM from Harvard Law School.
C. Francis X. Spina Justice Spina is a native of Western Massachusetts, with a degree from UMASS Amherst and Boston College Law School. Prior to serving on the SJC, he has worked in legal services, as a prosecutor, as a city solictor and as a judge. He has unusual familiarity with governance as well as law.
D. Judith A. Cowin Justice Cowin is a native of Boston. She has an undergraduate
degree from Wellesley College, and is a graduate of Harvard Law School. Her area of expertise is mental health law, and considerable experience with criminal jury trials as a prosecutor.
E. Robert D. Cordy Justice Cordy’s undergraduate degree is from Dartmouth and his J.D. is from Harvard Law. Justice Cordy began is career representing indigent accused for the Mass Defenders. As a federal prosecutor, he headed the anti-corruption unit unit when William Weld was the U.S. Attorney. Justice Cordy was also Chief Legal Counsel to Governor Weld, and is extremely well acquainted with the budget process, and political process on Beacon Hill, and a tough-minded jurist with serious experience heading a large staff. While I don’t expect anyone to ask me, I think Justice Cordy would be a superb choice to step up when Chief Justice Marshall retires. He represents an unusual combination of administrative and legal experience.
F. Justice Margot Botsford is one of the newer justices, appointed in 2007 by Governor Patrick. Her undergraduate degree is from Barnard College; her law degree from Northeastern. She is a thoughtful, careful legal writer and researcher who as Special Master in the Hancock v. Driscoll case issued a 300 page Master’s decision.
G. Ralph D. Gants Justice Gants graduated Summa Cum Laude from Harvard College. He holds a degree in Criminology from Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, and a law degree from Harvard. Justice Gants also served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney heading the anti-corruption unit. Judge Gants has a reputation as a “judge’s judge”, and experience in almost every sector of law, including as Chief Administrative Justice of the Business Litigation Session. Judge Gant’s is perhaps the best legal writer on the SJC Bench.
I have appeared before the Supreme Judicial Court many times. For those who would like to “see them in action”, and haven’t stood before them as I have, there is an archive of oral arguments before the Supreme Judicial Court. That archive is available 7/24 and you can see what kind of questions each member of the SJC Bench asks, how they handle themselves, and what they care about.
Anonymous? Not at all. But the impact on the Commonwealth of the next chief justice will be very great and YOU should inform yourselves.
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p>and here we have
Marshall-Harvard/Yale
Ireland-Harvard
Spina-Boston College
Cowan-Harvard
Cordy-Harvard
Botsford-Northeastern
Gants-Harvard
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p>I’m not questioning the quality of the education these schools impart, but asking if a more diverse educational background wouldn’t lead to more representative decisions by our higher courts. We are a diverse population in our nation and our state.
Can you explain what you mean by that, and how going to a different law school would affect it? Botsford went to Northeastern; Spina went to BC. In what respect are their decisions more “representative” than those of the Harvard/Yale folk?
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p>I find this argument to be interesting but also puzzling.
So their decisions are not representative of all the ways lawyers are taught to make decisions. There was probably one favorite guy at Harvard who was most influential and had the lasting impact and that one guy is still the loudest voice in all these Harvard judges heads. If they went to different law schools they’d have some other teacher’s voice, and make decisions by their influence. If we had a law that no teachers or schools could have more than one disciple on the court, we’d have more representation of the various ways to reach decisions. Or is there only one good way, and Harvard teaches it better then any one?
Oh that’s silly. They went to law school at different times, and the Harvard law faculty is very big – the odds of them having even a significant percentage of the same teachers is very small. Plus, people make the same argument when you add Yale into the mix – it’s not just about Harvard.
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p>Can you explain, for example, a major distinction in the way Justice Botsford (Northeastern grad) and Justice Spina (BC grad) approach cases vs. their Ivy-league-grad colleagues? That’s the argument I want to understand.
… is an example in history in a non-related field that may be salient (I’m not sure – others more versed the the subject of Law would have to decide). A great deal of the success of General Robert E. Lee was attributed to the fact that he didn’t go to West Point, unlike just about every other General on both sides of the war. His ‘novel’ methods born out of his own reasoning uninfluenced by the ‘standard’ models of the time yielded much for his campaigns. Of course, war is a zero sum game where application of the Law isn’t. Also for the analogy to stick I suppose someone would have to demonstrate that the thinking of these schools demonstrates some kind of uniformity of legal interpretation that could benefit from ‘outside novelty’.
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p>Just a thought.
Robert E. Lee and West Point he also graduated with a higher ranking then anyone else, in about 1825. Most civil war generals graduated in the 1840s, including the famous class of 1846. Lee was older than most, actually.
.. thinking of? Perhaps it was his differing teachers? I’m wondering now. Its something I heard a long time ago (1980’s?) so I’m sure I’m remembering something wrong.
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p>Thanks for the correction.
I think you certainly have a valid point about diversity of educational backgrounds (people often do not recognize education as the institutional privilege that it is), however I would object to “letting go” of racial and gender considerations in order to do so. I would also note that we still have very few openly gay men or women in decision-making positions (slowly but surely changing) and all of those things should be a part of consideration when we think about the diversity of perspectives informing decisions made for our society. It’s not, as Rachel Maddow did a great job covering this week, a zero-sum game. We don’t have to stop caring about some people to start caring about others, no matter what the popular opinion might say.
Ideally no consideration would be given to ones race or gender.
In addition to being a terrific and warm man is also an accomplished scholar. He has a PhD from Northeastern University (where he has taught as an adjunct since 1978). So he adds some academic diveristy.
He was the bigot who opposed gay marriage because oh noes gay people are icky. The man should never be in any position of power.