Shipping up to Boston: the voting of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in nonunanimous criminal cases from 2001-2008.

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HIGH COURT STUDIES

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Shipping up to Boston: the voting of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in nonunanimous criminal cases from 2001-2008.

I. INTRODUCTION

Republican appointed justices became a super majority on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 2001. (1) During his four years in office, Governor Paul Cellucci (R) was presented with the extraordinary opportunity to completely reshape the highest tribunal of Massachusetts. (2) In just two years, Governor Cellucci appointed four of the seven justices of the Supreme Judicial Court. (3) While not every one of Governor Cellucci's appointees was a registered Republican, all of his nominees shared a conservative judicial ideology that the governor favored. (4) In the three years prior to Cellucci's term as the Governor of Massachusetts, Governor William F. Weld (R) appointed three justices to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. (5) Two of those justices remained on the court after Governor Cellucci's appointments, creating a Republican appointed majority of six on the seven-member court. (6) In 1996, Democratic governors had appointed five out of the seven justices on the court. (7) In just five years, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court had apparently gone from one ideological extreme to the other.

This study is intended to demonstrate trends in how the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided non-unanimous or divided criminal cases over an eight-year period. This study aims to answer two questions about how those criminal appeals were decided. First, how frequently did the court and its justices side with the defendant in those cases? Second, how frequently did individual justices agree with their colleagues in those cases? The super majority existed during the first seven years of this study. In the last year of the study, the composition of the court changed slightly with an appointment of a justice by a Democratic governor. (8) Accordingly, this change in membership will also be explored to determine what impact this appointment had on the way that the court decides criminal appeals when the court is divided.

The study will be organized as follows: Part II provides some background information on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, including general information regarding composition, tenure, and the appointment process. Additionally, a brief history of the membership of the court is provided. Part III describes the methodology utilized in this study. Specifically, it explains the reasoning behind exami...

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