“Chief Justice Gants has said that if he couldn’t have played for the Red Sox, being chief justice ultimately was a good second, solid choice,” Gov. Maura Healey said.
Ralph Gants
Posted inCriminal Justice
SJC faces tricky constitutional challenge in indigent defense case
THE STATE’S HIGHEST COURT is wrestling with a case centered on how to guarantee a fundamental constitutional right of the judicial system — the right of criminal defendants, even those too poor to hire a lawyer, to be represented by an attorney. But both sides in the case, as well as the SJC justices who […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
SJC weighs appropriate penalty for supplying heroin
HEROIN KILLED ERIC SINACORI, a 20-year-old University of Massachusetts Amherst student, who was found dead by his parents when they visited from New Jersey in October 2013. A medical examiner concluded the cause of death was “acute heroin intoxication.” Jesse Carrillo, a graduate student at the school who had fallen into his own heroin addiction, […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Mandatory minimum drug sentences costly mistake
SUPPORTERS OF MANDATORY minimum sentences for drug crimes are circulating a set of disconnected talking points on Beacon Hill that obscure the real issues. The debate is heating up as the Legislature prepares to hold hearings this month on bills that would eliminate Massachusetts laws requiring judges to impose a prison term of a specified […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, State House News Service
Sentencing commission backs repeal of mandatory minimums
IN ANOTHER SIGN of support for broad criminal justice reform, the Massachusetts Sentencing Commission voted to recommend abolition of mandatory minimum sentences for all crimes except murder. The move comes as state leaders are split on the best way to revamp criminal justice policies. At a Jan. 18 meeting of the sentencing commission, members voted […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Politics
Mapping incarceration in Boston
LARGE SWATHS OF mostly minority Boston neighborhoods are so heavily affected by the criminal justice system that nearly every street has a resident who has spent time in jail, a concentration of incarceration that is costing millions of dollars and threatening the social fabric of neighborhoods already struggling with high rates of poverty and other […]
Posted inThe Back Story
Hunting the source of leaks
Ralph Gants, the chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, asked the attorney general’s office, the State Ethics Commission, and the US Justice Department on Nov. 9 to investigate whether someone from their agencies improperly leaked to the Boston Globe an impounded transcript of an interview with House Speaker Robert DeLeo. Nearly six months later, […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Politics
Gants argues against mandatory minimums for drug offenses
The following is a transcript of Chief Justice Ralph Gants’ keynote address at the second annual Massachusetts Criminal Justice Reform Coalition summit on Monday, March 16th, 2015 at UMass Boston. Click here for a PDF of the speech with endnotes. In March of 1976, while a college senior, I submitted my undergraduate thesis in economics, […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Politics
Gants blames DAs for lack of reform
THE STATE’S TOP judge went all-in on his call to eliminate minimum mandatory sentences for drug offenders, saying the state’s prosecutors “hold the cards” and are the biggest obstacle to sentencing reform because they don’t want to cede power to judges to make the determination on incarceration. “Let us be honest: When some district attorneys […]