Today, the state’s Trial Courts will pause in honor of Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Ralph Gants. The courts will be closed to public business as a “day of remembrance” for Gants, who died earlier this week.
It will provide a moment for the courts, the legal community and all in Massachusetts to pay tribute to a jurist who was, as his fellow justices on the state’s highest court said, committed to “fairness, equality under the law and justice for all.”
It was just 10 days ago that the four-year Harvard Law School study, commissioned by Gants, was released. It documented the racial and ethnic disparities in the state’s criminal justice system.
The chief justice called the report “a ‘must read’ for anyone who is committed to understanding the reasons for such disparities and taking action to end them.” It provided an embarkation point for a journey Gants would have passionately and sensitively captained for our state’s court system to work towards eliminating these disparities.
Now, along with the sadness associated with the loss of Gants, far too young at just 65, the state of Massachusetts and Gov. Charlie Baker must confront a pivotal moment in the history of its highest court.
With his appointment powers, Baker now has an unprecedented opportunity to make the Supreme Judicial Court an all-Baker bench. Typically, governors get perhaps two appointments to the high court during their tenure of office. Before Gants' passing, Baker had already been aware he would need to fill another seat on the court by year’s end with the upcoming retirement of Judge Barbara Lenk, set to depart as she reaches the mandatory retirement age of 70. Applications for her seat were due to the governor a week ago.
We hope as the governor weighs possible nominees to the court that he reflects carefully on the guidance offered up three years ago when, in rapid succession, he had three seats to fill on the court between August 2016 and August 2017. One of the retirees at that time was Judge Francis X. Spina, of Pittsfield.
Until Spina’s departure, there had been at least one member of the court from Western Massachusetts for the past 100 years, and at one time there were two members.
As Baker reviewed candidates then, he also was urged by U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield, 19 Western Massachusetts legislators, the presidents of the region’s four bar associations and the clerks of four superior courts to have geographical diversity on the court. Then newly-elected Governor’s Councilor Mary Hurley also lobbied the governor on the topic and made it among her missions for the future.
That June, when Baker announced the last of those three appointments, elevating Appeals Court Chief Justice Scott J. Kafker, of Swampscott, the governor, when asked about the regional diversity issue, said, “Obviously we’ll continue to take our obligation and our responsibility to ensure that the court remains diverse both geographically and in terms of ethnicity and point of view as a key element of our decision-making process going forward.”
Lenk’s retirement will leave a court composed of five members hailing from east of Worcester County and having largely practiced in Greater Boston. There will also be only one person of color, Kimberly S. Budd, who does, by familial relationships, have ties to Western Massachusetts. She is the daughter of Springfield native and former U.S. Attorney Wayne A. Budd.
The argument for regional diversity is not one to be taken lightly. We continue to be a state of two distinct regions, with vastly different challenges and economies. Both the governor and the attorney general maintain Western Massachusetts offices, demonstrating how this region is considered a distinct area of the state with its own issues and concerns. Both the Supreme Judicial and Appeals courts have administrative and other duties in which regional concerns are regularly addressed and the two courts with some regularity convene sessions in Western Massachusetts.
We strongly urge Governor Baker to address the need for as much diversity on the state’s highest court as possible, not just diversity of gender and color, but also regional diversity. The time is long overdue for the appointment of a justice from Western Massachusetts.