Latest 2 Cases: Malary v. Commonwealth (Civil Rights), Commonwealth v. Tate (Criminal Law)

Transitional Justice and Inauguration Poems

LESLEY WEXLER

Illinois law professor Lesley M. Wexler describes how Amanda Gorman’s The Hill We Climb and Jericho Brown’s Inaugural,’ an Original Poem—as two inaugural poems—fit within the call of transitional justice. Professor Wexler explains how, read together, the two poems provide a roadmap of the transitional justice terrain the government may choose to tread.

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Malary v. Commonwealth

Docket: SJC-13034

Opinion Date: January 22, 2021

Judge: Per Curiam

Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law

The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the judgment of a single justice of the court denying Petitioner's petition filed pursuant to Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 211, 3 seeking relief from a superior court judge's order denying his motion to continue the third day of an evidentiary suppression hearing, holding that the single justice did not err or abuse his discretion. At issue before the single justice was whether the trial judge's directive to Petitioner to make a choice whether to appear for an evidentiary hearing in person or via video conference was sufficiently important and extraordinary as to warrant the exercise of the Supreme Judicial Court's extraordinary power pursuant to Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 211, 3. The Supreme Judicial Court held that the single justice did not err or abuse his discretion in denying Petitioner's petition.

Commonwealth v. Tate

Docket: SJC-12133

Opinion Date: January 22, 2021

Judge: Kafker

Areas of Law: Criminal Law

The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed Defendant's convictions for murder in the first degree on the theory of felony murder and other crimes, holding that there was no prejudicial error in the proceedings below. Specifically, the Supreme Judicial Court held (1) several challenged statements made by the prosecutor in his closing argument did not constitute prejudicial error; (2) the trial judge did not err by denying Defendant's request for a voluntary manslaughter instruction based on self-defense, reasonable provocation, or sudden combat; and (3) this Court declines to exercise its authority under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 278, 33E to reduce the verdict or order a new trial on the grounds that Defendant was only nineteen years old at the time of the murder.