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Massachusetts Needs More Ex-Public Defenders As Judges, Sadiq Reza
Massachusetts Needs More Ex-Public Defenders As Judges, Sadiq Reza
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Four to one.
That is the ratio of former prosecutors to public defenders who sit on the seven-person Supreme Judicial Court, our highest state court.
On our 25-member Appeals Court, which sits one level below the SJC and is the final word in the vast majority of criminal cases, the count is worse: 16 to three. But two of those former public defenders also worked as prosecutors before reaching the bench; and two other appellate judges, while never formal prosecutors, worked in the Attorney General's Office (i.e., in other law enforcement roles).
This staggering imbalance of experience and outlook is …