Thursday, 4:30 PM
SJC Justice Dead at 56
By David Abel
GLOBE STAFF
Justice Martha B. Sosman of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, whose appointment in 2000 gave the state's highest court its first female majority, died Saturday night of respiratory failure, court officials said.
The 56-year-old jurist had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005.
Ms. Sosman, a former board member of the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts and a founding partner of an all-female law firm in Boston, surprised some court observers by being among the three dissenters in the landmark 2003 decision legalizing same-sex marriage. She wrote that majority opinion "merely repeats the impassioned rhetoric" of gay-marriage advocates.
"A quick review of the resume makes people leap to various conclusions about me," she told the Globe three years ago. "The five-woman firm, the involvement with Planned Parenthood, I think added to this image that I was going to be this crusading feminist liberal whatnot, which is certainly not what I am."
Born in Boston in 1950, she attended Concord public schools. She later went to Middlebury College in Vermont and the University of Michigan Law School.
When she became an attorney, she worked at Foley, Hoag & Eliot in Boston from 1979 to 1984. She spent the following two years as an assistant US attorney. She served as chief of the Civil Division of the US Attorney's Office in Boston from 1986 to 1989, when became a founding partner of Kern, Sosman, Hagerty, Roach & Carpenter, P.C.
She was appointed as an associate justice of the Superior Court in 1993. On Sept. 6, 2000, Governor Paul Cellucci appointed her as an associate justice of the Supreme Judicial Court.
Ms. Sosman was also a skilled pianist.
“Justice Sosman will be remembered as one of the great justices of the Supreme Judicial Court, despite her all too brief tenure,” said Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall in a statement. “She was admired and respected by members of the bar and litigants alike. Justice Sosman was a beloved colleague, whose wide ranging contributions to the work of the Supreme Judicial Court are immeasurable.”
Added Governor Deval Patrick in a statement: “I join the Court, the Bar and the general public in celebrating the life and service of Justice Martha Sosman. She was a wise judge and a good personal friend. She leaves a great void on the Court. My condolences go out to Justice Sosman's family and colleagues.”
