Veteran judge nominated for SJC

(Bill Greene/Globe staff)

By Andrea Estes, Globe Staff

Governor Deval Patrick today nominated Superior Court Judge Ralph Gants to be an associate justice of the Supreme Judicial Court.

"Judge Gants brings a powerful combination of strong intellect and real world understanding. He has been a thoughtful and fair member of the Superior Court,” Patrick said in a statement. “And he is deeply committed to securing the rights and liberties of the citizens of the Commonwealth. He will be an important addition to the SJC.”

Gants, 54, of Lexington, would fill the seat left vacant by John Greaney, who is retiring today after nearly 20 years on the state's highest court. Patrick submitted the nomination to the Governor's Council, which votes on all judicial appointments.

The council could act on the nomination before the end of the year. Gants's nomination is the second Patrick has made to the seven-member court since taking office in January 2007. He named Superior Court Judge Margot Botsford to the court in July of that year, filling the vacancy created by the death of Martha Sosman several months earlier.

Gants, who has been a Superior Court judge for more than a decade, has also served as a federal prosecutor running a public corruption unit and has had a private practice.

"He is very thoughtful, extraordinarily smart, very balanced, and a collegial kind of person who will work very well with his colleagues on the bench," said former US attorney Wayne Budd, for whom Gants worked as a prosecutor.

An honors graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Gants has written many high-profile and sometimes controversial decisions.

Most recently, as administrative justice to the business litigation section in Suffolk Superior Court, Gants last month stopped Option One and American Home Mortgage Servicing from automatically foreclosing on up to 9,700 Bay State homeowners, ruling that the firm apparently wrote mortgages with "reckless disregard [for] the risk of foreclosure.

"Any lender with even a modicum of business morality should recognize that it is immoral, unethical, and unscrupulous to issue a home loan with reckless disregard [for] the risk of foreclosure," wrote Gants.

In August 2006, he delayed plans for Boston University's controversial biolab by requiring the state to subject the $178 million project to additional environmental review. He wrote that BU's environmental impact report for the project, approved by the state Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, failed to answer two questions that "virtually anyone learning of the proposed biolab would reasonably ask."

The report, he wrote, did not discuss a worst-case scenario - what would happen if a lab worker were infected with a contagious disease such as smallpox or Ebola. It also did not address whether the environmental impact would be significantly less if the lab were in a less-populated area.

While an assistant US attorney in 1988, Gants prosecuted former Lowell city manager B. Joseph Tully, who was convicted of attempting to extort $50,000 in connection with a land exchange between the city and a car dealership.

But Gants's rulings have sometimes angered the public and police.

While sitting in Lowell Superior Court in 2004, he allowed a man who had been convicted four times on drunken driving charges to get behind the wheel for doctor's appointments, infuriating Mothers Against Drunk Driving and law enforcement officials.

Then-Lowell police superintendent Edward Davis, who is now Boston's police commissioner, told the Lowell Sun at the time: "Clearly, this man should not have a license. I don't understand the logic behind that."

At the time, Gants said he allowed the driver, Daniel Tibbetts, to keep his license because the man's lawyer told the judge he had a special hardship exemption from the Registry of Motor Vehicles to drive to medical appointments.

Prosecutors didn't request a license suspension and Gants ordered Tibbetts not to drink, but he was later charged again with drunken driving.

In 2003, Gants freed a Kingston man who had been convicted of child molestation, rejecting prosecutors who asked that the man be committed indefinitely as a sexually dangerous person.

Gants rejected the testimony of a prosecution expert who said that although the man, Christopher Reese, did not meet the textbook definition of a pedophile, he was still a pedophile. Gants relied on scientific articles submitted by the defense contradicting the expert. His ruling was later reversed by the SJC.

The decisions of Gant, a Democrat who was nominated to the bench by Republican Governor William Weld, don't indicate any personal political leanings or bias, lawyers said.

"He decides cases based on what is before him," said Budd. "He doesn't try to legislate as a judge or enforce his point of view. He knows the law and will be guided by his view of what the law is in a given situation."

David Meier, former head of the Suffolk district attorney's homicide unit and now in private practice, said Gants's real-world trial experience makes him an especially good choice.

"As was the case with Justice Botsford," Meier said, "a trial judge of Judge Gants's stature will bring tremendous insight to the court. His intellect, knowledge of the law, and work ethic are well known among the legal profession. Perhaps more importantly, the fairness and professionalism with which he presides as a trial judge are honorable attributes to any trial attorney who appears before him."

Michael McCormack, a lawyer who has argued civil cases before Gants, called him "very smart, deliberate and fair. He expects you to be prepared and writes well. He is not someone who is reflexively pro-plaintiff or defendant. Win or lose, you can be pretty sure you'll get a fair shake."

Harold L. Lichten, a labor lawyer who has appeared before Gants several times, called him "extremely smart and extremely hard-working. When you argue a motion before him, unlike many other judges, he's always read all the papers. Although I've come out on the losing end several times, I never felt I got an unfair deal."

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