Taking Stock: A Review of Justice Stevens’s Last Book and an Appreciation of His Extraordinary Service on the Supreme Court

RODGER CITRON

Rodger D. Citron, the Associate Dean for Research and Scholarship and a Professor of Law at Touro College, Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center, comments on the late Justice John Paul Stevens’s last book, The Making of a Justice: Reflections on My First 94 Years. Citron laments that, in his view, the memoir is too long yet does not say enough, but he lauds the justice for his outstanding service on the Supreme Court.

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Malachi M. v. Quintina Q.

Docket: SJC-12674

Opinion Date: December 26, 2019

Judge: Cypher

The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the modification judgment that granted sole legal custody of the parties' child to Father, holding that a substantial change in circumstances warranted modification of the custody order. At issue was the tension between the requirement in Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 208, 31A that in issuing any custody order the court shall consider evidence of "past or present abuse" toward a parent or child as a factor contrary to the best interest of the child and the constraints of Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 208, 28 limiting modifications to changed circumstances. The Supreme Judicial Court held (1) pursuant to Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 208, 31A, the judge at modification proceedings must consider evidence of both past and present abuse, including evidence of domestic abuse that occurred before the entry of the divorce judgment, and must address whether the rebuttable presumption is applicable even where there is no evidence of abuse occurring after the divorce judgment; and (2) in the instant case, the judge's conclusion that Mother's actions warrant modification of the custody order was not plainly wrong or clearly erroneous.