Roderick Ireland
From Judgepedia
| Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court |
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| Sitting justices |
| Margaret Marshall John Greaney Roderick Ireland Francis Spina Judith Cowin Robert Cordy Margot Botsford |
| Former justices |
| Massachusetts on Judgepedia |
Roderick L. Ireland is an Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the state's highest court. He was appointed to this position in 1997, and is the first African-American to sit on this bench in its over three hundred year history. Previously, he served at the Massachusetts Appeals Court for seven years, and the Boston Juvenile Court for almost thirteen years.
Appointments to the Massachusetts high court are permanent to age 70.
Legal background
Justice Ireland received his B.A. from Lincoln University, J.D. from Columbia University Law School, LL.M. from Harvard Law School, and Ph.D. in Law, Policy and Society from Northeastern University.
He began his legal career in 1969 as a Neighborhood Legal Services attorney, and then worked as a public defender from 1971 to 1973 with the Roxbury Defenders Committee, first as chief attorney, then deputy and executive director. From 1975 to 1977 he served as Assistant Secretary and Chief Legal Counsel for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Administration and Finance. In 1977 he was also Chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Appeal on Motor Vehicle Liability Policies and Bonds.
Ireland has been an adjunct faculty member at Northeastern University's College of Criminal Justice and its School of Law since 1978, and has been on the faculty of the Appellate Judges Seminar at New York University Law School since 2001. He is the author of Massachusetts Juvenile Law, 2d edition, 2006, published by West Publishing; the first edition was published in 1993.[1]
Awards and Honors
Justice Ireland has received a number of honors and awards, including:
- Boston College Law School's St. Thomas More Award (1998)
- Judicial Excellence Award from the Massachusetts Bar Association and Lawyers Weekly Newspaper (2001)
- the Judicial Excellence Award from the Massachusetts Judges Conference (1996)
- the Haskell Cohn Distinguished Judicial Service Award from the Boston Bar Association (1990)
- the Boston Covenant Peace Prize (1982)
- the Judicial Excellence Award from the Massachusetts Academy of Trial Attorneys (1999)
Notable opinions
Ireland was one of four justices to concur with the majority opinion in the Goodridge v. Department of Public Health case, which legalized same-sex marriage in Massachusetts.
