Latest Case: Commonwealth v. Rodriguez (Criminal Law)

Can Workers Tell Governors to Drop Dead? The Moral Authority to Defy Lockdowns

JOSEPH MARGULIES

In this second of a series of columns about the COVID-19 protests, Cornell law professor Joseph Margulies argues, with some caveats, that workers have the moral authority to reopen their businesses in order to sustain themselves. Margulies notes that while he is not advising anyone to disobey the law (and while he personally supports the lockdown orders), business owners facing the impossible decision whether to follow the law or sustain themselves and their families are morally justified in defying the stay-at-home orders.

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Paid Labor: Eleventh Circuit Protects Rights of Pregnant Worker

JOANNA L. GROSSMAN, CYNTHIA THOMAS CALVERT

Joanna L. Grossman, law professor SMU Dedman School of Law, and Cynthia Thomas Calvert, principal of Workforce 21C and a senior advisor for family responsibilities discrimination to the Center for WorkLife Law at UC Hastings, comment on a recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals by the Eleventh Circuit protecting the rights of a pregnant worker. Grossman and Calvert describe the lower court’s ruling and the appellate court’s decision reversing it, calling the decision “a step forward for the rights of pregnant women.”

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Commonwealth v. Rodriguez

Docket: SJC-12795

Opinion Date: May 15, 2020

Judge: Per Curiam

Areas of Law: Criminal Law

The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the judgment of the county court denying, without a hearing, the Commonwealth's petition for relief under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 211, 3 from an order of the municipal court, holding that the single justice did not abuse his discretion in denying the Commonwealth's petition without reaching the merits. Defendant was charged with drug possession after a confidential informant, working under the direction of the police department, carried out three controlled purchases of a substance believed to be heroin. Under information obtained in these controlled purchases, the police obtained a warrant to search Defendant's apartment. The search led to Defendant's arrest. Defendant filed a motion for rewards and promises under Mass. R. Crim. P. 14(a)(1)(C) seeking information concerning the police department's dealings with the confidential informant. The judge allowed the motion in part, finding that the information was necessary to prepare a defense. The Commonwealth filed its Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 211, 3 petition. The single justice denied relief. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed, holding that the Commonwealth did not show that the petition presented an exceptional circumstance requiring the exercise of the court's extraordinary superintendence power.