Frank M. Gaziano (born September 8, 1963) is an associate justice of the

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) is the court of last resort, highest court in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Although the claim is disputed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the SJC claims the di ...

Early life and education

Born in

Quincy, Massachusetts Quincy ( ) is a coastal U.S. city in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the largest city in the county and a part of Greater Boston, Metropolitan Boston as one of Boston's immediate southern suburbs. Its population in 2020 was 1 ...

, Gaziano received his

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

from

Lafayette College Lafayette College is a private liberal arts college in Easton, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1826 by James Madison Porter and other citizens in Easton, the college first held classes in 1832. The founders voted to name the college after General Laf ...

in 1986 and his

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

from

Suffolk University Law School Suffolk University Law School (also known as Suffolk Law School) is the private, non-sectarian law school of Suffolk University located in downtown Boston, Massachusetts, across the street from the Boston Common and the Freedom Trail, two block ...

in 1989. He began his legal career at the Boston law firm of

Foley Hoag Foley Hoag LLP (formerly Foley, Hoag & Eliot LLP) is a law firm headquartered in Boston, with additional offices in New York City, Paris, and Washington, D.C. The firm represents public and private clients in a wide range of disputes and transactio ...

as a litigation associate. In 1991, he entered public service as an assistant district attorney with the Plymouth County District Attorney's Office in Brockton. In 2001, he was appointed the First Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, where he was a member of the Organized Crime Strike Force.

Judicial service

Gaziano was previously an associate justice for the

Massachusetts Superior Court The Massachusetts Superior Court (also known as the Superior Court Department of the Trial Court) is a trial court department in Massachusetts. The Superior Court has original jurisdiction in civil actions over $50,000, and in matters where equita ...

. He was nominated to the court by Governor

Mitt Romney Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American politician, businessman, and lawyer serving as the junior United States senator from Utah since January 2019, succeeding Orrin Hatch. He served as the 70th governor of Massachusetts f ...

in 2004. He served as the Regional Administrative Justice for Plymouth County and for Criminal Business in Suffolk County. He also chaired the Supreme Judicial Court's Standing Committee on Criminal Rules and was a member of the Supreme Judicial Court's Model Homicide Jury Instruction Committee.

Supreme Judicial Court

Gaziano was nominated to the Supreme Judicial Court by Governor

Charlie Baker Charles Duane Baker Jr. (born November 13, 1956) is an American politician and businessman serving as the 72nd governor of Massachusetts since 2015. A member of the Republican Party, Baker was a cabinet official under two governors of Massach ...

on June 14, 2016, and confirmed by the Governor's Council on July 13, 2016. He succeeded Justice

Francis X. Spina Francis X. Spina (born November 13, 1946) is a former Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Biography Justice Spina graduated from Amherst College and Boston College Law School. He worked for Western Massachusetts Legal S ...

, who retired on August 12, 2016.

Notable Cases

In April 2020, Gaziano wrote for the unanimous court when it found that warrantless use of

automatic number-plate recognition Automatic number-plate recognition (ANPR; see also other names below) is a technology that uses optical character recognition on images to read vehicle registration plates to create vehicle location data. It can use existing closed-circuit tele ...

cameras to surveil a suspected heroin distributor's bridge crossings to

Cape Cod Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of mainland Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer mont ...

was not an unconstitutional search because of the limited time and scope of the observations. In February 2022, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that a criminal

defendant In court proceedings, a defendant is a person or object who is the party either accused of committing a crime in criminal prosecution or against whom some type of civil relief is being sought in a civil case. Terminology varies from one jurisdic ...

lacked a

reasonable expectation of privacy Expectation of privacy is a legal test which is crucial in defining the scope of the applicability of the privacy protections of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It is related to, but is not the same as, a ''right to privacy ...

in a

Snapchat Snapchat is an American multimedia instant messaging app and service developed by Snap Inc., originally Snapchat Inc. One of the principal features of Snapchat is that pictures and messages are usually only available for a short time before the ...

story he shared with an

undercover To go "undercover" (that is, to go on an undercover operation) is to avoid detection by the object of one's observation, and especially to disguise one's own identity (or use an assumed identity) for the purposes of gaining the trust of an indi ...

Boston police officer, who friended the defendant using a pseudonym and then used the clip to charge him in an illegal gun case. Writing for the court, Gaziano said that requiring police officers to always identify themselves would render "virtually all undercover work" unconstitutional.

References

External links

Official Biography on Supreme Court website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gaziano, Frank M. 1963 births Living people Justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Massachusetts state court judges People from Quincy, Massachusetts Lafayette College alumni Suffolk University Law School alumni 21st-century American judges Massachusetts Democrats Massachusetts lawyers