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 from
Lafayette College 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 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. 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 on June 14, 2016, and confirmed by the Governor's Council on July 13, 2016. He succeeded Justice
Francis X. Spina, 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 cameras to surveil a suspected heroin distributor's bridge crossings to
Cape Cod 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 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 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