Commonwealth v. Fujita (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-009-15)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports. If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557-1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us SJC-11578 COMMONWEALTH vs. NATHANIEL FUJITA. Middlesex. May 6, 2014. – January 27, 2015. Present: Spina, Cordy, Botsford, Gants, Duffly, & Lenk, JJ.[1] Constitutional Law, Jury, Public right, Access to court proceedings. Jury and Jurors. Practice, Criminal, Jury and jurors, Record. Impoundment. Supreme Judicial Court, Superintendence of inferior courts. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on August 4, 2011. Following entry of an order on a posttrial motion for access to the jury list by Peter M. Lauriat, J., review of the order was sought by a nonparty from a single justice of the Appeals Court. The matter was reported to a panel of the Appeals Court by Mark V. Green, J. The Supreme Judicial Court on its own initiative transferred the case from the Appeals Court. Jonathan M. Albano for Globe Newspaper Company, Inc. Eva M. Badway, Assistant Attorney General, for the Attorney General, intervener. CORDY, J. This appeal arises out of a Superior Court judge’s ruling on a motion by the Globe Newspaper Company, Inc. (Globe), seeking postverdict access to the “jury list” containing the names and addresses of the jurors who served at the trial of Nathaniel Fujita on charges of murder in the first degree and assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon. The trial began on February 11, 2013. On March 1, while the trial was ongoing, the Globe filed its motion to obtain the names and addresses of the jurors immediately following entry of the verdict, for the purpose of ascertaining their willingness to discuss the trial.[2] On March 7, 2013, the jury returned verdicts of guilty. Seven days later, the trial judge held a hearing on the Globe’s motion. On March 26, he ruled that he would send letters to the jury asking if they were “amenable” to speaking to the press, and would permit disclosure only of the names and addresses of those jurors who responded affirmatively to his letter. On April 16, 2013, presumably at the judge’s direction, the Superior Court clerk’s office provided the Globe with the names and addresses of two jurors willing to speak to the press, along with instructions that the Globe was to “use this information only for the purpose stated in [its] motion” and “not to disseminate this juror […]