You will see why.
"SJC nominee doesn't play to crowd; Observers call Gants intelligent, impartial" by Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff | December 26, 2008
His rulings saved hundreds of homeowners from automatic foreclosures by subprime lenders. He allayed fears of Roxbury residents by demanding more state scrutiny of Boston University's plans for a biolab in the neighborhood.
In several other cases, Superior Court Judge Ralph D. Gants ordered the release of sex offenders who had finished their sentences, ruling prosecutors failed to prove they should be locked up indefinitely. He also has taken police to task for shoddy work and lying in cases before him.
During his 11 years on the bench, the 54-year-old Lexington resident has made a reputation as an intelligent, impartial judge who isn't swayed by public opinion and devotes equal attention to cases against indigent defendants and those involving powerful institutions, say lawyers and former colleagues.
Therefore, he must be rejected.
"He is not attempting to play to the crowd or public passion," said US District Judge Richard G. Stearns, who has known Gants since the 1980s, when both were prosecutors in the US attorney's office in Boston. "He is trying to apply the law."
Earlier this month, Governor Deval Patrick nominated Gants to the Supreme Judicial Court, setting up a Jan. 14 confirmation hearing before the Governor's Council that will examine his record and temperament.
Why? He made the wrong decisions, even though they were right?
His rulings, particularly in sex offender cases, have sometimes rankled prosecutors. Two district attorneys said they have concerns about Gants's nomination because of his handling of cases dealing with the demand for indefinite civil commitment of sexually dangerous people.
"There's some troubling questions about his judgment," said Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz. He cited two Supreme Judicial Court decisions in 2002 that found Gants didn't use the correct standard of proof when rejecting a request to civilly commit two child molesters after they finished their sentences.
In one of the cases, the SJC ruled that Gants erred when he rejected the credibility of the state's expert witness, then gave the defense lawyer articles about sexual recidivism authored by another expert and told him to submit them to bolster claims that his client wasn't dangerous.
"There is a pattern of a desire to make up the law and add things to the law that aren't there when apparently the law isn't satisfactory to the judge," said Michael O'Keefe, district attorney of the Cape and Islands. "And I don't think that's an appropriate thing for a Supreme Judicial Court judge to have as a characteristic."
But, Boston attorney John Swomley, who represented a man who was found not sexually dangerous in a jury trial before Gants, said Gants's rulings in such cases explored important questions that were later addressed on appeal and helped define how lower courts decide sexual dangerousness.
"He is respectful to everyone and gives everyone a fair opportunity to present their case," Swomley said. "He is someone who believes honestly in the process."
Yeah, I can see why they don't want him.
In 1999, Gants dismissed an attempted murder charge against a Mattapan man accused of stabbing his wife, ruling there was insufficient evidence to send the case to the jury because Boston police had bungled the investigation through "gross negligence."
Jeffrey Karp, who prosecuted the case while working as a Suffolk assistant district attorney and is now a private attorney, said the police investigation was "shoddy" and Gants "did the right thing" by dismissing the case.
"I think what he's adamant about is that witnesses tell the truth, that certain courtroom decorum is followed, and that the government in criminal cases be held to a high standard, which they should be," Karp said. "We may not always agree with him, but he does the right thing."
Oh, yeah, you don't want a judge like that!
Gants, one of two sons of working, middle-class parents, was raised in Mamaroneck, a village in Westchester County, N.Y. "He wasn't brought up in the lap of luxury; he was brought up in a small apartment," said George Bachrach, president of the Environmental League of Massachusetts, who has been friends with Gants since high school.
This guy has like a million strikes against him!!!
After graduating from Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Gants worked as a special assistant to then FBI Director Judge William H. Webster for two years, then joined the US attorney's office in 1983.
He helped prosecute the nation's biggest arson case, involving more than 200 fires set in Boston in the 1980s by a ring of police officers, firefighters, and security guards who claimed they were upset by firefighter layoffs.
Adding new meaning to the term FALSE FLAGS, 'eh? Talk about a CUI BONO!!
"He saw different abuses and developed an appropriate level of cynicism that even people in trusted positions are capable of doing bad things," said Boston attorney Mark E. Robinson, a former federal prosecutor who worked with Gants on the arson case.
Gants, who was chief of the anticorruption unit for two years, also pursued corruption cases against police officers and politicians, including former Lowell city manager Joseph Tully and Gerard Indelicato, the state's top education adviser.
No wonder the politicians don't want him!!!
Gants inherited a culture of "ferocious standards," going after those who abused their power while he was working under then-US Attorney William F. Weld, and his top assistant, Robert S. Mueller III, now director of the FBI, said Stearns.
"He's a quiet, dignified person with a hidden sense of humor," said Stearns, adding that if pressed to say something critical about Gants, "People will say he's not the warmest person on first meeting, again because he's not trying to curry anyone's favor. I think that's a good thing in a judge."
Yeah, me, too!!!
After a decade with the US attorney's office, Gants worked as a partner at the Boston law firm of Palmer & Dodge, then was nominated to the Superior Court in 1997 by then-governor Weld. He is currently administrative justice to the court's business litigation section. He's also an adjunct professor at Northeastern University School of Law, where he teaches a courses on balancing liberty and security post-9/11 and civil trial practice.
Oh, if I could really talk to him about 9/11. Who knows; maybe he is already there and that's why he's getting a hassle.
In a landmark ruling this year that affected about 2,200 homeowners in Massachusetts, Gants issued an injunction prohibiting a subprime lender from foreclosing on loans that were considered structurally unfair, until state officials had a chance to review each one.
In that ruling against California-based Fremont Investment & Loan, which was recently upheld by the SJC, Gants found that the attorney general's office is likely to prevail in its lawsuit against the company, which allegedly violated the state's lending laws by giving predatory and unfair mortgages to homeowners.
"He looks at the law, and he really has the ability to get to the essence of so many controversial cases," said Nadine Cohen, an attorney with Greater Boston Legal Services....
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