SALEM — Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Kimberly Budd visited Salem District Court on Wednesday to meet with staff and hear firsthand about the court’s everyday operations.
Budd, who was sworn in as the 38th Chief Justice in 2020, spoke with judges, clerks, probation officers, security personnel and other Salem District Court staff members about the work they do everyday to ensure that justice is served in a timely and efficient manner.
“Part of my job is to be the face of the judiciary and make sure the public feels confident in it, but another part of my job is to make sure that the people who work in the courts day in and day out know that they’re well appreciated, ” Budd said. “People come in, and it’s not their best day. And the people who work here are very professional and are really trying to help, so that makes me feel proud to be Chief of this court system.”
Budd grew up in Peabody and was a part of the Peabody Veterans Memorial High School’s class of 1984, though her family moved to Atlanta when she was in grade 11. Budd said that she was excited to return to the North Shore where she received the education that would set her on the path to Chief Justice.
“I enjoy being here in my old stomping grounds, it’s nice to be back on the North Shore,” Budd said. “Moving from Peabody to a public school in Atlanta, there was a big difference in the quality of the school. I got a really good education in Peabody. It’s a big school, and there’s something to be said about having to navigate it and figure out where you need to be and what you’re interested in doing.”
As the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is the oldest continuously functioning appellate court in the western hemisphere, Budd said that there is an immense responsibility for her to lead by example. A year after the Supreme Judicial Court’s creation in 1692, the judiciary sat for the very first time on Jan. 3, 1693 in Salem to hear the cases of the 26 people accused of witchcraft, ignoring spectral evidence as unreliable.
“We’re known as a very good state Supreme Court that a lot of other states look to, and that’s been the case for a very long time,” Budd said. “The Supreme Judicial Court was the first state court to say that it’s unconstitutional to not allow same-sex marriages, so we’ve been on the forefront of things. It’s good to know that the court started as an organization that said ‘enough of this spectral evidence and witch trials. This is crazy — we’re going to come in and stop it.’ It’s a really cool way for it to start.”
In recent years, Budd has led state courts in efforts to make the legal process more transparent and easy to use, specifically for self-represented litigants. One way in which this has been done is through updates to the Supreme Judicial Court’s guidelines for civil cases with self-represented litigants, ensuring that judges help litigants to understand the rules and have access to resources.
“We’re here every day, but people who come in are not happy to be here, because they have some sort of problem,” Budd said. “It can be scary, so making sure that judges know the extent to which they can be helpful while not being unfair to the other side, is important for all of them to know.”
With incidents of ICE agents routinely detaining individuals at or immediately after court cases, Budd spoke to the work being done through state legislation such as the PROTECT Act to restrict ICE agents from making civil arrests in state courthouses without a judicial warrant.
“The Lunn decision, which was a Supreme Judicial Court case from 2017, says that court officers are not to impede, but also not assist (ICE),” Budd said. “You have to have an actual civil detainer and habeas corpus paperwork, you can’t just come in and grab somebody who’s in court. I know the state Legislature is working on legislation to make sure that ICE agents don’t come to court houses at all. It’s tricky.”
Budd also discussed the potential of artificial intelligence to be used in streamlining aspects of work for attorneys and courts, while being cognizant of the importance of using a closed system to ensure that only valid information from real cases is used to inform litigants and legal staff.
“We’re taking it slow to make sure that we don’t have any missteps,” Budd said. “We can’t afford to put out something that doesn’t have real cases in it, so we want to make sure that whatever programs we end up using are a closed system, so that stuff can’t be pulled from anywhere and made up. We want to have that assurance before we move headlong into it, but I think it’s important to test out.”
Michael McHugh can be contacted at mmchugh@northofboston.com or at 781-799-5202