On your right, look for the pale stone courthouse with a broad rectangular front, tall arched windows, and carved classical detailing around the entrance.
This is the John Adams Courthouse at One Pemberton Square, home to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the highest court in the Commonwealth. And yeah, that name is a mouthful, so people often call it the S-J-C. It is an appellate court, which just means it reviews decisions from lower courts instead of running everyday trials. The court likes to claim a pretty bold title: the oldest continuously functioning appellate court in the Americas. Pennsylvania disputes that, because of course it does, but Massachusetts can trace this court straight back to sixteen ninety-two, when Governor Sir William Phips created the old Superior Court of Judicature under the provincial charter.
John Adams is not just decoration on the building’s name. As a young lawyer, he defended Captain Thomas Preston after the Boston Massacre. The jury could not decide whether Preston had ordered the soldiers to fire, so he walked free. In the related trial, Rex v. Wemms and others, six soldiers were found not guilty, while two were convicted of manslaughter, meaning they killed without the legal finding of deliberate murder.
What makes this court fascinating is that it has pushed justice forward in some moments... and fumbled badly in others. In Commonwealth v. Nathaniel Jennison in seventeen eighty-three, it helped end slavery’s legal standing in Massachusetts by allowing enslaved people to sue for freedom. Boston lawyer John Lowell had promised he would work for any enslaved person for free, and that promise suddenly mattered. In Commonwealth v. Hunt in eighteen forty-two, the court ruled that labor unions were not automatically criminal conspiracies if they used lawful, nonviolent pressure. That gave workers room to organize without being treated like outlaws. But then, in Roberts v. Boston in eighteen fifty, the court upheld segregated schools, feeding the toxic idea later called “separate but equal.”
Then came Goodridge in two thousand three. The court ruled, by a four to three vote, that denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples violated the Massachusetts Constitution. When lawmakers asked if civil unions would be enough, the court said no... civil marriage was required. Massachusetts began issuing those licenses on the seventeenth of May, two thousand four.
Today, seven justices sit here: one chief justice and six associate justices, all appointed by the governor with consent from the Governor’s Council, and all serving until age seventy. If you want a face for the modern court, check the portrait of Chief Justice Kimberly S. Budd in the app.
For all its formal stone and measured language, this place has helped decide who gets power, protection, and dignity.
Take a moment here, and when you’re ready, we can head on to the next stop.
