About the Author

I spent twenty years serving the Commonwealth as an associate justice of the Massachusetts Trial Court. In the early 1990s, I headed the Roxbury District Court in Boston, which handled the most drug, gun, and domestic violence cases in the state. Previously, I was a founding partner of the law firm Martin, Morse, Wylie & Kaplan; Commissioner of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination; Chair of Boston's Coordinating Council on Drug Abuse; Special Assistant to Senator Edward M. Kennedy; First Assistant U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts; and a trial attorney with the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.  I have also taught at Northeastern University School of Law and am currently an adjunct member of New England Law School's faculty.