Word: constitutionalizing
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Rewriting the Constitution
The three men convicted of murdering Andrew P. Puopolo '77 in 1976 will receive new trials after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided Thursday the prosecutor violated the Commonwealth constitution in the 1977 trial.
Henry F. Owens III, Allen's lawyer, called Judge Paul J. Lincos's 41-page majority opinion "a landmark decision, the first time in the history of the Commonwealth that our supreme judicial court has said that a peremptory challenge to exclude blacks systematically violates the constitution."
Justice Paul J. Liacos, who wrote the majority opinion for the seven-man court, stated that the prosecutor's misuse of peremptory challenges to eliminate jurors on the basis of race violated the Commonwealth constitution.
Owens said yesterday, "I am estatic. I am elated. This is a landmark decision, the first time in the history of the commonwealth that our supreme judicial court has said that a peremptory challenge to exclude blacks systematically violates the state constitution."