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Desrosiers v. Governor of Massachusetts and the Legality of Governor Baker’s COVID-19 Emergency Orders

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2021

Kimberly Flores
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Type
Recent Case Developments
Information
American Journal of Law & Medicine , Volume 46 , Issue 4 , November 2020 , pp. 502 - 505
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics and Boston University 2020

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References

1 Brief of Defendant-Appellee at 17, Desrosiers v. Governor of Mass., No. SJC-12983 (Mass. July, 28, 2020).

2 Mass. Dept. of Pub. Health, Coronavirus Disease Cases in Ma (Mar. 10, 2020).

3 Mass. Dept. of Pub. Health, Coronavirus Disease Cases in Ma (Apr. 16, 2020).

4 Brief of Defendant-Appellee, supra note 1, at 20.

5 Id. at 20-1.

6 Id.

7 Id. at 15.

8 Margaret Monsell, Legislature punted on emergency powers issue in 2009, COMMONWEALTH (Oct. 7, 2020), https://commonwealthmagazine.org/opinion/legislature-punted-on-emergency-powers-issue-in-2009/ [https://perma.cc/XQ6B-YETU].

9 Massachusetts Civil Defense Act, 1950 Mass. Acts 639.

10 Steph Solis, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to hear arguments on Gov. Charlie Baker’s COVID-19 executive orders, MASSLIVE (updated Sept. 11, 2020), https://www.masslive.com/coronavirus/2020/09/massachusetts-supreme-judicial-court-to-hear-arguments-on-gov-charlie-bakers-covid-19-executive-orders.html [https://perma.cc/AHX8-Q6CQ].

11 Brief of Defendant-Appellee, supra note 1, at 17.

12 Id. at 15-16.

13 Id. at 34.

14 Id. at 23.

15 Id.

16 Id. at 34.

17 Jeff Jacoby, Courts find pandemic orders unlawful in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Will the SJC do the same?, BOS. GLOBE (Oct. 11, 2020), https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/10/11/opinion/courts-find-pandemic-orders-unlawful-michigan-pennsylvania-will-sjc-do-same/ [https://perma.cc/KB2F-5Z48].

18 Oral Argument at 02:00, Desrosiers v. Governor of Mass., (No. SJC-12983), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDrQrwFXHU4 [https://perma.cc/U67M-EGUU].

19 Id.at 04:20.

20 Id. at 09:00.

21 Id. at 40:50.

22 Id. at 41:48.

23 Id. at 16:41.

24 Jacoby, supra note 17.

25 Id.

26 Id.

27 Id.; see also Opinion of Justices, 315 Mass. 761, 762 (Mass. 1944).

28 Associated Press, Judge strikes down Pennsylvania virus policies, POLITICO (Sept. 14, 2020), https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/14/judge-strikes-down-pennsylvania-virus-policies-414489 [https://perma.cc/4TVL-BP42].

29 Martha Bebinger, Palpable Anxiety for Health Care Workers as COVID-19 Cases Rise in Massachusetts, WBUR (Oct. 26, 2020), https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2020/10/26/stress-anxiety-coronavirus-second-wave [https://perma.cc/23HT-S4UY].

30 Reopening Massachusetts, https://www.mass.gov/info-details/reopening-massachusetts (last visited Dec. 21, 2020) [https://perma.cc/D52Y-DMWF].

31 Id. (“Red” communities are those with an average daily COVID-19 case rate of greater than 8 per 100,000).

32 Id.

33 63 Communities Now at High Risk for Coronavirus in Massachusetts, CBS BOS. (Oct. 14, 2020 at11:59 p.dm.), https://boston.cbslocal.com/2020/10/14/63-communities-high-risk-for-coronavirus-in-massachusetts/ [https://perma.cc/PD2T-D8ER].

34 Oral Argument at 41:48, Desrosiers, (No. SJC-12983).

35 de Wilde, Marc, The Dictator’s Trust: Regulating and Constraining Emergency Powers in the Roman Republic, 33 Hist. Pol. Thought 4, 555 (Jan. 1, 2012).Google Scholar

36 Id. at 556.

37 Id. at 560 n. 17 (“Andrew Lintott refers to an unspecified example of a dictator who was prosecuted after leaving office, which, he suggests, may illustrate the general principle that a dictator was not immune from his actions while in the dictator role”).