Council Confirms Four For Superior Court Posts

Healey Picks Will Plug Some Holes On Court

STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, AUG. 7, 2024…..The Governor’s Council on Wednesday confirmed four of Gov. Maura Healey’s picks for Superior Court justices: John Fraser, Keren Goldenberg, Matthew Nestor and Deepika Shukla.

All of the candidates secured unanimous approval, except Nestor, who Councilor Marilyn Devaney abstained from voting on. Devaney said she received calls and letters with concerns about the nominee, but that the process was too short for members of the public to weigh in.

The other four nominees each received the backing of all seven councilors.

Shukla, of Northampton, is chief of the U.S. Attorney’s office in Springfield, where she supervises cases in western Massachusetts and has represented the U.S. in prosecutions of violations of excessive force, hate crime, terrorism, fraud, and violent crime statutes, according to Healey’s office. She was previously a plaintiffs’ civil rights attorney at the Connecticut Fair Housing Center and in private practice.

Goldenberg, of Belmont, focuses on criminal defense cases at the Law Offices of Keren Goldenberg. She was previously a trial attorney with the Committee for Public Services (CPCS) in Lowell and with the Legal Aid Society of New York City. Healey’s office says Goldenberg is a member of the “murder list” for the CPCS and the Criminal Justice Act panel for the United States District Court in Boston.

Fraser, of Andover, is a co-founder and the manager at Fraser Law Office, where he practices criminal defense and civil litigation.

Nestor’s hearing was held seven days after Healey nominated him on July 17, which Devaney said was not enough time for members of the public and the council. Nominees fill out questionnaires to submit to the Governor’s Council, and Devaney said Wednesday that those surveys are due eight days before the hearing — which in this case was before he was nominated. She pointed to the questionnaire issue as an example of an ongoing trend of the council quickly moving nominees through the appointment process.

“There are people who wanted to speak in opposition to this nominee, but they didn’t know he was appointed, and they looked at the website to see who was going to have a hearing and they saw that this nominee’s name was up and his hearing was over,” Devaney said during Wednesday’s meeting.

Councilors last month called for Healey to quickly fill judicial vacancies, especially among the Superior Court, which has been stretched especially thin.

“One out of every seven full-time seats on the Superior Court bench is open,” Lawyers Weekly reported in June.

Devaney called for the council to delay their vote on Nestor for one week, but the vote continued on a Councilor Terrence Kennedy motion. Councilors Joseph Ferreira, Christopher Iannella, Eileen Duff, Terrence Kennedy, Paul DePalo and Tara Jacobs voted for Nestor’s nomination.

Nestor already serves on the bench, as a longtime District Court judge. The Reading resident oversaw the state securities division and was a civil litigator and assistant district attorney in Suffolk County earlier in his career.