How do judges of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court / Joined 1999 / Active

Francis X. Spina

Justice, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Francis X. Spina is a Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, serving since 1999. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1946 · age 80
Tenure: Since 1999 · 26 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1999	Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court	–	–

Education

Amherst College

Judicial Record

In our data, Spina authored 418 published opinions for the court (2000–2016), plus 16 dissents and 18 concurrences. Most cited: Uno Restaurants, Inc. v. Boston Kenmore Realty Corp. (271 citations).

Published, precedential opinions from the CourtListener corpus. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge. 428 of these were attributed to Spina by a unique court-, date-, and surname-match against our roster (marked ), because CourtListener recorded no author for them. Each links to the official text to verify. How we match.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
2004	Uno Restaurants, Inc. v. Boston Kenmore Realty Corp.†	441 Mass. 376	271
2003	Goodridge v. Department of Public Health· Dissent†	440 Mass. 309	186
2003	Herbert A. Sullivan, Inc. v. Utica Mutual Insurance†	439 Mass. 387	175
2000	Abramian v. President & Fellows of Harvard College†	432 Mass. 107	168
2004	Commonwealth v. DiGiambattista· Dissent†	442 Mass. 423	167
2003	Kuwaiti Danish Computer Co. v. Digital Equipment Corp.†	438 Mass. 459	166
2013	Diatchenko v. District Attorney for the Suffolk District†	466 Mass. 655	159
2006	Commonwealth v. Acevedo†	446 Mass. 435	139
2014	Commonwealth v. Scott†	467 Mass. 336	135
2011	Doe v. Sex Offender Registry Board†	459 Mass. 603	135
2005	Commonwealth v. Lao†	443 Mass. 770	133
2000	Miller v. Mooney†	431 Mass. 57	130
2010	Commonwealth v. Vasquez· Dissent†	456 Mass. 350	127
2000	Commonwealth v. Bruno†	432 Mass. 489	124
2010	T.W. Nickerson, Inc. v. Fleet National Bank	456 Mass. 562	120

Showing the 15 most-cited of 452 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

How do judges of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.
Which court is Francis X. Spina on?: Francis X. Spina is a Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

See something wrong? Report an error. Fixes are logged in the corrections log.

26 years on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).