SOUTHAMPTON — An attorney with a Southampton law firm who previously served as an assistant district attorney for the Northwestern District Attorney’s office is being nominated to serve on the Massachusetts Superior Court.
Francis “Frank” E. Flannery, currently practicing at the Law Office of Parker & O’Grady, was nominated Wednesday by Gov. Charlie Baker to the position of associate justice of the state’s Superior Court, which has 82 justices who sit in 20 courthouses in each of the state’s 14 counties. The Superior Court has exclusive original jurisdiction of first degree murder cases and original jurisdiction of all other crimes.
Baker cited the more than two decades of experience Flannery brings as a former first assistant district attorney at the Hampden County District Attorney’s office and as the chief of Elders and Persons with Disabilities unit and assistant district attorney at the Northwestern District Attorney’s office.
“He has the knowledge and temperament to preside over the wide variety of important civil and criminal cases that come before the Superior Court and I am pleased to submit his name for the Governor’s Council’s advice and consent,” Baker said in making the nomination.
Flannery, who lives in Holyoke, earned his juris doctorate from Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, after earning a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Efforts to reach Flannery at his law office Wednesday were unsuccessful.
As Flannery gets nominated to the Superior Court, a public hearing on the nomination of Kevin V. Maltby as associate justice of the Northampton District Court is scheduled for 5 p.m. Thursday at the Moot Court Room at the Western New England School of Law in Springfield. A Springfield attorney, Maltby is a former assistant district attorney at the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office.
Mary Hurley, the governor’s councilor for the 8th District, which contains the Northampton court, said in a statement that district courts have been short of resources and that Maltby is sixth district court judge she will have seen move through the appointment since her tenure began Jan. 5, 2017.
Hurley noted that she is proud of her working relationship with the Baker administration.
“Together, we have expeditiously created a pool of qualified candidates to serve the citizens of western Massachusetts in the court system,” Hurley said.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
