Former MassGOP Chair Among Baker’s Latest Judicial Nominees
FROM STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE
A longtime prosecutor with experience in narcotics and asset forfeiture would join the bench and a former MassGOP chair now serving a clerk magistrate role would move to a new court if Gov. Charlie Baker’s latest batch of judicial nominations are accepted. Baker on Wednesday nominated Jeremy Bucci to serve as a Superior Court justice, Kirsten Hughes as clerk magistrate of Boston Municipal Court’s South Boston Division, and Christopher Phillips as clerk magistrate of Boston Municipal Court’s Brighton Division.
Bucci has more than two decades of experience as a prosecutor after beginning his career in 2001 as an assistant district attorney in Suffolk County. From September 2008 to December 2010, he led the Suffolk County DA’s office’s narcotics and asset forfeiture unit. In 2011, Bucci became chief trial counsel for the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office, a role the UMass Amherst and Suffolk University Law School graduate holds today.
Hughes, a former Quincy city councilor, spent seven years as chairwoman of the Massachusetts Republican Party while working as an attorney at Palmucci Law.
In 2019, after current MassGOP Chairman Jim Lyons succeeded Hughes, Baker tapped her to serve as clerk magistrate in Stoughton District Court and she won the approval of the Governor’s Council with a 5-2 vote.
Before she joined the judiciary, Hughes worked as general counsel and special sheriff in the office of Norfolk County Sheriff Jerry McDermott. Phillips, the third and final nominee Baker named Wednesday, has served as assistant clerk magistrate in the Boston Municipal Court since 2006 and as the first assistant clerk since May 2020. He previously worked as a business manager and administrative assistant for the state Senate and in the UMass president’s office. – Chris Lisinski/SHNS
Incompetence rewarded. It’s their club but taxpayers get to to pay for it. I once applied for a state court job in a small suburban court many years back. The ones doing the interview were an affirmative action boss who lacked basic knowledge of her job. The other two were the children of 1970’s era politicians. The job went to an affirmative action hiree barely out of their teens. Hughes is keeping the tradition of incompetence going.
She was once on tv saying how successful she was in leading the state GOP. I guess candidates conceding elections less than a half hour after the polls close is her idea of good.