Do you ever wonder why a 5-year-old girl was placed with a father who had a history of violent crimes? This is the question that has been nagging at us since Harmony Montgomery's tragic death. The highest court in Massachusetts, the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC), is about to hear a case that could shed some light on this mystery.

The case involves records from a custody hearing in 2019. This hearing decided that Harmony's father, Adam Montgomery, should have custody of her, even though he had a criminal record. Ten months later, Harmony was dead. Her father was found guilty of her murder and is now in prison.

A journalist, Bill Lichtenstein, has been trying to get these records for over a year. He wants to know what really happened at the custody hearing. He thinks the public has a right to know too. The SJC will hear arguments about whether these records should be made public. They might take weeks or even months to make a decision.

The question is, why did the judge make this decision? Was it a mistake? Or was there something we don't know? The SJC's decision could help us understand what went wrong and how we can prevent similar tragedies in the future.

The case has raised a lot of questions about the child welfare system in Massachusetts. A report from the Massachusetts Office of the Child Advocate said that the lawyer for the Department of Children and Families (DCF) didn't do a good job of arguing against Adam Montgomery having custody.

This case is a big deal. It's about more than just Harmony's death. It's about how the system that's supposed to protect children can sometimes fail. We should be paying attention.

The Mystery Behind Harmony Montgomery's Custody Hearing

In a unanimous decision, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that the possession of switchblade knives can no longer be considered a criminal offense under the Second Amendment.

This ruling follows the US Supreme Court's Bruen and Heller rulings, which established a legal test for determining whether current laws banning weapons as dangerous would have existed when the nation was founded and when the Second Amendment was adopted in 1791. The court overturned a 1957 law banning the knives, citing the widespread presence of knives and swords in 18th-century Massachusetts.

Justice Serge Georges Jr. wrote that folding pocketknives, including switchblades, were commonly possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes around the time of the founding, making their carrying protected by the Second Amendment. The ruling also cited the Bruen ruling, which protects a person’s right to carry a gun in public for self-defense.

The law at issue made it a crime to possess a switch knife or any knife having an automatic spring release device. The case involved David E. Canjura, who was prosecuted for possession of a dangerous weapon after police found an orange firearm-shaped knife with a spring-assisted blade on him. Canjura’s lawyers argued that switchblades constitute ‘bearable arms’ within the protection of the Second Amendment, leading to the SJC’s decision.

This decision has sparked debate on the regulation of weapons, with prosecutors arguing for regulation or bans due to the dangerous nature of switchblades. However, the SJC disagreed, stating that regulation of weapons is only allowed when they are ‘consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of arms regulation’. Massachusetts is now one of only seven states, along with the District of Columbia, that ban switchblades, making this decision a significant victory for for Second Amendment advocates.