Last week, everyone in Washington, D.C. was talking about the
invocation of "executive privilege," the ability of a
President to withhold information from, for example, an
investigation into Russian influence on the U.S. election.
Meanwhile, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
("SJC") considered, and then punted on, a different kind
of executive privilege: the absolute privilege of an executive to
defame others without liability.
The "Sigh-Paglia Matter"
The case, Edwards v. Commonwealth,
concerned former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and his brother-in-law,
Bernard Sigh. In 1993, Sigh pled guilty to spousal rape in
California. He later moved to Massachusetts, but did not register
as a sex offender. In 2006, the Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Board
("SORB") determined that Sigh should register. Sigh
challenged the determination, arguing that the crime of which he
was convicted in California was not a "like offense" to
rape under Massachusetts law,
