In Commonwealth v. Ralph R (November 10, 2022), Attorney Wood on behalf of MACDL and Sara Silva of Hogan Lovells on behalf of the Center for Juvenile Justice, the New England Innocence Project, and the Korematsu Center for Law and Equality submitted an amicus brief that helped convince the Supreme Judicial Court to clarify that if there is any basis to suspect racial bias in jury deliberations, the trial judge has an independent duty to make an adequate inquiry to address the issue. Here, a juror reported during trial that “discriminating comments” were made. But the judge simply shrugged it off, saying “I have no idea” what the juror meant. The SJC made clear that the judge had an obligation to figure out what the juror meant, rather than turn a blind eye.