In Nichols v. Chief of Police of Natick, 94 Mass. App. Ct. 739 (2019), discussed below, the point was made that an appeal of a licensing authority's denial of an application for license to carry is limited to whether the authority acted reasonably in determining that an applicant is “unsuitable”--not whether the judge deciding the appeal reaches a different conclusion. Stated differently, to overturn the licensing authority, a reviewing judge must concluding that the licensing authority's denial was “arbitrary, capricious, or an abuse of discretion."
In Chief of Police of Wakefield v. DeSisto (Massachusetts Appeals Court No. 20-P-1052, June 21, 2021), the licensing authority denied Adam DeSisto's a license to carry based upon some scant and remote drug activity. A reviewing judge “evaluated the evidence and decided that it was ‛too thin' and ‛too stale' to [demonstrate that DeSisto posed] a . . . risk [to the public].” Nevertheless, the Appeals Court took the position that the licensing authority acted reasonably and that the reviewing judge acted impermissibly in substituting her judgment for that of the licensing authority.
Perhaps had the reviewing judge characterized the “evidence” the licensing authority relied upon as insufficient of itself to lead to a conclusion of unsuitability (given other evidence of consistent gainful employment and lack of any other evidence of unsuitability) and thus the determination of the licensing authority amounted to an abuse of discretion, the Appeals Court may have considered the matter differently.
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