The spring sitting of the Dukes County superior court begins next week, with a criminal trial for a Vineyard Haven man charged with rape on the docket.

An Oak Bluffs man has been sentenced to five years in state prison on charges including drug trafficking.

The state Supreme Judicial Court has reversed a Dukes County superior court judge’s decision to throw out an indictment against a Vineyard Haven man. The case returns to court for trial this fall.

The spring sitting of Dukes County superior court opens this week with a mix of cases, including one civil case that pits an Edgartown property owner against the town historic district commission.

The fall sitting of Dukes County superior court is scheduled to begin Monday.

The Vanderhoop fishing shack in Menemsha has been the subject of an emotional year-long debate in Aquinnah. The case involves a tangle of small town relationships as well as laws pertaining to property rights and contracts.

The fall sitting of the Dukes County superior court begins next Monday at the Edgartown courthouse.

The Hon. Cornelius J. Moriarty 2nd, an associate justice of the superior court, will preside over the session. A new grand jury convenes on Monday.

Several civil trials are on the schedule. The schedule is light on criminal matters, with jury trials scheduled for the end of the month for Darryl B. Baptiste and Patrece L. Petersen.

A six-year-old public-private project that was aimed at creating affordable housing and an expanded area of conservation land in Chilmark has landed in Dukes County superior court. The project dates to 2007 and involves the town, the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank and the Howard B. Hillman family.

The question of whether claims of sovereignty entitle the Wampanoag
Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) to skirt local and state laws will be
decided in Dukes County superior court, rather than a federal district
court in Boston where lawyers for the tribe wanted the case tried.

Closing a chapter in the landmark sovereignty case, the Wampanoag
Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) this week agreed to submit town permit
applications for the shed and pier it built on Menemsha Pond in 2001.

The announcement comes at a time of renewed cooperation and
communication between the town and tribe, and marks a significant moment
in the long-running case that has garnered widespread attention and
reached the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.