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.

Like most residents and visitors, he enjoys a change of pace when he comes to the Vineyard.

But in nearly every other way, the Hon. Cornelius J. Moriarty 2nd is unlike most residents and visitors. An associate justice of the superior court, Judge Moriarty divides his time between Springfield and the Vineyard, sitting in both superior courts.

And when he is not presiding over a civil and criminal trial here, he might just as easily be found in his garden or at the beach with a saltwater fishing rod in his hand.

An Aquinnah man was arraigned Friday in Dukes County superior court on charges of second-degree murder and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon stemming from a fatal stabbing in Vineyard Haven last summer.

Ovando S. Eghill surrendered to authorities after a warrant for his arrest was issued in wake of Thursday’s grand jury indictments, which move the case up from district court to superior court.

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.

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.