User:Jdang2019/sandbox

'''James Otis Sr. hoped that James Otis Jr.’s Harvard education prepared his participation in the respectable Boston community, and this expectation was fulfilled. James Otis Jr.’s Harvard education informed him about Massachusetts’s early legal codes and strengthened his view toward constitutional rights. ''' Otis graduated from Harvard in 1743 and rose to the top of the Boston legal profession. In 1760, he received a prestigious appointment as Advocate General of the Admiralty Court. He promptly resigned, however, when Governor Francis Bernard failed to appoint his father to the promised position of Chief Justice of the province's highest court; the position instead went to Otis' longtime opponent Thomas Hutchinson.

Otis then represented the merchants who were challenging the legality of the "writs of assistance" before the Superior Court, the predecessor of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. These writs enabled British authorities to enter any home with no advance notice, no probable cause, and no reason given.