L.L., a juvenile v. Commonwealth (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-191-14)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports. If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557-1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us SJC-11721 L.L., a juvenile vs. COMMONWEALTH. Suffolk. September 3, 2014. – December 5, 2014. Present: Gants, C.J., Spina, Botsford, Cordy, & Hines, JJ. Sex Offender. Sex Offender Registration and Community Notification Act. Delinquent Child. Evidence, Juvenile delinquency, Sex offender. Supreme Judicial Court, Superintendence of inferior courts. Civil action commenced in the Supreme Judicial Court for the county of Suffolk on July 7, 2014. The case was reported by Spina, J. Beth L. Eisenberg, Committee for Public Counsel Services (Susan Oker, Committee for Public Counsel Services, with her) for the juvenile. Catherine Langevin Semel, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. Eric Tennen, for Children’s Law Center of Massachusetts & others, amici curiae, submitted a brief. BOTSFORD, J. After admitting to sufficient facts before a Juvenile Court judge with respect to two counts of indecent assault and battery on a person fourteen or older, the juvenile filed a motion seeking relief from the obligation to register as a sex offender pursuant to G. L. c. 6, § 178E (f) (§ 178E [f]). After ahearing, the judge denied the motion, thereby requiring the juvenile to register with the Sex Offender Registry Board (board). We consider here the juvenile’s petition for relief pursuant to G. L. c. 211, § 3. The principal issue he raises concerns the standard by which a Juvenile Court judge determines the risk of reoffense on the part of a juvenile under § 178E (f), an issue that this court considered in Commonwealth v. Ronald R., 450 Mass. 262, 267-268 (2007). We seek to provide additional guidance concerning that standard in this opinion. We affirm the order denying the juvenile’s motion for relief from registration. Background.[1] On the afternoon of May 9, 2013, the juvenile, who was then sixteen years old, approached an adult woman from behind as she was walking her dog in Lynn and pulled down the sweatpants she was wearing to her thighs. The juvenile then made a vulgar comment about the victim’s private parts, grabbed his own genitals, and ran away. The woman described her assailant to the Lynn police. Eight days later, on the afternoon of May 17, 2013, a different woman was walking four children home from school in Lynn when she felt the juvenile touch her buttocks and pull her […]