E.C.O. v. Compton (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-040-13)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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‑11259 E.C.O.[1] vs. GREGORY JAMES COMPTON.[2] Essex. November 8, 2012. ‑ March 13, 2013. Present: Ireland, C.J., Spina, Cordy, Botsford, Gants, Duffly, & Lenk, JJ. Abuse Prevention. Due Process of Law, Abuse prevention. Consent. Complaint for protection from abuse filed in the Salem Division of the District Court Department on September 30, 2011. The case was heard by Michael C. Lauranzano, J. The Supreme Judicial Court on its own initiative transferred the case from the Appeals Court. Mark D. Engel for the defendant. Robert F. Peck (Henry Porter with him) for the plaintiff. Wendy M. Berg, Christina L. Paradiso, Edward M. Ginsburg, Jessica Woodman-Hardy, & Jeff N. Sakol, for Community Legal Aid, amicus curiae, submitted a brief. IRELAND, C.J. This case concerns whether a parent may seek an extension of an abuse prevention order under G. L. c. 209A to prevent his daughter, who was sixteen years of age, from voluntarily engaging in a sexual relationship with an adult.[3] Following a hearing before a District Court judge, an ex parte abuse prevention order obtained pursuant to G. L. c. 209A, § 4, by a father on behalf of his daughter against the defendant, Gregory James Compton, was extended for one year pursuant to G. L. c. 209A, § 3. The defendant appealed to the Appeals Court. He asserts that the evidence was insufficient to support a finding of abuse and that the order should not have been extended because he and the plaintiff were not in a “substantive dating relationship” as required by G. L. c. 209A, § 1 (e). We transferred the appeal to this court on our own initiative. Because there was no basis for the judge to conclude that the defendant’s conduct rose to the level of “abuse” as defined by G. L. c. 209A, § 1, the extension order must be vacated. 1. Facts. We recite the facts based on the record before us. See Caplan v. Donovan, 450 Mass. 463, 464 n.1, cert. denied, 553 U.S. 1018 (2008). In July, 2011, while traveling in Europe with her mother and grandmother, the daughter, who was sixteen years of age, met the defendant, a citizen of the United Kingdom who was twenty-four years of age. In conversation with the defendant, the daughter falsely indicated that she was born in 1992, thus making her eighteen or nineteen years […]