Esteraz, petitioner
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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 15-P-660 Appeals Court JUSTO ESTERAZ, petitioner. No. 15-P-660. Suffolk. June 14, 2016. – September 22, 2016. Present: Trainor, Vuono, & Blake, JJ. Sex Offender. Evidence, Sex offender, Expert opinion, Scientific test. Practice, Civil, Sex offender, Waiver, Assistance of counsel. Waiver. Petition filed in the Superior Court Department on December 2, 2010. The case was tried before Merita A. Hopkins, J. Ethan C. Stiles for the petitioner. Melissa A. Juarez for the Commonwealth. BLAKE, J. After a trial in the Superior Court, the jury returned a verdict finding that the petitioner, Justo Esteraz, remained a sexually dangerous person (SDP) as defined by G. L. c. 123A, § 1. He appeals, arguing that the judge erred by failing to hold a Daubert/Lanigan hearing to determine the admissibility of the results of a risk assessment tool known as the Multisample Age-Stratified Table of Sexual Recidivism Rates (MATS-1), which purports to measure an individual’s likelihood to reoffend. See Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 592-595 (1993); Commonwealth v. Lanigan, 419 Mass. 15, 24-26 (1994). He also claims that his trial counsel was ineffective in his advocacy for the admission of the same evidence. We affirm, addressing, in our discretion, the question whether the MATS-1 evidence was directly admissible as part of the petitioner’s expert’s report. Background. The petitioner was civilly committed as an SDP on October 18, 2010. On December 2, 2010, he filed a petition for release and discharge pursuant to G. L. c. 123A, § 9. At the time of trial, the petitioner was a seventy-four year old man with a significant history of charged and uncharged crimes of sexual abuse spanning over four decades. The petitioner’s victims include three generations of young girls in his extended family, including his daughter, nieces, granddaughters, and step-granddaughters. His conduct has included fondling, vaginal and digital penetration, and oral sex. The petitioner’s criminal record includes four convictions in 1994 for sex crimes committed in Puerto Rico and four convictions in 2008 in Massachusetts for indecent assault and battery on a child under fourteen years of age. Pursuant to G. L. c. 123A, § 9, the petitioner was examined by two qualified examiners who prepared reports opining that the petitioner remained an SDP. Those reports explained that, despite the petitioner’s advanced age, his extensive and prolonged history of […]
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