Commonwealth v. Freeman, et al. (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-146-15)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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-11745 COMMONWEALTH vs. BRIAN FREEMAN & another.[1] Suffolk. February 4, 2015. – August 27, 2015. Present: Gants, C.J., Spina, Cordy, Botsford, Duffly, Lenk, & Hines, JJ. Jurisdiction, Superior Court, Juvenile Court. Superior Court, Jurisdiction. Juvenile Court, Jurisdiction. Constitutional Law, Equal protection of laws. Statute, Retroactive application. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on September 10, 2013. Questions of law were reported by Carol S. Ball, J. The Supreme Judicial Court granted an application for direct appellate review. Barbara Kaban, Committee for Public Counsel Services, for Micah Martin. Donna Jalbert Patalano, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. Craig R. Bartolomei, for Brian Freeman, was present but did not argue. Afton M. Templin, for Children’s Law Center of Massachusetts & another, amici curiae, submitted a brief. Lael E.H. Chester & Naoka Carey, for Citizens for Juvenile Justice & others, amici curiae, submitted a brief. DUFFLY, J. On June 12, 2013, the defendants, Brian Freeman and Micah Martin, both seventeen years of age, were arraigned in the Dorchester Division of the Boston Municipal Court Department on charges of unarmed robbery and assault and battery. Three months later, on September 10, 2013, a grand jury returned indictments against the defendants on the same charges. On September 18, 2013, the Governor signed “An Act expanding juvenile jurisdiction,” St. 2013, c. 84 (act), which, with certain exceptions, extended the jurisdiction of the Juvenile Court to children who are seventeen years of age at the time of committing an offense.[2] The act provides that “no criminal proceeding shall be begun against any person who prior to his eighteenth birthday commits an offense against the laws of the [C]ommonwealth . . . without first proceeding against him as a delinquent child.” G. L. c. 119, § 74, as amended through St. 2013, c. 84, §§ 25, 26. The defendants filed motions to dismiss, arguing that the act stripped the Superior Court of jurisdiction over their pending charges, and that the Juvenile Court therefore had sole jurisdiction. The defendants argued that the act should be applied retroactively to seventeen year old defendants who had criminal charges pending against them as of the act’s effective date, and that a failure to apply the act retroactively as to such defendants would violate the equal protection guarantees provided by […]
Commonwealth v. Freeman (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-057-15)
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 14-P-172 Appeals Court COMMONWEALTH vs. RONALD FREEMAN. No. 14-P-172. Middlesex. December 4, 2014. – June 3, 2015. Present: Kafker, Grainger, & Agnes, JJ. Controlled Substances. Practice, Criminal, Motion to suppress. Constitutional Law, Search and seizure. Probable Cause. Search and Seizure, Probable cause, Threshold police inquiry, Reasonable suspicion. Threshold Police Inquiry. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on January 17, 2012. A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Garry V. Inge, J. An application for leave to prosecute an interlocutory appeal was allowed by Francis X. Spina, J., in the Supreme Judicial Court for the county of Suffolk, and the appeal was reported by him to the Appeals Court. Eric A. Haskell, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. Rebecca Kiley, Committee for Public Counsel Services, for the defendant. AGNES, J. This is an interlocutory appeal arising out of indictments charging the defendant, Ronald Freeman, with unlawful possession of heroin with the intent to distribute in violation of G. L. c. 94C, § 32(a), second or subsequent offense, G. L. c. 94C, § 32(b); and unlawful possession of heroin in a school zone in violation of G. L. c. 94C, § 32J. The sole question presented for our consideration is whether the observation of an exchange between two men in the street made by an experienced narcotics investigator provided him with probable cause to believe a drug transaction had occurred. Based on the investigator’s observation of two men on a street corner counting money, one of whom was known to be a drug user, the nature of the exchange that took place moments later between one of those two men and the defendant, and the location in which the events took place, we conclude the detective had probable cause to make an arrest. We therefore reverse the order allowing the defendant’s motion to suppress. Background. On July 26, 2011, at approximately 6:30 P.M., Detective Brian Hussey, an experienced narcotics investigator, was conducting surveillance with his partner, Detective Kevin Donofrio, in an area of Cambridge bordering Cambridgeport and Central Square. Within the past two months, there had been more than a dozen reports of increased drug activity in that area. The location is a densely populated residential area with numerous small businesses and parks. Detective Hussey initially observed two men, […]