Commonwealth v. Carter (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-091-16)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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-12043 COMMONWEALTH vs. MICHELLE CARTER. Suffolk. April 7, 2016. – July 1, 2016. Present: Gants, C.J., Spina, Cordy, Botsford, Duffly, Lenk, & Hines, JJ. Homicide. Youthful Offender Act. Grand Jury. Evidence, Grand jury proceedings. Practice, Criminal, Grand jury proceedings. Civil action commenced in the Supreme Judicial Court for the county of Suffolk on October 22, 2015. The case was reported by Botsford, J. Dana Alan Curhan (Joseph P. Cataldo with him) for the defendant. Shoshana E. Stern, Assistant District Attorney (Katie Cook Rayburn, Assistant District Attorney, with her) for the Commonwealth. Eva G. Jellison & David J. Nathanson, for Youth Advocacy Division of the Committee for Public Counsel Services & another, amici curiae, submitted a brief. CORDY, J. On February 6, 2015, the defendant, Michelle Carter, was indicted as a youthful offender under G. L. c. 119, § 54, on a charge of involuntary manslaughter after she, at the age of seventeen, encouraged Conrad Roy (the victim), then eighteen years of age, to commit suicide. To indict a juvenile as a youthful offender, the grand jury must hear evidence establishing probable cause that (1) the juvenile is between the ages of fourteen and eighteen at the time of the underlying offense; (2) the underlying offense, if committed by an adult, would be punishable by imprisonment in State prison; and (3) the underlying offense involves the infliction or threat of serious bodily harm. G. L. c. 119, § 54. The defendant moved in the Juvenile Court to dismiss the youthful offender indictment, arguing that the Commonwealth failed to present the grand jury with sufficient evidence of involuntary manslaughter and that the defendant’s conduct did not involve the infliction or threat of serious bodily harm. The motion was denied. The principal question we consider in this case is whether the evidence was sufficient to warrant the return of an indictment for involuntary manslaughter where the defendant’s conduct did not extend beyond words. We conclude that, on the evidence presented to the grand jury, the verbal conduct at issue was sufficient and, because a conviction of involuntary manslaughter is punishable by imprisonment in State prison and inherently involves the infliction of serious bodily harm, the grand jury properly returned an indictment under the youthful offender statute. Accordingly, we affirm the order of the Juvenile Court.[1] […]