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NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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 […]