When Massachusetts Increased the Juvenile Court Jurisdiction to Include 17-Year-Olds, it also created a defense to every existing adult court case involving 17-year- olds whose cases were still pending on the effective date of the new legislation

On September 18, 2013, An Act to Expand Juvenile Jurisdiction, Increase Public Safety and Protect Children from Harm was signed into law by Governor Deval Patrick. St. 2013, c. 84 (https://malegislature.gov/Laws/Acts/2013), extending the Juvenile Court’s jurisdiction to all individuals up to and including the age of 17. Prior to the enactment of this law, 17 year olds in Massachusetts were prosecuted under adult court jurisdiction.

Attorney Steven J. Topazio[1], an experienced and accomplished criminal defense attorney who has been representing individuals in Massachusetts for over 28 years, supports the proposition that the new law should apply retroactively to 17 year old defendants who allegedly committed offenses before the passage of the act. 

Attorney Topazio believes a challenge (with the filing of a Motion to Dismiss) should be made to a District Court’s or the Boston Municipal Court’s ongoing jurisdiction on all cases involving 17 year olds whose cases were still pending on the effective date of the Legislation.  As a matter of law and basic fairness these cases should be heard in juvenile court.

Section 34 of the Act explicitly states:

“This Act shall take effect upon its passage.” In further support of the fact that the Act was effective as of September 18, 2013 is the following: the new law qualifies as one of several exceptions available in the Massachusetts Constitution to the 90 day waiting period for the implementation of a new law. See Constitution of Massachusetts – Amendments, Art. 48: The Referendum; Section I. When Statutes shall take effect (“No law passed by the General Court ...shall take effect earlier than ninety days …expecting laws declared to be emergency laws and laws which may not be made the subject of a referendum petition”). Section III. Referendum Petitions, Section 2: Excluded matters – (“No law that relates to …the powers, creation or abolition of courts …shall be the subject of a referendum petition”). The Act to Expand Juvenile Jurisdiction, Increase Public Safety and Protect Children from Harm affects the powers of the courts and, therefore, it is effective immediately.

LEGISLATIVE INTENT:

The Act’s purpose is to expand juvenile court jurisdiction to include 17 year olds because doing so protects 17 year olds from harm and reduces recidivism.  Testimony in support of the legislation repeatedly addressed these issues.[2]  

The legislative intent nevertheless supports a finding that the Act applies to pending cases.  When ascertaining the intent of the Legislature, courts look not only to the words of the statute, but also to “the mischief or imperfection to be remedied and the main object to be accomplished to the end that the purpose of its framers may be effectuated.”  Hanlon v. Rollins, 286 Mass. 444, 447 (1934).  The “mischief to be remedied” in this instance is proceeding against 17 year olds in the criminal justice system as if they were adults.

ACT APPLIES RETROACTIVELY:

It is well-settled law that the Legislature’s intent for a statute to apply retroactively, even if not explicitly stated, may be discerned from the subject matter, the pre-existing state of the law and the effect upon existing rights, remedies, and obligations.  Hanscom v. Malden & Melrose Gas Light Co., 220 Mass 1, (1914); Commonwealth v. Maloney, 447 Mass. 577 (2006).  As indicated, the primary objective of the Act is to protect 17 year olds from the harm that arises out of adult prosecution and adult incarceration.  There was strong bipartisan support in the Legislature to include 17 year olds among the adolescents subject to juvenile court jurisdiction.  This support was informed by research findings which documented that prosecuting 17 year olds as adults and incarcerating them in adult facilities increases recidivism and subjects juveniles to victimization by adult inmates.  Applying the new law retroactively accomplishes the legislative intent to put an immediate end to such negative outcomes for 17 year olds in Massachusetts.

Therefore, excluding 17 year olds whose cases were still pending on the effective date of the Legislation is inconsistent with the manifest intent of the legislation and repugnant to its context.  See Sullivan v. Town of Brookline, 435 Mass. 353, 360 (2001)(“A fundamental tenet of statutory interpretation is that statutory language should be given effect consistent with the plain meaning and in light of the aim of the Legislation unless to do so would achieve an illogical result.”)  Subjecting 17 year olds with pending cases to incarceration in adult facilities produces an illogical result that is inconsistent with the Act’s ameliorative purposes. Id.

Statutes generally operate prospectively “unless [its] observance would involve a construction inconsistent with the manifest intent of the law-making body or repugnant to the context of the same statute.”  Commonwealth v. Galvin, 466 Mass. 286, 287 (2013), quoting G.L. c. 4 § 6.   Where, as here, a statute does not explicitly address the retroactivity question, it may be applied to pending cases.  See Commonwealth v. Maloney, 447 Mass. 577, 585 (2006)(“because the Legislature clearly knew how to make [the amended statute] purely prospective in application and did not do so, it is proper to apply [it] in the present [pending] case.”)  Further, given that the Act is effective immediately, the legislation mandates prompt procedural changes in the treatment of 17 year olds charged with violating the criminal laws of the Commonwealth.

See News Group Boston Inc. V. Commonwealth, 409 Mass 627, 630 (1991)(“statutory procedural changes properly apply to pending cases and to trials that concern events occurring before the enactment of the change”); Commonwealth v. Greenberg, 339 Mass. 557, 578-579 (1959)(“statutes relating merely to the remedy or procedure which do not affect substantive rights are generally held to operate retroactively”); contrast Nassar v. Commonwealth, 341 Mass 584 (1961)(amendment to statute which now provided that a 2nd degree murder against a juvenile had to be dealt with as a delinquent matter in the first instance instead of as a criminal matter was not retroactive because the change was sufficiently substantive and there was inadequate Legislative history to provide any affirmative indication to Legislative intent to do otherwise).

Nothing in the text or history of this Act suggests the Legislature intended to exclude 17 year olds with pending cases form its ameliorative purposes.  It is illogical and inconsistent with Legislative intent to deprive 17 year olds with pending cases from the procedural protections afforded seventeen year olds charged with offenses that occurred after September 18, 2013.  See Fleet National Bank v. Commissioner of Revenue, 448 Mass 441, 448 (2007) (“Courts must ascertain the intent of the statute from all its parts and from the subject matter to which it relates, and must interpret the statute so as to render the legislation effective, consonant with sound reason and common sense.”). “Whether a statutory enactment applies prospectively or retrospectively is a question of legislative intent. See Moakley v. Eastwick, 423 Mass. 52 , 57 (1996). As a general matter, "all statutes are prospective in their operation, unless an intention that they shall be retrospective appears by necessary implication from their words, context or objects when considered in the light of the subject matter, the pre-existing state of the law and the effect upon existent rights, remedies and obligations. Doubtless all legislation commonly looks to the future, not to the past, and has no retroactive effect unless such effect manifestly is required by unequivocal terms. It is only statutes regulating practice, procedure and evidence, in short, those relating to remedies and not affecting substantive rights, that commonly are treated as operating retroactively, and as applying to pending actions or causes of action." Hanscom v. Malden & Melrose Gas Light Co., 220 Mass. 1 , 3 (1914).” Fleet Nat’l Bank v. Revenue, supra at 448,449.

EQUAL PROTECTION VIOLATION

Excluding 17 year olds from the protective ambit of the statute and not treating them as juvenile offenders may also violate the juvenile’s equal protection and due process rights.  State action violates equal protection rights if it subjects persons to classification resulting in different treatment.  Commonwealth v. Bastarache, 382 Mass. 86, 96 (1980).  Excluding 17 year olds with pending cases from the protections of the Act creates a classification resulting in different treatment for a cohort of 17 year olds that serves no public interest and is not rationally related to a legitimate state interest.  See Commonwealth v. Arment, 412 Masss. 55, 63 (1992); Lowell v. Kowalski, 380 Mass. 663, 666(1980). 

[2] State Representative James O’Day who co-sponsored the Act said he supported the change because it reduces recidivism by “giving the state the opportunity to provide drug treatment, psychological counseling and educational services to 17-year-olds without their being influenced by older criminals in prison.” See http://www.mass.gov/governor/pressoffice/pressreleases/2013/0918-juvenile-jurisdiction-legislation.html. Chief Justice of the Juvenile Court, Michael Edgerton, supported the Act to raise the age of juvenile court jurisdiction to include 17 year olds, because it is the “proper setting for 17-year olds, .”  He noted that, under Massachusetts law, youths under the age of 18 cannot “run for office, vote, drink alcohol or adopt.  The Legislature determined they are not mature enough to support those decisions.  Yet, in the court system we treat them as adults.”  See www.telegram.com/article/20130918/NEWS.