Case Title: Nicholas-Taylor v. Commonwealth

Citation: 

Docket Number: SJC-13206

State: massachusetts

Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Date: 2022-08-30T00:00:00Z

Document:
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SJC-13206 
 
MALIKAI NICHOLAS-TAYLOR  vs.  COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 
 
Suffolk.     May 4, 2022. - August 30, 2022. 
 
Present:  Budd, C.J., Gaziano, Cypher, Kafker, Wendlandt, & 
Georges, JJ. 
 
 
Bail.  Pretrial Detention.  Department of Youth Services.  
Sheriff.  Homicide.  Assault with Intent to Rob.  Practice, 
Criminal, Trial of indictments together.  Statute, 
Construction. 
 
 
 
 
Civil action commenced in the Supreme Judicial Court for 
the county of Suffolk on October 25, 2021. 
 
 
The case was heard by Lowy, J. 
 
 
 
Melissa Allen Celli (Jason Benzaken & Moira C. Barry also 
present) for the petitioner. 
 
Laura A. McLaughlin, Assistant District Attorney, for the 
Commonwealth. 
 
Taylor Henley, Committee for Public Counsel Services, for 
youth advocacy division of the Committee for Public Counsel 
Services & another, amici curiae, submitted a brief. 
 
Katherine W. Briggs, for Department of Youth Services, 
amicus curiae, submitted a brief. 
 
 
 
2 
GEORGES, J.  We are asked to decide whether, where a 
juvenile defendant1 has been charged with murder and a nonmurder 
offense, properly joined pursuant to Mass. R. Crim. P. 9 (a), 
378 Mass. 859 (1979), a Superior Court judge has discretion to 
craft a bail order releasing the defendant on personal 
recognizance on the murder charge, and ordering the defendant to 
be held without bail on the related nonmurder charge, such that 
the defendant may continue to be held by the Department of Youth 
Services (DYS) after his eighteenth birthday.  Here, the 
defendant,2 who was sixteen years old at the time of the offense, 
is charged with murder in the first degree and armed assault 
with intent to rob.  A Superior Court judge concluded that she 
lacked the discretion to craft such a bail order and committed 
the defendant to the custody of the sheriff pursuant to G. L. 
c. 119, § 68.  The defendant filed a petition in the county 
court challenging the judge's determination and seeking 
extraordinary relief pursuant to G. L. c. 211, § 3; a single 
justice denied the petition.  Because we conclude that, under 
the plain language of G. L. c. 119, § 68, a juvenile defendant 
 
 
1 A "juvenile defendant" in this context is a defendant who 
was under the age of eighteen at the time of the commission of 
the offense, regardless of whether the defendant attains the age 
of eighteen prior to trial.  See G. L. c. 119, §§ 54, 72. 
 
 
2 Although Malikai Nicholas-Taylor commenced this action by 
filing a petition in the county court, for convenience, we refer 
to him as the defendant. 
 
3 
who is charged with murder and a properly joined nonmurder 
offense must be committed to the custody of the sheriff if the 
defendant is not released on bail, we affirm.3 
 
1.  Background.  a.  Factual allegations.  We summarize the 
facts alleged in the Commonwealth's "statement of the case," 
which was filed in the Superior Court when the defendant was 
arraigned. 
 
On July 21, 2020, at approximately 3:16 P.M., Stoughton 
police received a 911 telephone call for shots fired in the area 
of Jones Terrace.  When officers arrived at the scene, they 
observed the victim, Christian Vines, in his vehicle, alone and 
unresponsive.  He was transported to a hospital, where he was 
pronounced dead.  An autopsy revealed that the cause of death 
was gunshot wounds to the right arm and chest. 
Surveillance video footage from a nearby library, taken at 
the time of the shooting, showed the victim sitting alone in his 
vehicle when two individuals, one of whom later was identified 
as the defendant, and the other as codefendant Jaylen Wallace, 
left a house on Park Street and walked directly across the 
street into the parking lot of the building where the victim's 
vehicle was parked.  As the two reached the vehicle, Wallace 
 
 
3 We acknowledge the amicus brief and supplemental letter 
submitted by the Committee for Public Counsel Services, Youth 
Advocacy Division, and the Massachusetts Association of Criminal 
Defense Lawyers; and the amicus letter submitted by DYS. 
 
4 
attempted to enter it through the rear passenger's side door.  
He then retrieved what seemed to be a firearm from the area of 
his waist.  Wallace pushed his upper torso and arms into the 
passenger compartment through a partially open window.  After a 
few seconds, he pulled away from the window and ran from the 
vehicle.  Behind Wallace, the defendant ran in the same 
direction. 
Law enforcement officers later determined that Wallace had 
arranged to purchase marijuana from the victim using the online 
application Snapchat.  State police also received a tip from a 
resident on Park Street that the defendant had been with Wallace 
at the time of the shooting.  Several witnesses testified before 
a grand jury that the defendant, Wallace, and others had been at 
the Park Street home of Tyleke Curry during the previous evening 
and the early morning hours of July 21, 2020.  Photographs and 
video recordings extracted from Curry's and Wallace's cellular 
telephones showed Curry and Wallace in Curry's bedroom holding 
firearms; one of the weapons was a .40 caliber handgun. 
Another resident of Curry's building testified before the 
grand jury that the defendant had been on the side porch of the 
building minutes after the shooting, and that he left before 
police arrived at the scene.  Call detail records from the 
defendant's cellular telephone indicated that the device had 
been in the area of the building at that time; surveillance 
 
5 
video footage from a nearby convenience store showed the 
defendant in that store shortly after the shooting. 
b.  Prior proceedings.  A grand jury indicted the defendant 
on charges of murder, G. L. c. 265, § 1, and armed assault with 
intent to rob, G. L. c. 265, § 18 (b), on a theory of joint 
venture.  At the time of his arraignment, in February of 2021, 
the defendant was seventeen years old.4  He pleaded not guilty, 
and a Superior Court judge ordered that he be held without bail.  
Because the Norfolk County sheriff does not have facilities to 
hold an individual who is under the age of eighteen separate 
from the adult population, as required by the Juvenile Justice 
and Delinquency Prevention Act, 34 U.S.C. §§ 11101 et seq. 
(JJDPA), formerly 42 U.S.C. §§ 5601 et seq.,5 the defendant was 
held by DYS "as a courtesy."  At the arraignment, the 
Commonwealth moved to join the two indictments pursuant to Mass. 
R. Crim. P. 9 (a); the judge subsequently allowed the motion in 
March of 2021. 
In advance of his eighteenth birthday, at which time he 
would no longer be required to be held separately from adult 
 
 
4 On the day of the shooting, the defendant was sixteen 
years old. 
 
 
5 The JJDPA "provides financial assistance to States, based 
on compliance with enumerated conditions, for juvenile justice 
programs."  Commonwealth v. Florence F., 429 Mass. 523, 527 
(1999). 
 
6 
inmates, the defendant filed a motion that the bail order be 
modified so that he could remain in DYS custody after he turned 
eighteen.  The defendant proposed, and DYS initially agreed, 
that although he could not remain in DYS custody on the murder 
charge after he turned eighteen, he could remain in DYS custody 
on the charge of armed assault with intent to rob.  On the basis 
of representations by DYS at the hearing on the defendant's 
motion, the judge ordered that the defendant be released on 
personal recognizance on the murder charge but that he continue 
to be held by DYS without bail on the assault charge. 
DYS subsequently notified the Superior Court, however, that 
it had been mistaken and that, although the defendant had "done 
very well in [DYS] programs," in DYS's view, the defendant could 
not remain in its custody -- either on the murder indictment or 
on any nonmurder indictment that had been joined with it -- 
without violating the "sight and sound" separation requirements 
of the JJDPA, see, e.g., 34 U.S.C. § 11133(a)(11)(B), because 
the charge of armed assault with intent to rob was "part of the 
totality of the conduct related to the murder charge for which 
he has been indicted as an adult."  DYS maintained that it could 
continue to hold the defendant in connection with a separate 
juvenile proceeding, if the defendant were released on personal 
recognizance with respect to the murder indictment and any 
related indictments that had been joined pursuant to Mass. R. 
 
7 
Crim. P. 9 (a).  DYS recognized as well that the applicability 
of the Federal "sight and sound" separation requirements to an 
individual in the defendant's position was "an issue of first 
impression that ha[s] not been litigated." 
In response, the Commonwealth moved to have the defendant 
held without bail at an adult facility on both charges.  After a 
hearing in October 2021, the motion judge vacated her prior 
ruling and ordered that the defendant be held without bail in a 
house of correction on both charges.  At the hearing, the judge 
explained that she felt "obligated" to vacate her prior order 
due to the "statutory constriction and the case law." 
The defendant filed a petition in the county court pursuant 
to G. L. c. 211, § 3; he argued that the Superior Court judge 
erred in concluding that DYS could not continue to hold him, and 
that the judge had the discretion to order that he be held in 
DYS custody on the assault charge notwithstanding that he also 
has been charged with murder and even though the two indictments 
have been joined.  The single justice denied the petition, and 
the defendant appealed. 
2.  Discussion.  a.  Standard of review.  We review a 
decision of a single justice pursuant to G. L. c. 211, § 3, for 
clear error of law or abuse of discretion.  See Commonwealth v. 
Herring, 489 Mass. 569, 573 (2022); Brangan v. Commonwealth, 477 
Mass. 691, 697 (2017).  Where relief is sought from a Superior 
 
8 
Court judge's bail order, "[w]e must also consider the propriety 
of the Superior Court judge's underlying . . . order."  Brangan, 
supra.  "In reviewing both the single justice's judgment and the 
bail judge's order, we must consider the legal rights at issue 
and independently determine and apply the law, without deference 
to their respective legal rulings."  Id., citing Boston Herald, 
Inc. v. Sharpe, 432 Mass. 593, 603 (2000). 
b.  Statutory interpretation.  Questions of statutory 
interpretation are questions of law that we review de novo.  
Commonwealth v. Diggs, 475 Mass. 79, 81 (2016).  "Our task is to 
interpret the statute according to the intent of the Legislature 
ascertained from all its words construed by the ordinary and 
approved usage of the language, considered in connection with 
the cause of its enactment, 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" (quotation and 
citation omitted).  Id. 
"[T]he meaning of a statute must, in the first instance, be 
sought in the language in which the act is framed, and if that 
is plain, . . . the sole function of the courts is to enforce it 
according to its terms."  Commonwealth v. Soto, 476 Mass. 436, 
438 (2017), quoting Commonwealth v. Dalton, 467 Mass. 555, 557 
(2014).  "Where the language is clear and unambiguous, it is to 
be given its ordinary meaning, . . . and it is conclusive as to 
 
9 
the intent of the Legislature" (quotations and citations 
omitted).  Soto, supra. 
General Laws c. 119, § 68, provides in relevant part: 
"A person who at the time of the offense had attained the 
age of fourteen but had not attained the age of [eighteen], 
and who is charged with murder in the first or second 
degree and is held by the superior court for trial or 
continuance, or for indictment and trial, if unable to 
furnish bail, shall be committed by the court to the 
custody of the sheriff of the county in which the court is 
situated . . . ." 
There is no dispute that under G. L. c. 119, § 68, a juvenile 
offender charged only with murder, and whom a Superior Court 
judge orders held pending trial,6 must be committed to the 
custody of the sheriff.  The question here is whether the 
Legislature intended the addition of a nonmurder charge to give 
the Superior Court discretion it otherwise lacks to commit 
juvenile offenders charged with murder to the custody of DYS, 
rather than to the custody of the sheriff. 
 
Nothing in the text of G. L. c. 119, § 68, indicates that 
the Legislature intended such a result.  To the contrary, the 
language of G. L. c. 119, § 68, is clear:  if a juvenile 
offender is charged with murder and held pending trial, he or 
 
 
6 As with an adult defendant charged with murder in the 
first degree, a judge making a bail determination has the 
discretion to decide whether to release a juvenile offender 
charged with murder on personal recognizance, to set bail, or to 
order that the juvenile be held without bail pending trial.  See 
Vasquez v. Commonwealth, 481 Mass. 747, 752-753 (2019). 
 
10 
she is to be committed to the custody of the sheriff.  The 
language makes no exception for juvenile offenders who also are 
charged with nonmurder offenses, and we can conceive of no 
justification for providing enhanced protections for those who 
are facing additional charges. 
This interpretation of the plain language of G. L. c. 119, 
§ 68, also is consistent with our opinion in Soto, 476 Mass. at 
439-440.  There, we determined that the provisions of G. L. 
c. 119 that concern juvenile offenders who have been charged 
with murder reflect a "clear legislative intent that [such] 
juveniles . . . be treated as adults under the jurisdiction of 
the Superior Court."  Id. at 439-440.  See id. at 439 (under 
statutory framework, "juveniles charged with murder are not 
entitled to the benefit of [the] juvenile justice system").  We 
specifically referenced juvenile offenders charged with murder 
as a "class" of persons that the Legislature categorically 
intended to "exclude . . . from the protections afforded to all 
other juveniles charged with violations of the criminal law."  
Id., citing G. L. c. 119, § 53.  We understood these provisions 
as grounded in a "public safety policy" the Legislature sought 
to advance by treating a juvenile offender who had been charged 
with murder "as an adult for the totality of the conduct related 
to the murder charge."  Id. at 440.  Thus, Soto reflects our 
understanding of this statutory framework as providing that 
 
11 
juvenile offenders charged with murder categorically are 
excluded from the benefits of the juvenile justice system, 
including when they also are charged with nonmurder offenses 
properly joined to the murder charge. 
The defendant observes that a Superior Court judge may 
commit a juvenile offender to DYS under certain circumstances, 
such as when sentencing a juvenile offender who has been 
acquitted of murder but found guilty of a properly joined 
nonmurder offense.  See G. L. c. 119, § 72B.7  See also Soto, 476 
Mass. at 440 n.4, quoting Commonwealth v. Walczak, 463 Mass. 
808, 827 (2012) (Lenk, J., concurring) (noting that statement 
that "'juveniles indicted for murder in any degree must be 
treated as adults in all respects' applies to the trial 
and . . . does not necessarily apply to sentencing").  The 
defendant argues on this basis that a Superior Court judge 
should have the discretion to commit a juvenile defendant to DYS 
custody while being held pretrial on a nonmurder charge, even 
where that charge is joined with a murder charge.  The defendant 
emphasizes the broad discretion that Superior Court judges have 
 
 
7 The Legislature's decision to have juvenile offenders who 
have been tried in the Superior Court for both murder and a 
nonmurder offense and have been acquitted of the murder charge 
sentenced for the nonmurder offense as they could have been 
sentenced had they been tried for that offense in the Juvenile 
Court, see G. L. c. 119, § 72B, is not to the contrary.  In such 
circumstances, but for the murder charge, the juvenile would 
have been tried in the Juvenile Court in the first instance. 
 
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to set pretrial conditions of release, even where a defendant is 
charged with murder, see Vasquez v. Commonwealth, 481 Mass. 747, 
752-753 (2019), and contends that such a result would be 
consistent with our opinion in Soto, 476 Mass at 441. 
We are not persuaded.  Pointing to the sentencing options 
available to a Superior Court judge after a juvenile defendant 
has been acquitted of murder -- including commitment to DYS -- 
does little to suggest that the Legislature intended to confer 
discretion on Superior Court judges to exercise the option of 
pretrial commitment to DYS for a juvenile offender appearing 
before them, where they will never have before them a juvenile 
offender charged with nonmurder offenses unless the juvenile 
offender also is charged with murder, see G. L. c. 119, § 74, 
and where the Legislature plainly has provided that juvenile 
offenders charged with murder are to be held pretrial, if at 
all, in the custody of the sheriff, see G. L. c. 119, § 68. 
Finally, because we conclude that the language of G. L. 
c. 119, § 68, is unambiguous with respect to the pretrial 
detention of juvenile defendants charged with murder, the rule 
of lenity does not apply.  See Commonwealth v. Williamson, 462 
Mass. 676, 679 (2012), quoting Commonwealth v. Roucoulet, 413 
Mass. 647, 652 (1992) (rule of lenity applies only where 
criminal statute plausibly can be found to be ambiguous). 
 
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3.  Conclusion.  In sum, we conclude that, where a juvenile 
defendant charged with murder and a nonmurder offense properly 
joined pursuant to pursuant to Mass. R. Crim. P. 9 (a) is held 
by the Superior Court for trial, the plain language of G. L. 
c. 119, § 68, requires that the Superior Court judge commit the 
defendant to the custody of the sheriff.  Accordingly, the 
single justice did not err or abuse his discretion in denying 
relief. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Judgment affirmed.