Case Title: Commonwealth v. Harding

Citation: 

Docket Number: SJC-12875

State: massachusetts

Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Date: 2020-10-05T00:00:00Z

Document:
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SJC-12875 
 
COMMONWEALTH  vs.  FRANCIS X. HARDING, JR. 
 
 
 
Bristol.     May 4, 2020. - October 5, 2020. 
 
Present:  Gants, C.J., Lenk, Gaziano, Lowy, Budd, Cypher, 
& Kafker, JJ.1 
 
 
Sex Offender.  Sex Offender Registration and Community 
Notification Act.  Practice, Criminal, Probation. Statute, 
Construction. 
 
 
 
 
Complaint received and sworn to in the Fall River Division 
of the District Court Department on June 14, 2012. 
 
 
A probation violation hearing was held on July 24, 2018, 
before Cynthia M. Brackett, J., and a motion for reconsideration 
was also heard by her. 
 
 
The Supreme Judicial Court on its own initiative 
transferred the case from the Appeals Court. 
 
 
 
Eric Tennen for the defendant. 
 
Stephen C. Nadeau, Jr., Assistant District Attorney, for 
the Commonwealth. 
 
Nancy Dolberg, Committee for Public Counsel Services & 
another, amici curiae, submitted a brief. 
 
 
                                                 
1 Chief Justice Gants participated in the deliberation on 
this case and authored this opinion prior to his death. 
2 
 
 
GANTS, C.J.  The defendant is a home-improvement contractor 
who specializes in the repair of old homes.  He has been self-
employed in this capacity for more than thirty years and 
operates his business out of his home in Newton, where he has a 
workshop.  After an evidentiary hearing, a District Court judge 
found that the defendant violated a special condition of 
probation because he reported on the sex offender registration 
form that his work address was his home and did not report as a 
work address the home in Lynn where he was doing repair work.  
He was also found to have violated the special condition of 
probation that he not "work . . .  with children" under sixteen 
years of age because there was an infant in the Lynn home where 
he worked.  We reverse, and we vacate the findings that the 
defendant violated his conditions of probation.2 
Background.  In 2015, the defendant pleaded guilty to 
charges of indecent assault and battery on a child under 
fourteen and possession of child pornography.  A District Court 
judge sentenced him to five years of probation and imposed four 
special conditions of probation relevant to this appeal:  (1) he 
was required to register as a sex offender with the Sexual 
Offender Registry Board (SORB), which later classified him as a 
                                                 
2 We acknowledge the amicus brief submitted by the Committee 
for Public Counsel Services and the Massachusetts Association 
for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers. 
3 
 
 
level three sex offender;3 (2) his location was to be continually 
monitored by a global positioning system device; (3) he was 
required to have no contact with and stay away from the victim; 
and (4) he was required "not to work, volunteer, [or] reside 
with children under [sixteen] years old." 
In April 2015 and again in January 2017, the defendant 
filled out and submitted SORB's sex offender registration form.  
In the section asking about employment, he identified himself as 
"self-employed," which was one of the available options on the 
form.  Where the form asked for the name of the "employer," he 
identified himself as his employer and gave his home address as 
the employer's address. 
Every two weeks, the defendant met with his probation 
officer and provided invoices from his home-improvement work to 
prove that he was employed.  These invoices included the 
addresses of the homes where he provided home-improvement 
services.  For almost three and one-half years, the defendant 
had the same probation officer, who at no point informed the 
defendant that he had to register an employment address other 
than his home address.  His lawyer also informed him that he did 
                                                 
3 Sex offenders in Massachusetts are classified based on 
their risk of reoffending and the degree of danger they pose to 
the public.  Level three sex offenders have a high risk of 
reoffending and pose a high degree of danger to the public.  See 
G. L. c. 6, § 178K. 
4 
 
 
not have to register his clients' addresses as work addresses. 
In January 2016, the defendant was asked by a family 
residing in Lynn to restore the windows of their home.  The 
defendant removed the windows and took them to his workshop in 
Newton, where he performed the majority of the work.  At the 
time, the family had no children. 
The same family hired the defendant again in September 2017 
to repair other parts of the exterior of the house, including 
the gutters and some woodwork.  For the next several months the 
defendant provided services at both his workshop and the house.  
By this time, the family had a baby, but the defendant never had 
any contact with the child; all of the services that the 
defendant provided were outside the home.  The defendant 
prepared thirteen invoices regarding this second work 
assignment, all of which he provided to his probation officer, 
covering services he rendered between September 2017 and March 
2018.  They identified the Lynn address of the client but did 
not specify where the services were performed or how many days 
he had worked to perform these services. 
In March 2018, the defendant was stopped by a Revere police 
officer who was conducting surveillance of a shopping plaza for 
possible drug transactions and who knew from querying the 
defendant's license plate on the officer's computer system that 
the defendant was a registered sex offender.  The officer asked 
5 
 
 
the defendant what he was doing at the shopping plaza, and the 
defendant responded that he was on his way home from his job in 
Lynn and had stopped to get something to eat.  Following the 
encounter, the officer contacted the Lynn police to determine 
whether the defendant had a registered work address in Lynn and 
learned that he did not. 
On April 5, 2018, the defendant was served with a notice of 
probation violation stating that he "[f]ail[ed] to register with 
SORB from [September 2017 to April 2018] his employment."  The 
notice was later amended to add the allegation that he had 
failed to abide by the probation condition that he "refrain from 
work (employment) where children [sixteen years of age] or 
younger are present."  After a hearing, a District Court judge 
found that the defendant had violated both conditions of 
probation.  The judge later denied the defendant's motion for 
reconsideration and ordered that the defendant's probation be 
extended by one year.  The defendant appealed, and we 
transferred the appeal to this court on our own motion. 
Discussion.  The defendant raises two issues on appeal.  
The first is whether he was required, as a self-employed home-
improvement contractor, to identify the temporary work sites 
where he performed his work as his "work address" under the SORB 
registration statute, G. L. c. 6, § 178E.  The second is whether 
the defendant's condition of probation -- that he was "not to 
6 
 
 
work, volunteer, [or] reside with children under [sixteen] years 
old" -- prohibited him from performing home-improvement services 
at a house where a young child resided and provided adequate 
notice of such a prohibition.  We consider each in turn. 
1.  Registration of "work address."  Pursuant to G. L. 
c. 6, §§ 178E (a), 178E (h), 178F, and 803 Code Mass. Regs. 
§ 1.05(2)(g) (2016), a sex offender subject to the terms of the 
statute is required to register and annually verify his "work 
address or intended work address" with SORB.  Under G. L. c. 6, 
§ 178E (j), if a registrant "intends to change his work 
address," he must notify SORB in writing "not later than ten 
days prior to establishing the new work address" (emphasis 
added).  SORB then provides notice of the change of work address 
to the police departments in all municipalities "where such sex 
offender previously worked, where such sex offender intends to 
work, where such sex offender resides or intends to reside and 
where the offense was committed."  See id.; 803 Code Mass. Regs. 
§ 1.05(9).  Registration information, including the work address 
of those classified as level two and level three sex offenders, 
is also made publicly available on the SORB website.  See 803 
Code Mass. Regs. § 1.05(7). 
The statutory scheme defines "employment" as "employment 
that is full-time or part-time for a period of time exceeding 
[fourteen] days or for an aggregate period of time exceeding 
7 
 
 
[thirty] days during any calendar year, whether compensated or 
uncompensated."  G. L. c. 6, § 178C.  The statute does not, 
however, define "work address."  The Commonwealth argues, and 
the District Court judge agreed, that every time the defendant 
worked for a client for the requisite number of days -- fourteen 
consecutive or thirty nonconsecutive during the calendar year -- 
this should be considered a separate instance of "employment," 
and the defendant was consequently required to provide that 
client's address as his "work address."  For a number of 
reasons, we disagree. 
The issue before us is whether the defendant's home 
address, where he had a workshop and did much of his restoration 
work, was his "work address" or whether he was required to 
characterize all of his client's addresses for whom he worked 
fourteen consecutive or thirty nonconsecutive days as his "work 
address" on the sex offender registration form.  Because the 
statutory language is ambiguous on that point, we "interpret the 
statute so as to render the legislation effective, consonant 
with sound reason and common sense."  See Commonwealth v. 
Morgan, 476 Mass. 768, 777 (2017), quoting Seideman v. Newton, 
452 Mass. 472, 477 (2008). 
We note that the Commonwealth's interpretation of the 
meaning of "work address" is not reflected in SORB's sex 
offender registration form.  Under "section F -- employment," 
8 
 
 
the form provides four alternative boxes for the registrant to 
check:  "employed," "self-employed," "unemployed," and 
"volunteer."  Beneath that, it asks for the name of the 
employer, and below that for an address, which one reasonably 
would think would be the address of the employer.  The defendant 
identified himself as self-employed and therefore gave his own 
address as the employer's address.  The form reflects the 
apparent understanding that "work address" is the employer's 
work address.  The interpretation that the Commonwealth asks us 
to adopt would suggest that a registrant who is self-employed 
might not be self-employed at all, because each client for whom 
the registrant provided services for the requisite time period 
would be deemed the employer, whose address the registrant would 
be required to record.  No reasonable registrant filling out 
this form would understand the form to ask for this information. 
Nor would the Commonwealth's interpretation make practical 
sense.  Under that interpretation, a self-employed sex offender 
would be required to register, at least ten days in advance, the 
address of any work site at which he would be spending more than 
fourteen consecutive days or more than thirty days in a calendar 
year.  But, as the defendant and amici note, independent 
contractors may not know in advance how long a project will 
take.  For example, if the defendant expected to spend ten days 
working on a home, he would be under no obligation to register 
9 
 
 
that client's address with SORB.  But if the work took longer 
than expected and stretched beyond fourteen days, he would be in 
violation of the statute because he would have failed to 
register the address ten days in advance of beginning his 
employment there.  In addition, if the job lasted for only 
fifteen days, the defendant would have to deregister the address 
the day after registering it. 
Similarly, if the defendant worked for a client for ten 
days in January, and the same client rehired him for ten days in 
May and for another ten days in August, each time for a 
different project, the defendant would have to register the 
client's address as his "work address" at the end of the August 
project, when the work would be already complete.  When he was 
first hired in January, he would have had no way of knowing that 
he would eventually have to register that client's address and 
would be unable to comply with the requirement to register it 
ten days before beginning the work. 
Moreover, independent contractors sometimes do not receive 
ten days' advance notice of the commencement of work.  Under the 
Commonwealth's interpretation, if a homeowner needed repair work 
to begin immediately and the independent contractor was 
available to provide those repairs, the contractor would have to 
delay starting the work for ten days so that he could provide 
SORB with the required ten days' advance notice. 
10 
 
 
For all these reasons, as a practical matter, the 
Commonwealth's definition of "work address" is unworkable.  We 
will not adopt a construction of a statute "if the consequences 
of such construction are absurd or unreasonable."  Attorney Gen. 
v. School Comm. of Essex, 387 Mass. 326, 336 (1982).  Cf. 
Commonwealth v. Rosado, 450 Mass. 657, 662-663 (2008) (homeless 
sex offender did not violate registration statute by failing to 
register everywhere he stayed because it would have been "almost 
impossible" for him to comply with ten-day notice requirement). 
In addition, requiring a self-employed sex offender to 
identify a client as an employer would be fundamentally unfair 
to the clients.  Under the Commonwealth's interpretation of 
"work address," a homeowner who hired a landscaper to cut the 
lawn every week or a carpenter to renovate a back porch would be 
identified as the sex offender's employer, and his or her home 
would be listed as the sex offender's work address.  If the 
independent contractor were a level two or level three sex 
offender, this information would be publicly available on SORB's 
"sex offender internet database," see G. L. c. 6, § 178D, a 
public website that is searchable by city, town, county, or ZIP 
code, as well as by a registrant's name.  The defendant, 
however, is not an employee but an independent contractor, and 
publishing his clients' addresses as though his clients were his 
11 
 
 
employers would mischaracterize the relationship.4  See Attorney 
General's Fair Labor Division, Independent Contractors, 
https://www.mass.gov/service-details/independent-contractors 
[https://perma.cc/5JCN-68A6] (distinguishing between employees 
and independent contractors, and defining independent 
contractors as individuals whose work "is done without the 
direction and control of the employer; and . . . is performed 
outside the usual course of the employer's business; and . . . 
is done by someone who has their own, independent business or 
trade doing that kind of work"); G. L. c. 149, § 148B. 
And, as the amici note, if the defendant, or other self-
employed registrants like him, were required to provide a 
client's address as a "work address," many clients who might 
otherwise hire him might refrain from doing so because they 
might not want their home address listed on SORB's website as 
the sex offender's place of employment.  As a result, the 
otherwise self-employed sex offender might soon be functionally 
unemployed.  SORB itself recognizes that stable employment 
diminishes a sex offender's likelihood of reoffense.  See 803 
                                                 
4 Employers in Massachusetts are subject to a complex 
statutory scheme, which includes civil and criminal penalties 
for noncompliance, that would not be applicable to the clients 
of a self-employed independent contractor.  See e.g., G. L. 
c. 149, § 148 (governing payment of wages and establishing 
penalties for failure to comply); G. L. c. 151, § 16 (requiring 
employers to display posters informing employees of their rights 
under State and Federal wage and hour laws). 
12 
 
 
Code Mass. Regs. § 1.33(34)(a) (2016) (identifying "employment 
stability" as factor reducing sex offender's risk of reoffense 
and degree of dangerousness).  We will not infer that the 
Legislature intended to give "work address" a meaning that could 
create significant obstacles to an independent contractor's 
ability to work, which could, in turn, increase the likelihood 
of reoffense. 
The Commonwealth's interpretation also fails to comport 
with the rule of lenity.  "Although the registration requirement 
is remedial and not punitive, criminal penalties may be imposed 
on a defendant who is required to register and fails to do so.  
Accordingly, 'we apply the "rule of lenity" and resolve any 
ambiguities' against the Commonwealth" (citations omitted).  
Commonwealth v. Ventura, 465 Mass. 202, 212 (2013). 
Where, as here, the statute does not provide clear guidance 
about what constitutes a "work address" that must be registered 
with SORB, and particularly where the SORB registration form 
permits registrants to register as "self-employed," we conclude 
that G. L. c. 6, § 178E, does not require independent 
contractors to register their temporary work sites as their 
"work address."  Cf. Rosado, 450 Mass. at 663 (sex offender 
registration form ambiguous where instructions required homeless 
registrants to provide approximate location within city but 
failed to provide registrants with ability to indicate their 
13 
 
 
homeless status).  The most reasonable and administrable 
interpretation of "work address" under § 178E, and the one that 
comports with the rule of lenity, is the interpretation apparent 
from SORB's sex offender registration form:  it is the work 
address of the sex offender's employer, not the work site 
address of a self-employed sex offender's clients. 
Because we conclude that the defendant's "work address" was 
his home address, we need not address the challenges raised by 
the defendant regarding whether there was sufficient evidence 
that the defendant worked for the requisite number of days at 
the Lynn home for the family to be deemed his employer or 
whether he knowingly violated the registration statute.5 
2.  Condition that defendant not work "with" children.  As 
a special condition of his probation, the defendant was 
instructed "not to work, volunteer, [or] reside with children 
under [sixteen] years old."  The probation officer who issued 
the violation notice interpreted that condition to mean that the 
defendant could not work in the presence of children; the notice 
of violation stated that the defendant failed to "refrain from 
                                                 
5 We note that, on appeal, the Commonwealth concedes that 
there was insufficient evidence to support a finding by a 
preponderance of the evidence that the defendant knowingly 
violated the registration statute by failing to register the 
Lynn address as an employment address.  For this reason alone, 
the Commonwealth agrees that this finding of a violation of 
probation must be vacated. 
14 
 
 
work (employment) where children [sixteen years of age] or 
younger are present."  The judge agreed, finding him in 
violation of this condition "for working at the [client's] house 
when there was a child present there at the time."  But working 
with children and working in the presence of children are two 
quite different things. 
Defendants are "entitled to know what conduct is forbidden 
by [their] probation condition[s].  The constitutional rule 
against vague laws applies as equally to probation conditions as 
it does to legislative enactments."  Commonwealth v. Power, 420 
Mass. 410, 421 (1995), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 1042 (1996).  
Probation conditions "need not provide the fullest warning 
imaginable":  "[t]he notice requirement can be satisfied by 'an 
imprecise but comprehensible normative standard.'"  Commonwealth 
v. Kendrick, 446 Mass. 72, 75 (2006), quoting Commonwealth v. 
Orlando, 371 Mass. 732, 734 (1977).  But they must "provide 
reasonable guidance with respect to what activities are 
prohibited."  Kendrick, supra. 
The defendant's condition of probation clearly barred him 
from "work . . . with children," such as teaching at a school or 
being a camp counsellor.  But the defendant's actions -- 
performing repair work that did not involve children but that 
took place at a home where a child happened to be present -- are 
not prohibited by his probation condition.  He did not "work 
15 
 
 
with children" in replacing a gutter or restoring exterior 
woodwork, nor could he, where the child was an infant. 
Had the sentencing judge been concerned that the defendant, 
as an independent contractor, might be working inside a home 
where children resided, the judge could have imposed a special 
condition that the defendant have "no unsupervised contact" with 
children.  See, e.g., Ventura, 465 Mass. at 204 n.3 ("no contact 
with children under sixteen years of age unless accompanied by 
an adult"); Kendrick, 446 Mass. at 73 ("[n]o contact [with] 
children under [sixteen years] of age").  The judge, in fact, 
did impose a special condition of "no contact," but that 
condition only prohibited the defendant from having contact with 
the victim, not from having contact with any child.  Where the 
judge required the defendant only to refrain from working, 
volunteering, or residing with children, the defendant did not 
violate this probation condition by working on the exterior of a 
home while a supervised infant was present inside the house.  
Nor did he have fair notice that such conduct would be deemed a 
violation of this condition. 
Conclusion.  The District Court judge's finding that the 
defendant violated his conditions of probation is reversed and 
vacated.  We remand the matter to the District Court for entry 
of an order consistent with this decision. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
So ordered.