Title: Commonwealth v. Freeman

State: massachusetts

Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Document:

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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. 
                                                 
1 Micah Martin. 
 
 
 
2 
 
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 
                                                 
2 "General Laws c. 119, § 74, as amended through St. 2013, 
c. 84, §§ 25, 26, expressly excludes from the scope of the 
'criminal proceedings' to which it refers certain minor motor 
vehicle violations, as well as charges of murder in the first and 
second degrees."  Watts v. Commonwealth, 468 Mass. 49, 51 n.6 
(2014). 
 
 
 
3 
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 the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States 
Constitution and art. 1 of the Massachusetts Declaration of 
Rights.  Pursuant to Mass. R. Crim. P. 34, as amended, 442 Mass. 
1501 (2004), a judge of the Superior Court reported the following 
two questions of law to the Appeals Court: 
"1.  Whether An Act to Expand Juvenile Jurisdiction, 
Increase Public Safety and Protect Children from Harm (the 
"[a]ct") should be applied retroactively to a defendant who 
commits an offense prior to his eighteenth birthday for 
which a criminal proceeding commenced prior to the effective 
date of the [a]ct?" 
 
"2.  Whether the answer to question one [if no] 
violates the equal protection guarantees provided by the 
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and 
art. 1 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, as 
amended by art. 106 of the Amendments?"3 
                                                 
3 Pursuant to Mass. R. Crim. P. 34, as amended, 442 Mass. 
1501 (2004), a Superior Court judge may report questions of law 
to the Appeals Court; "an appellate court is not obligated to 
answer them."  Meshna v. Scrivanos, 471 Mass. 169, 170 n.6 
(2015).  See Commonwealth v. Valerio, 449 Mass. 562, 563 (2007) 
("Because our discussion resolves the basic issues presented by 
the defendant's motion to suppress, we need not answer directly 
the reported questions"). 
 
 
4 
 
The Appeals Court stayed proceedings on the defendants' 
appeals pending our decision in Watts v. Commonwealth, 468 Mass. 
49 (2014) (Watts).  We held in that case that as a matter of 
legislative content and statutory construction the act did not 
apply "retroactive[ly] to criminal cases begun and pending before 
September 18, 2013, against persons who were seventeen years of 
age at the time of the alleged offense."  Id. at 50.  Watts, 
however, did not present a constitutional claim. 
We allowed the defendants' application for direct appellate 
review.  The defendants argue, in essence, that our 
interpretation of the act in Watts, supra, which renders the act 
inapplicable as to them, such that they may be proceeded against 
as adults in criminal proceedings begun in the Superior Court, 
has resulted in a violation of their rights to equal protection 
of the law as guaranteed by the State and Federal Constitutions.  
Because we conclude that the Legislature had a rational basis on 
which to determine that the retroactive application of the act 
would result in "unavoidable complexities and [the] attendant 
need for staff and services," id. at 60, we answer both reported 
questions in the negative.4 
                                                                                                                                                               
 
4 We acknowledge the amicus brief submitted by the 
Children's Law Center of Massachusetts and Citizens for Juvenile 
 
 
5 
Discussion.  1.  Equal protection classification.  The 
defendants argue that there are two grounds for applying a 
heightened scrutiny analysis to their equal protection claim.  
They argue, first, that the act created an age-based 
classification and, second, that the act deprived seventeen year 
old defendants who were arraigned prior to the act's effective 
date of the important right to have their claims proceed, at least 
initially, in the Juvenile Court.5 
An equal protection claim under art. 1, that a statute 
either discriminates on the basis of a suspect classification, 
see Lowell v. Kowalski, 380 Mass. 663, 666 (1980), or burdens the 
exercise of a fundamental right, see Blixt v. Blixt, 437 Mass. 
649, 655-656 (2002), cert. denied, 537 U.S. 1189 (2003), subjects 
the statute to strict scrutiny.  "All other statutes, which 
neither burden a fundamental right nor discriminate on the basis 
                                                                                                                                                               
Justice, as well as the amicus brief submitted by Citizens for 
Juvenile Justice, the Criminal Justice Policy Coalition, the Home 
for Little Wanderers, Justice Resource Institute, the 
Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 
Hon. Gail Garinger, Hon. Nancy Gertner, and Francine Sherman. 
 
5 "The review of an equal protection claim under the 
Massachusetts Constitution is generally the same as the review of 
a Federal equal protection claim, . . . although we have 
recognized that the Massachusetts Constitution is, if anything, 
more protective of individual liberty and equality than the 
Federal Constitution" (quotations and citations omitted).  See 
Cote-Whitacre v. Department of Pub. Health, 446 Mass. 350, 376 
(2006) (Spina, J., concurring). 
 
 
 
6 
of a suspect classification, are subject to a rational basis 
level of judicial scrutiny."6  Finch v. Commonwealth Health Ins. 
Connector Auth., 459 Mass. 655, 668-669 (2011), S.C., 461 Mass. 
232 (2012). 
Given that the act does not classify on the basis of age, we 
reject the defendants' arguments that juveniles are a suspect 
class under that statute.  Rather, the act treats those seventeen 
year olds who were charged before its effective date differently 
from those seventeen year olds who were charged after the act 
became effective.  The act classifies on the basis of the date of 
arraignment, and not the age of a particular defendant. 
The defendants argue that heightened scrutiny nevertheless 
is appropriate here because defendants who were charged prior to 
the effective date of the act are unable to obtain jurisdiction 
in the Juvenile Court and, accordingly, have thereby been denied 
what the defendants term an "important" right.  We acknowledge 
                                                 
6 The defendants suggest that, rather than analyze the act 
under a rational basis or strict scrutiny review, we should, 
instead, adopt a third, intermediate level, of scrutiny.  We 
decline this invitation.  See English v. New England Med. Ctr., 
Inc., 405 Mass. 423, 428-429 (1989), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1056 
(1990).  We note, however, that "characterizing the tests to be 
applied to determine the constitutional validity of legislation 
as 'reasonable relation' and 'strict scrutiny' is a 'shorthand 
for referring to the opposite ends of a continuum of 
constitutional vulnerability determined at every point by the 
competing values involved.'" Id., quoting Marcoux v. Attorney 
Gen., 375 Mass. 63, 65 n.4 (1978). 
 
 
 
7 
that "[t]he differences between being tried in the Superior Court 
and in the Juvenile Court are considerable."  Commonwealth v. 
Walczak, 463 Mass. 808, 827 (2012) (Lenk, J., concurring).  We 
have long recognized that "[i]mportant consequences flow from the 
recognition of delinquency as something legally and 
constitutionally different from crime."  Metcalf v. Commonwealth, 
338 Mass. 648, 651-652 (1959).  Nonetheless, we have not extended 
strict scrutiny to statutes that implicate such interests by 
providing certain juveniles, but not others, access to Juvenile 
Court jurisdiction.  See Charles C. v. Commonwealth, 415 Mass. 
58, 69 (1993); Commonwealth v. Wayne W., 414 Mass. 218, 226 
(1993); News Group Boston, Inc. v. Commonwealth, 409 Mass. 627, 
631-632 (1991).7 
Moreover, "[s]tripped to its essentials, [the defendants'] 
                                                 
7 The United States Supreme Court and this court have 
recognized that juvenile offenders present "unique 
characteristics" germane to the analysis of their rights under 
the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution and 
art. 26 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights.  See Miller 
v. Alabama, 132 S. Ct. 2455, 2460 (2013); Graham v. Florida, 560 
U.S. 48, 68-69 (2010); Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 569-571 
(2005); Diatchenko v. District Attorney for the Suffolk Dist., 
466 Mass. 655, 659 (2013), S.C., 471 Mass. 12 (2015).  We note 
also that the constitutional protections extended to juveniles 
are to be continuously reviewed "in light of evolving 
constitutional standards."  See Goodridge v. Department of Pub. 
Health, 440 Mass. 309, 343 (2003).  Cf. McDuffy v. Secretary of 
the Exec. Office of Educ., 415 Mass. 545, 620 (1993) (duties 
"which the Constitution places on the Commonwealth necessarily 
will evolve together with our society"). 
 
 
 
8 
claim challenges the basic validity of all prospective 
lawmaking."  Commonwealth v. Tate, 424 Mass. 236, 240, cert. 
denied, 522 U.S. 832 (1997), quoting Baker v. Superior Court, 35 
Cal. 3d 663, 670 (1984).  All prospective legislation must have a 
beginning date, and "as we previously have held, '[t]he mere fact 
that some persons were at some later date governed by a law more 
favorable to them than the law which applied to the defendant is 
insufficient to strike down an otherwise valid statute; to hold 
the opposite would be either to eradicate all new statutes or to 
make them all retroactive.'"  Commonwealth v. Galvin, 466 Mass. 
286, 290 n.10 (2013), quoting Commonwealth v. Tate, supra.8  It 
remains "a general rule of statutory construction [that] a newly 
                                                 
8 Other jurisdictions have viewed equal protection 
challenges to prospective legislation with skepticism.  See, 
e.g., United States v. Blewett, 746 F.3d 647, 658-659 (6th Cir. 
2013) (en banc), cert. denied, 134 S. Ct. 1779 (2014); Comerford 
v. Massachusetts, 233 F.2d 294, 295 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 352 
U.S. 899 (1956); State v. Ferrell, 126 Ariz. 1, 2 (1980); Baker 
v. Superior Court, 35 Cal. 3d 663, 668-670 (1984); Fleming v. 
Zant, 259 Ga. 687, 688 (1989) (amendment "distinguishes between 
cases that have been tried and those that have not.  This 
classification is neither arbitrary nor discriminatory.  The 
legislature had to choose some effective date"); Carter v. State, 
512 N.E.2d 158, 170 (Ind. 1987); State ex rel. Lemmon v. Adult 
Parole Auth., 78 Ohio St. 3d 186, 188 (1997); Burch v. Department 
of Correction, 994 S.W.2d 137, 138-139 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1999); 
Delgado v. State, 908 S.W.2d 317, 319 (Tex. Ct. App. 1995); Abdo 
v. Commonwealth, 218 Va. 473, 479-480 (1977).  See also Sperry & 
Hutchinson Co. v. Rhodes, 220 U.S. 502, 505 (1911) (Holmes, J.) 
("the Fourteenth Amendment does not forbid statutes and statutory 
changes to have a beginning, and thus to discriminate between the 
rights of an earlier and later time"). 
 
 
 
9 
enacted [penal] statute is presumptively prospective."  
Commonwealth v. Galvin, supra at 290.  See id., quoting G. L. c. 
4, § 6, Second ("The repeal of a statute shall not affect any 
punishment, penalty or forfeiture incurred before the repeal 
takes effect").  See Watts, 468 Mass. at 54 (act is penal statute 
to which G. L. c. 4, § 6, applies).  Applying strict scrutiny 
merely because the act affords greater protections to the liberty 
interests of future defendants would shear the statutory 
presumption of meaning.  Cf. Commonwealth v. Didas, 471 Mass. 1, 
9 (2015) ("If it were otherwise, every amendment or partial 
repeal and amendment of a criminal statute would need to be given 
retroactive effect, in direct conflict with the presumption of 
prospectivity"). 
2.  Rational basis analysis.  "We have repeatedly said that 
those who challenge the constitutionality of a statute that does 
not burden a suspect group or a fundamental interest 'carry a 
heavy burden in seeking to overcome the statute's presumption of 
constitutionality.'"  English v. New England Med. Ctr., Inc., 405 
Mass. 423, 427 (1989), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1056 (1990), 
quoting Blue Hills Cemetery, Inc. v. Board of Registration in 
Embalming & Funeral Directing, 379 Mass. 368, 371 (1979).  
Although rational basis review "includes a requirement that an 
impartial lawmaker could logically believe that the 
 
 
10 
classification would serve a legitimate public purpose that 
transcends the harm to the members of the disadvantaged class," 
English v. New England Med. Ctr., Inc., supra at 429, quoting 
Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Ctr., Inc., 473 U.S. 432, 452 (1985) 
(Stevens, J., concurring), "[i]t is not our function to consider 
the expediency of an enactment or the wisdom of its provisions."  
Commonwealth v. Henry's Drywall Co., 366 Mass. 539, 544 (1974).  
See Federal Communication Comm'n v. Beach Communications, Inc., 
508 U.S. 307, 313 (1993) (rational basis review "is not a license 
for courts to judge the wisdom, fairness, or logic of legislative 
choices"). 
In Watts, 468 Mass. at 59, we observed that the Legislature 
received reports that warned that "significant impacts would 
result were the act to pass and that additional staff and 
services were anticipated in order to implement the act going 
forward."  These reports "anticipated that implementation of the 
new legislation will be prospective."  Id. at 58.  The act was, 
therefore, "passed with an informed understanding that the actual 
implementation of such reform would likely require additional 
staff and services," id. at 61-62, and "[p]rospective application 
of the act takes these considerations into account, as well as 
the legal complexities and impact of the opposite construction."  
Id. at 62.  In much the same way that we view "[p]rospective 
 
 
11 
application of the act [as] not 'repugnant' to the purpose of the 
act," id. at 60, we also consider that prospective application is 
rationally related to legitimate State interests where "it is a 
realistic and informed recognition of the unavoidable 
complexities and attendant need for staff and services implicated 
in implementing the act."  Id.  See Amado v. Superintendent, 
Mass. Correctional Inst. at Walpole, 366 Mass. 45, 49 (1974), 
quoting South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301, 331 (1966) 
("[L]egislative solutions must be respected if the 'distinctions 
drawn have some basis in practical experience'"). 
Conclusion.  We answer the first reported question "no."  
The act does not apply retroactively to a defendant who commits 
an offense prior to his or her eighteenth birthday for which a 
criminal proceeding commenced prior to the effective date of the 
act.  We also answer the second reported question "no."  
Prospective application of the act does not violate the equal 
protection guarantees provided by the Fourteenth Amendment to the 
United States Constitution and art. 1 of the Massachusetts 
Declaration of Rights, as amended by art. 106 of the Amendments. 
The matter is remanded to the Superior Court for further 
proceedings consistent with this opinion. 
So ordered.