Opinion ID: 203587
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Massachusetts Courts' Interpretation of the SDP Statute

Text: The essence of Dutil's complaint is that, while the Massachusetts SDP statute nominally requires a speedy hearing on an SDP's petition for release, it has been interpreted by the Massachusetts courts to allow for unconstitutional delays. For support, he points to Lund, in which the Appeals Court of Massachusetts held that an SDP was not denied his right to a speedy hearing when he received a hearing more than thirty months after filing his petition for release. 617 N.E.2d at 1014-15. Dutil argues that this state court decision represents a binding interpretation of the speedy hearing language. See Royal v. Superior Court, 531 F.2d 1084, 1088 n. 14 (1st Cir.1976) ( citing Pollard v. Dwight, 8 U.S. (4 Cranch) 421, 429, 2 L.Ed. 666 (1808)); see also Chicago, Milwaukee, & St. Paul Ry. Co. v. Risty, 276 U.S. 567, 570, 48 S.Ct. 396, 72 L.Ed. 703 (1928). It is this interpretation that gives rise to Dutil's claim that the statute allows for unconstitutional delay. A closer reading of Lund, however, reveals that the case does not stand for so broad a proposition as Dutil suggests. While it is true that the petitioner in Lund waited more than thirty months for a hearing on his § 9 petition, the state appellate court took pains to explain that the delay was largely of the petitioner's own making: Although [the petitioner] was appointed counsel on August 4, 1989, no complaint or other action on the petition was taken until March 19, 1991. There is nothing in the record before us which shows that the attorney general or the district attorney were even sent a copy of the petition under § 9, and, therefore, that the Commonwealth was aware of it prior to the motion seeking an immediate discharge. 617 N.E.2d at 1014-15. After adjusting for the petitioner's dilatory prosecution of his petition, the Lund court made clear its opinion that the actual delay not attributable to the petitioner was seven months, not thirty. Id. at 1015. In light of the Lund court's explicit discussion of the exceptional circumstance of a represented petitioner's lengthy delay, Dutil's reliance on Lund for the proposition that the Massachusetts state courts have interpreted the SDP speedy hearing language to allow for a thirty month delay is unavailing. The most we can fairly infer from Lund is that the Massachusetts courts have allowed something closer to a seven month delay under circumstances where the state attempts an earlier hearing, as it did in Lund. Id. But what delay, precisely, Massachusetts would allow under its SDP statute is speculation in which we need not, and explicitly do not, engage: it is enough to ascertain that neither Lund nor any other Massachusetts case of which we are aware interprets the speedy hearing language to encompass any delay approaching the thirty months that Dutil protests.