Court Opinion

ID: 9481549
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:22:27.6624+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:23.551832
License: Public Domain

HUTCHINSON, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the Court’s holding that New Jersey unconstitutionally deprived Helton of liberty without due process. Bouie v. City of Columbia, 378 U.S. 347, 84 S.Ct. 1697, 12 L.Ed.2d 894 (1964), requires us to determine whether the Supreme Court of New Jersey’s construction of the state’s juvenile law, in apparent conflict with the statute’s text, was “unforeseeable” when Helton committed the unlawful acts for which he is now imprisoned. As the Court recognizes, Bouie does not authorize us to hold that a state court’s authoritative construction of a state statute is wrong. See Missouri v. Hunter, 459 U.S. 359, 368, 103 S.Ct. 673, 679, 74 L.Ed.2d *1049535 (1983). I dissent because I do not believe that the balancing between society’s need for deterrence and the juvenile’s interest in rehabilitation the Supreme Court of New Jersey forced upon the statutory text in State in the Interest of C.A.H. & B.A.R., 446 A.2d 93 (N.J.1982), was “unforeseeable.”
I agree with most of the Court’s opinion up to, but not including, the last sentence of Part III. In that sentence, the Court states its disagreement with the district court’s conclusion that the Supreme Court of New Jersey’s construction of N.J.Stat. Ann. § 2A:4-48(c) (repealed 1983), part of that state’s juvenile statute, in State in the Interest of C.A.H. and B.A.R., was not unforeseeable.
The Court’s rationale in support of that conclusion is contained in Part IV of its opinion. There, the Court reasons that settled New Jersey juvenile law precluded Helton’s trial on criminal charges if he had a reasonable prospect of rehabilitation when he committed the lawless acts that resulted in his imprisonment. Because the juvenile judge’s finding to that effect was not reversed,1 the Court holds that the Supreme Court of New Jersey’s 1982 holding that New Jersey juvenile courts must balance society’s interest in deterring juvenile crime against the juvenile’s prospects for rehabilitation under juvenile law cannot be applied to hold Helton criminally responsible for acts he committed in 1979. See State in the Interest of C.A.H. & B.A.R., 446 A.2d 93.
Since a lack of foreseeability is the sine qua non of the Bouie prohibition, it seems to me useful to begin by looking at that somewhat elusive concept in some detail. I see at least three ways to interpret the term “unforeseeability” as Bouie uses it to limit and define the due process prohibition against retroactive application of statutory constructions that expand criminal liability, enhance punishment, or limit defenses.
As a matter of first impression, foreseeability could be considered solely from the actor’s standpoint. We could ask ourselves whether Helton himself relied on the existing state of New Jersey law as evidenced by the statutory text. Bouie forecloses this interpretation, at least insofar as it implies that Helton can be retroactively deprived of the benefits of New Jersey juvenile law unless he subjectively considered the statute’s seeming assurance of rehabilitative treatment, without regard to society’s interest in deterrence. In Bouie, Justice Brennan, writing for the Supreme Court, said:
The determination whether a criminal statute provides fair warning of its prohibitions must be made on the basis of the statute itself and the other pertinent law, rather than on the basis of an ad hoc appraisal of the subjective expectations of particular defendants.
Bouie, 378 U.S. at 355 n. 5, 84 S.Ct. at 1703 n. 5.
Secondly, we could consider any plain deviation from the statutory text “unforeseeable” and so subject to Bouie’s prohibition against retroactive application. I think this would read “unforeseeability” out of the Bouie analysis. It would equate state judicial decisions construing state statutes against their text with state legis*1050lative acts amending state criminal statutes. Foreseeability is a limiting factor in the due process clause’s prohibition against “unforeseeable” ex post facto judicial increases in criminal punishment. It is not a factor in ex post facto analysis when legislative acts are involved. See Calder v. Bull, 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 386, 390, 1 L.Ed. 648 (1798); see also Miller v. Florida, 482 U.S. 423, 431, 107 S.Ct. 2446, 2451, 96 L.Ed.2d 351 (1987) (“The constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws cannot be avoided merely by adding to a law notice that it might be changed.”) No amount of notice or publicity, not even foreseeability to the point of certainty, can justify ex post facto criminal application of a legislative act. Thus, even when Charles Lee murdered Joyce Hunsicker either in the late hours of September 12, 1978, or the early hours of September 13, 1978, after the Pennsylvania Senate had overridden Governor Milton Shapp’s veto of a death penalty statute, he could not be sentenced to death because the Pennsylvania House of Representatives did not override the veto until noon on September 13, 1978. See Commonwealth v. Lee, 516 Pa. 305, 532 A.2d 406 (1987).2
Thirdly, we could define “unforeseeability” in general terms, apart from the textual construction at issue, and ask whether a reasonable person in Helton’s position could, as a matter of foresight, not hindsight, have any reasonable assurance that the criminal acts he planned to execute with his two comrades would bring no consequences upon him beyond the sanctions of the juvenile law; and, if the answer to this question were no, retroactively apply the questioned construction of the statute to Helton.
In Helton’s case, this definition of foreseeability would permit application of the 1982 test to Helton’s 1979 acts. Helton’s fate depended on the exercise of judicial discretion. He could have no a priori assurance that a juvenile judge would find he had a reasonable prospect of rehabilitation despite the truly outrageous nature of his acts. In 1979, New Jersey criminal law authorized the sentences Helton is serving, and Helton, as a reasonable person,3 was bound to know that he was subject to those criminal penalties if a juvenile judge waived jurisdiction over him. He was on notice the law could place restrictions on his liberty as provided by New Jersey criminal law. He could have no reliable assurance that waiver would not occur. I believe this definition of unforeseeability is compatible with Bouie’s genesis in the related due process doctrine that criminal convictions are void if the criminal statute under which they are obtained is so vague that it fails to give fair notice of the conduct that it prohibits. See Bouie, 378 U.S. at 351-52, 84 S.Ct. at 1701-02. There, the Supreme Court said:
It is true that in the Connally [v. General Const. Co., 269 U.S. 385, 46 S.Ct. 126, 70 L.Ed. 322 (1926)] and Lanzetta [v. New Jersey, 306 U.S. 451, 59 S.Ct. 618, 83 L.Ed. 888 (1939) ] cases, and in other typical applications of the principle, the uncertainty as to the statute’s prohibition resulted from vague or over-broad language in the statute itself, and the Court concluded that the statute was “void for vagueness.” The instant case seems distinguishable, since on its face the language of § 16-386 of the South Carolina Code was admirably narrow and precise; the statute applied only to “entry upon the lands of another * * * after notice * * * prohibiting such entry * * The thrust of the distinction, however, is to produce a potentially greater deprivation of the right to fair notice in this sort of case, where the claim is that a statute precise on its face has been unforeseeably and retroactively expanded by judicial construction, than in *1051the typical “void for vagueness” situation. When a statute on its face is vague or overbroad, it at least gives a potential defendant some notice, by virtue of this very characteristic, that a question may arise as to its coverage, and that it may be held to cover his contemplated conduct. When a statute on its face is narrow and precise, however, it lulls the potential defendant into a false sense of security, giving him no reason even to suspect that conduct clearly outside the scope of the statute as written will be retroactively brought within it by an act of judicial construction_ [T]he violation is that much greater when, because the uncertainty as to the statute’s meaning is itself not revealed until the court’s decision, a person is not even afforded an opportunity to engage in such speculation before committing the act in question.

Id.

No contention is here advanced that a juvenile statute that leaves the waiver issue to the juvenile judge’s broad discretion is too vague, and indeed I do not think such an argument could be successfully advanced. It is plain, however, that the New Jersey juvenile statute that governs Hel-ton’s case is not the kind of precise statute that Justice Brennan had under discussion in Bouie. In Helton’s case, the distinction Justice Brennan makes between general and precise statutory language works against Helton. This is not a case like Bouie, "where the construction unexpectedly broadens a statute which on its face had been definite and precise.” Id. at 353, 84 S.Ct. at 1702. I believe it is the “unforeseeable enlargement” of such precise statutes by judicial construction that lies at the core of Bouie and makes the unforeseeable enlargement “operate[ ] precisely like an ex post facto law.” Id. Hel-ton does not present such a case. Unfortunately, this point is not expressly briefed by the parties and Bouie does not speak to it with complete clarity. See Beazell v. Ohio, 269 U.S. 167, 169, 46 S.Ct. 68, 68, 70 L.Ed. 216 (1925) (second possible application of the prohibition against ex post facto laws is when the law makes more burdensome the punishment for a crime after it is committed).
The parties’ briefs do discuss the issue of whether the balancing test State in the Interest of C.A.H. & B.A.R. incorporated into the statute was merely a procedural change that could be retroactively applied under the teaching of Collins v. Youngblood, - U.S. -, 110 S.Ct. 2715, 111 L.Ed.2d 30 (1990). In this context, the state raised the question of whether juvenile law in general merely creates procedural rights that can be retroactively taken from juveniles without running afoul of the constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws. That question could be thought of in relation to the risk of life imprisonment under the criminal law that Helton took when he decided to participate in robberies at gunpoint, if the juvenile court waived jurisdiction. In Helton’s case, I do not find analysis of ex post facto principles in terms of the procedural-substantive dichotomy to be very helpful. The ex post facto concept expresses our longstanding and deep-seated aversion to punishing an actor beyond the punishment provided when he acted. It is based on the commonly perceived injustice inherent in interference with justifiable reliance. So viewed, I believe the analogous due process issue is better dealt with by considering whether Helton’s reliance on the possibility of rehabilitative treatment under juvenile law, as opposed to criminal punishment, was reasonable and justifiable in light of the nature of the acts he decided to participate in.
In that sense, this case is distinguishable from Bouie. There, a group of black persons seeking to peacefully integrate a lunch counter in a private establishment that placed no restriction on entry by black people was acquitted of breach of the peace but convicted of criminal trespass because the Supreme Court of South Carolina un-foreseeably held the group’s refusal to leave converted their initially lawful “entry” into criminal trespass under South Carolina’s precise statute defining criminal trespass. See Bouie, 378 U.S. at 355-56, 84 S.Ct. at 1703-04. Historically, the com*1052mon law rejected criminal liability for trespass on this basis. See Six Carpenters Case, 77 Eng.Rep. 695 (1610) (no criminal liability for trespass ab initio);4 see also Bouie, 378 U.S. at 358, 84 S.Ct. at 1705. Thus, the Supreme Court held “unforeseeable” the Supreme Court of South Carolina’s expansive interpretation of the word “entry” in the state’s trespass statute to include remaining when asked to leave.
In Bouie, the Supreme Court said:
The interpretation given the statute by the South Carolina Supreme Court in the Mitchell case, note 2, supra, so clearly at variance with the statutory language, has not the slightest support in prior South Carolina decisions. Far from equating entry after notice not to enter with remaining on the premises after notice to leave, those decisions emphasized that proof of notice before entry was necessary to sustain a conviction under § 16-386.
Bouie, 378 U.S. at 356, 84 S.Ct. at 1704. The high Court went on to say:
The clear distinction between civil and criminal trespass is well recognized in the common law. Thus it is stated, in 1 Bishop, Criminal Law, § 208 (9th ed. 1923) that
“In civil jurisprudence, when a man does a thing by permission and not by license, and, after proceeding lawfully part way, abuses the liberty the law had given him, he shall be deemed a trespasser from the beginning by reason of this subsequent abuse. But this doctrine does not prevail in our criminal jurisprudence; for no man is punishable criminally for what was not criminal when done, even though he afterward adds either the act or the intent, yet not the two together.” Unless a trespass is “committed under such circumstances as to constitute an actual breach of the peace, it is not indictable at common law, but is to be redressed by a civil action only.” Clark and Marshall, Crimes (5th ed. 1952, at 607).
Id. at 358, 84 S.Ct. at 1705 (footnote omitted).
The New Jersey law governing waiver of juveniles to criminal court was not nearly so firmly established as the South Carolina law of criminal trespass when Helton and his friends went off on what the Court correctly calls a “crime spree.” A person reasonably familiar with New Jersey law could not say the balancing test used to take from Helton the advantages of the juvenile law was “unforeseeable” and could not have been unfairly surprised when the Supreme Court of New Jersey held Hel-ton’s participation in two violent acts of armed robbery, one murder, a car theft, and the destruction of the stolen car by arson required waiver of juvenile court jurisdiction in favor of criminal punishment. This is so even if we broadly define “unforeseeable” future changes as those changes that would strike a reasonable person, familiar with the statutory text and the relevant case law, as outlandish or unanticipated when contemplating a particular future course of action. See Bouie, 378 U.S. at 351, 84 S.Ct. at 1701 (quoting United States v. Harriss, 347 U.S. 612, 617, 74 S.Ct. 808, 811, 98 L.Ed. 989 (1954)). I believe a definition of foreseeability in terms of the “outlandish” or “bizarre” gives the broadest possible scope to the Bouie prohibition against retroactive judicial changes in criminal law. So defined, I think the Court misapplies the Bouie concept of foreseeability to decide that Helton is entitled to a writ of habeas corpus under 18 U.S.C.A. § 2254 (West 1977) because his criminal punishment was unforeseeable.
*1053The grammatical structure of N.J.Stat. Ann. § 2A:4-48(c) and the ordinary meaning of its individual words and clauses do seem at first to rule out a balancing test. Accordingly, the Court goes on to conclude that the statute’s use of the word “and” precludes the Supreme Court of New Jersey’s textual exegesis and constitutionally prohibits the punishment of Helton in the New Jersey adult criminal system because he had a reasonable prospect of rehabilitation under the juvenile law. See Majority Opinion, at 1046-1048. I think this conclusion requires closer examination. If this panel were sitting as the Supreme Court of New Jersey, interpreting that state’s statutes, I could better understand the Court’s conclusion. In the words of Justice Holmes, no less apt because old:
Although it is not likely that a criminal will carefully consider the text of the law before he murders or steals, it is reasonable that a fair warning should be given to the world in language that the common world will understand of what the law intends to do if a certain line is passed. To make the warning fair, so far as possible the line should be clear.
McBoyle v. United States, 288 U.S. 25, 27, 51 S.Ct. 340, 341, 75 L.Ed. 816 (1931). We do not, however, sit to construe New Jersey’s juvenile law. We sit to decide whether New Jersey’s interpretation is “unforeseeable” and so cannot be applied to Helton after the fact without violating due process.
Recognizing the statute’s use of the conjunctive, but remembering that it is not this Court’s function to decide whether a state court’s construction of its own statute is wrong, I would examine the statute to see whether the Supreme Court of New Jersey’s conversion of “and” into “or” is, indeed, so outlandish or bizarre as to be “unforeseeable.”
As a matter of first impression, a rule of law requiring society to take its chances on the successful rehabilitation of a juvenile who willfully plans and engages in a series of armed robberies that result in a felony murder without also weighing society’s interest in deterring and preventing juveniles from such violent and dangerous conduct strikes me as odd. Although the Court does not rely solely on textual exegesis to reach its conclusion that the state court’s interpretation of the statute was unforeseeable, it seems to me clear that textual preclusion of a balancing test is essential to the Court’s result. Let us examine the Supreme Court of New Jersey’s 1982 construction of the statute with the aid of some hypotheticals.
Let us first suppose any particular juvenile who runs afoul of the law can be rehabilitated. Then, by the Court’s construction of the statute, no inquiry into society’s interest in protecting itself against future car thefts, armed robberies, murders or arsons at the hands of Helton or other juveniles is material. Conversely, let us suppose Helton cannot be rehabilitated. Inability to benefit from rehabilitation necessarily implicates society’s need for protection against continuing depradations by the particular juvenile whose case is under consideration. If the juvenile cannot be rehabilitated, it makes no sense to require the juvenile court separately to satisfy itself that society’s safety requires the juvenile’s punishment. Accordingly, consideration of society’s needs is unnecessary in either case, and the words of the statute that command it become no more than a legislatively mandated act of judicial supererogation that deprives § 2A:4-48(c)’s first conditional antecedent concerning the interests of society of functional meaning. This construction runs afoul of the generally accepted rule of statutory construction that a statute is to be interpreted so as to give meaning to each word. See Moskal v. United States, - U.S. -, 111 S.Ct. 461, 466, 112 L.Ed.2d 449 (1990) (quoting United States v. Menasche, 348 U.S. 528, 538-39, 75 S.Ct. 513, 519-20, 99 L.Ed. 615 (1955)); McGlynn v. New Jersey Pub. Broadcasting Auth., 88 N.J. 112, 439 A.2d 54, 63 (1981) (citing 2A Sutherland, Statutory Construction, § 46.06 (4th ed. 1973)). Thus, the absence of rehabilitative prospects as well as their presence makes consideration of society’s interest in deterring juvenile crime functionally immaterial under the majority’s reasoning.
*1054The conjunctive , construction of § 2A:4-48(c) seemingly implied by that subsection’s use of the logical connector “and,” as a practical matter, reads out of the calculus the legislature’s concurrent command to juvenile judges to satisfy themselves that society, not just the juvenile, will be better served by criminal instead of juvenile law. The statute’s words invoking society’s interest then become mere hollow echoes of an empty ritual whose tenets are mouthed, not believed. This anomaly, together with the statute’s peculiar format dividing all the other requirements for waiver except the two contained in clause (c) into separately lettered subsections, the Supreme Court of New Jersey’s reference to legislative history and the opinions of the writers of an article on New Jersey juvenile law with respect to waiver, see State in the Interest of C.A.H. & B.A.R., 446 A.2d at 99-103 & nn. 2 & 6, lead me to question the Court’s conclusion that the statute’s text flatly precludes the balancing test the Supreme Court of New Jersey read into it.
The Court does not, however, rest only on the statutory text but states there are “several authorities” that support the proposition that New Jersey law absolutely prohibited Helton’s trial and punishment under the criminal law regardless of society’s interest if he was a fair prospect for rehabilitation under the juvenile law. It goes on to list them. See Majority Opinion, at 1046-1047. Unlike the Court, I find none of the “authorities” outside the statutory text persuasive on the proposition that pre-1982 New Jersey law plainly established the state had to give Helton and all other juveniles the benefit of rehabilitation without regard to the nature of their violent acts, the danger of their recidivism if rehabilitation failed or the encouragement of similar juvenile violence by other juveniles relying on the absence of penal consequence. To the contrary, I think there are strong intimations in New Jersey case law that the courts of that state would not read § 2A:4-48(c) to preclude criminal punishment whenever there was a fair prospect that a juvenile actor could be rehabilitated within the framework of the juvenile law without any thought of society’s interest in deterring violent juvenile crime.
As the Court says, these statements are indeed dictum, but that is no basis for failing to consider them in deciding whether a later judicial holding on the issue of statutory construction is “unforeseeable” within the meaning of Bouie. By definition, the suspect construction could not have been the subject of authoritative judicial pronouncement before the decision whose holding brings it under ex post facto attack. Were the construction previously established, the Bouie problem would disappear. Similarly indeterminate on the issue of unforeseeability is the Court’s reliance on the fact that both the adequate protection of the public and a reasonable prospect of rehabilitation were not present in State in the Interest of J.F., 141 N.J.Super. 328, 358 A.2d 217 (Ct.App.Div.1976). In State in the Interest ofJ.F., the court did not have to consider the stark choice of ignoring the public’s interest in deterrence in favor of the juvenile’s interest in rehabilitation. Nevertheless, there the Appellate Division did tell us what it was likely to do if that choice were presented. It said:
In State v. Van Buren, supra, 29 N.J. [548] at 557, 150 A.2d 649 [ (1959) ], decided under the former statute and rule, it was said that a case may be referred to the prosecutor when the circumstances indicate that if the charge is ultimately established, society would be better served by the criminal process by reason of the greater security which may be achieved or the deterring effect which that process is thought to accomplish. Notwithstanding the changes that have been wrought with respect to the criteria governing the judge’s determination whether to transfer to the prosecutor or not, the foregoing thesis is as viable today as it was when pronounced.
In dealing with crime the protection of society must always be a primary consideration, whether the criminal acts are committed by juveniles or adults. If there is a possibility of rehabilitation and the undertaking to that end does not conflict with the required protection of *1055society, and there is no other persuasive reason for taking some other course, then rehabilitation under the continued protection of the Juvenile Court may be considered.
Id. 358 A.2d at 219.
The court then went on to reaffirm the continuing vitality of the balancing test as set forth in two cases decided under a textually different earlier version of the New Jersey statute.5 It said:
We of course recognize that even though the charge amounts to murder and the heinous nature of the offense appears on the face of the complaint, that alone is not enough to justify referral. State v. Loray, 46 N.J. 179, 191, 215 A.2d 539 (1965). However, the details surrounding the commission of the offense and the nature of the crime are proper considerations. The crimes committed as recounted in the record were extraordinarily vicious. We are therefore satisfied, in the light of the record, that (3) the adequate protection of the public requires such waiver and (4) there are no reasonable prospects for rehabilitation of the juvenile, if he was the one who committed the crimes, by use of the proceedings, services and facilities available to the Juvenile Court pursuant to law.
Moreover, we also have concluded that society would in this case be better served by the criminal process, by reason of the greater security which may be achieved or the deterring effect which the normal criminal process is believed to accomplish. State v. Van Buren, supra.
We therefore find that the action of the trial judge in denying the application of the prosecutor constituted an abuse of discretion (State v. Van Buren, supra, 29 N.J. at 559, 150 A.2d 649) and from the standpoint of society clearly brought about an unjust result (State v. Johnson, 42 N.J. 146, 162, 199 A.2d 809 (1964)).
Id. at 220.
State in the Interest of B.T., 145 N.J.Super. 268, 367 A.2d 887 (Ct.App.Div.1976), certif. denied, 73 N.J. 49, 372 A.2d 314 (1977), gives an even stronger indication that New Jersey would not ignore the needs of society in order to pursue a prospect of rehabilitation. There, the juvenile court held that rehabilitation was unlikely within the time left before the juvenile attained age eighteen. Id. 367 A.2d at 892. That holding was based on the incorrect premise that juvenile supervision had to end at age eighteen. In fact, juvenile supervision could continue for another three years, until the juvenile attained age twenty-one, under the applicable statute. Id. New Jersey’s Appellate Division affirmed the juvenile court’s waiver of jurisdiction in favor of criminal prosecution without giving the juvenile court a chance to reconsider its discretionary waiver on a correct assumption of the time remaining for the rehabilitation process to work. After stating that attempting rehabilitation before age twenty-one would be fruitless, the Appellate Division again went on to say:
As a consequence, the court, in an appropriate case, may consider that deterrence and punishment may be more salutary than the slight possibility of successful rehabilitation both from the viewpoint of the juvenile and his future potential victims. Chief Justice Wein-traub observed in State v. Van Buren, supra, in discussing the transfer statute which preceded the one controlling this case:
Thus a case may be referred to the prosecutor when the circumstances indicate that, if the charge is ultimately *1056established, society would be better served by the criminal process by reason of the greater security which may be achieved or the deterring effect which that process is thought to accomplish. [29 N.J. at 557, 150 A.2d at 654.]
As we noted in State in Interest of J.F., supra:
Notwithstanding the changes that have been wrought with respect to the criteria governing the judge's determination whether to transfer to the prosecutor or not, the foregoing thesis is as viable today as it was when pronounced. [141 N.J.Super. 328, at 332, 358 A.2d 217, at 219.]

Id.

These statements lead me to believe that Helton could have no assurance, beyond the statute's use of the conjunctive "and,” that he would escape criminal punishment and be treated as a juvenile offender no matter what he did if he could just persuade a judge that his prospects for rehabilitation were “reasonable.”
The construction New Jersey placed on its juvenile law may be wrong. It is not “unforeseeable.” Therefore, I believe the retroactive application of it to Helton is not prohibited by Bouie’s due process extension of the ex post facto prohibition from legislative enactments to an unforeseeable judicial interpretation of a legislative enactment. Accordingly, I would affirm the order of the district court denying Helton’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

. The juvenile court’s finding that Helton had a reasonable prospect of rehabilitation was, however, not graciously accepted by either the Appellate Division or the Supreme Court of New Jersey. When the case first came up on appeal, the Appellate Division sent it back to juvenile court for clarification of the finding that Helton could be rehabilitated. State of Interest of C.A.H. & B.A.R., 446 A.2d at 95. After the juvenile court reaffirmed the finding, the Appellate Division affirmed, id. at 95-96, but the Supreme Court of New Jersey summarily reversed. After granting reconsideration, New Jersey’s high court issued the opinion at issue here. Id. at 96. In it, the court commented extensively and critically on the expert psychiatric testimony the juvenile court relied on in finding Helton could be rehabilitated. It said:
Both of the State’s witnesses testified that CAH could be rehabilitated by the time he reached 21. Even if their opinions support the ultimate conclusion that there was a realistic prospect for CAH’s rehabilitation, this is not dispositive. The failure of these experts to address crucial factors in making their assessments detracts substantially from the weight which should be accorded their testimony. See infra at 101-102.
Id. at 101 n. 3.

. In Lee, the court was able to avoid the ex post facto question because the statute itself prohibited a contrary result. However, Calder and Miller would have forced the court to reach the same result on federal constitutional grounds if the statutory grounds had not been present.

. I recognize that here, as elsewhere in the law, the concept of a reasonable person has elements of fiction, in this case specifically the fiction that a reasonable person is aware of the applicable law. See, infra, at 1053 (discussing McBoyle v. United States, 283 U.S. 25, 51 S.Ct. 340, 75 L.Ed. 816 (1931)).

. The doctrine of trespass ab initio
was a peculiar and anomalous fiction developed by the common law by which one who entered properly upon land in the exercise of a privilege conferred by authority of law, and subsequently abused the privilege by conduct which was itself a trespass to person, land, or chattels, became liable not only for the later misconduct, but also for the original lawful entry. The abuse of the privilege was related back to forfeit it entirely, and the actor became a trespasser 'ab initio,’ or from the beginning.
Robinson v. Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc., 129 F.R.D. 15, 20 (D.Mass.1989).

. The earlier statute provided, in relevant part:
If it shall appear to the satisfaction of the juvenile and domestic relations court that a case of juvenile delinquency as defined in section 2A:4-14 of this title committed by any juvenile of the age of 16 or 17 years, should not be dealt with by the court, either because of the fact that the person is an habitual offender, or has been charged with an offense of a heinous nature, under circumstances which may require the imposition of a sentence rather than the disposition permitted by this chapter for the welfare of society, then the court may refer such case to the county prosecutor of the county wherein the court is situate.
N.J.Stat.Ann. § 2A:4-15 (repealed 1973), quoted in State v. Van Buren, 29 N.J. 548, 150 A.2d 649, 651 (1959).