Court Opinion

ID: 9727378
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:33:09.622096+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:36.795226
License: Public Domain

*180Nolan, J.,
(dissenting, with whom Lynch and O’Connor, JJ., join). Sean Brogan is charged with criminal contempt of court. We have long held that a defendant so charged is entitled to protections typically afforded criminal defendants. See Furtado v. Furtado, 380 Mass. 137, 142 (1980). While we have said that art. 13 “is merely declaratory of the sense of the people, that the proof of facts in criminal prosecutions should be in the vicinity or neighbourhood where they happen,” Commonwealth v. Parker, 2 Pick. 550, 552 (1824), we have enunciated a general rule regarding venue: “trial must take place[] in the county where the crime occurred.” Commonwealth v. Duteau, 384 Mass. 321, 323 (1981). See Commonwealth v. Handren, 261 Mass. 294, 296-297 (1927).
We have recognized exceptions to the general rule if a fair trial in the county in which venue is proper cannot be obtained or if the Legislature amends the general rule, within constitutional limits. See Crocker v. Justices of the Superior Court, 208 Mass. 162, 180 (1911) (impartial trial impossible in court of proper venue). Each of the exceptions boasts of common law origin. We have upheld these exceptions in the face of historical evidence that they were “recognized and utilized prior to the adoption of art. 13, both in England and in Massachusetts.” Opinion of the Justices, 372 Mass. 883, 897 (1977).
In the present case, the injunction issued from the Superior Court in Middlesex County. Brogan committed the allegedly contumacious acts in Bristol, Norfolk, and Suffolk Counties. The defendant’s trial took place in Middlesex County. As the issuance of an order is not a criminal act attributable to the defendant, and because the facts do not fall within either of the aforementioned exceptions, I conclude that a trial in Middlesex County is inappropriate. Accordingly, I dissent.
Today the court engrafts its imprimatur on the absence of venue here in a mischievous, unjust, and heretofore unprecedented manner. Lacking historical support, or any support for that matter, the court declares: “As a principle of common law, consistent with the inherent right of a court to pun*181ish for a violation of its own orders, a defendant may properly be tried for criminal contempt in the court in which the order was entered.” Ante at 173. In so stating, the court diverges from an interpretive path well worn in our decisions to reach a result it deems “logical” and “fair.” Ante at 174. In failing to ground its decision in the historical meaning of the venue clause, the court casts aside, without justification, the manner in which we have interpreted it. One would think that the court would need to say more before casting aside a long-standing interpretation. The court’s failure to do so, in my view, compromises judicial decision making and gives the appearance of result-oriented jurisprudence.
The court states, ante at 173, “We have said as to a criminal contempt proceeding for nonsupport that ordinarily such a trial ‘should be held in the court whose order is alleged to have been contumaciously violated.’ Furtado v. Furtado, supra at 143.” The present case is unlike Furtado. Nonsupport does not involve an alleged contumacious act occurring at a specific place other than the county where the court sits. Nonsupport involves inaction and no constitutional or traditional value is offended by a rule that would require a trial in the court whose order is violated. In the present case, however, the defendant is charged with performing criminal (G. L. c. 12, § 11H & 11J) and criminally contumacious acts in three counties other than the county in which his contempt trial was held. If, indeed, as this court has traditionally held, defendants against criminal contempt charges should receive procedural protections similar to those afforded to other criminal defendants, the defendant in this case was entitled to be tried in the county or counties where his alleged contumacious acts took place.
In deciding that a defendant may properly be tried for criminal contempt in the court in which the underlying order was entered regardless of the locus of the act, this court rewrites the common law to mean essentially what it wants it to mean. Indeed, with the wink of an eye and a nod of the head this court disembowels a rule that has been “established by history and experience.” Commonwealth v. Ries, 337 *182Mass. 565, 569 (1958). The court suggests that it is hyper-bolical to refer to a trial in a county in which there is no venue as mischievous or unjust. It is not hyperbolical but quite accurate unless the court is bent on destroying our law of venue.
It is clear that the court today has issued an invitation to the Commonwealth to go “forum shopping” whenever it wishes. The court neglects to point out that the Superior Court is Statewide and our settled principles of venue require the Commonwealth to bring its Superior Court actions in the appropriate county.
This court is not empowered to declare that the venue concept lacks meaning in these circumstances. Accordingly, I dissent.