WATTS v. COMMONWEALTH

No. SJC-11613.

468 Mass. 49 (2014)

RONALD WATTS & another v. COMMONWEALTH.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

May 6, 2014.


Attorney(s) appearing for the Case

Barbara Kaban , Committee for Public Counsel Services ( Benjamin H. Keehn , Committee for Public Counsel Services, with her) for the petitioners.

Robert J. Bender & Varsha Kukafka , Assistant District Attorneys ( Nathanael Burris , Assistant District Attorney, with them) for the Commonwealth.

John E. Roberts , of New York, Scott Harshbarger , Michael R. Hackett , & Jamie Crystal-Lowry , for Citizens for Juvenile Justice & others, amici curiae, submitted a brief.

Joseph D. Early, Jr. , District Attorney for the Worcester District, & Jane A. Sullivan , Assistant District Attorney, for the District Attorney for the Worcester District, amicus curiae, submitted a brief.

Present: IRELAND, C.J., SPINA, CORDY, BOTSFORD, GANTS, DUFFLY, & LENK, JJ.


IRELAND, C.J.

This case requires us to decide whether St. 2013, c. 84 (act), which extended the Juvenile Court's jurisdiction to persons who are seventeen years of age at the time of committing an offense, applies retroactively to persons who were seventeen years of age when they committed an offense and against whom criminal proceedings had begun and were pending on September 18, 2013, the effective date of the act. We conclude...

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