Attorneys Jellison and Alpert are zealous defenders of children ensnared in the criminal justice system. They are widely recognized as leading experts on protecting the constitutional rights of young people in Massachusetts courts. They have repeatedly secured dismissal of criminal charges against their clients and advanced cutting edge arguments that expanded protections not only for their clients but all young people in Massachusetts.
They are known as two of the go-to attorneys for the Committee for Public Counsel Services Youth Advocacy Division for precedent-setting cases and have secured victories for or improved the law for young people at the Appeals Court and Supreme Judicial Court many times over either as lead counsel or amicus counsel. For example, in Lazlo. L. v. Commonwealth, 482 Mass. 325 (2019) Attorney Jellison convinced the SJC to dismiss all cases in Massachusetts against children under 12 that were already filed when the Legislature raised the age of the jurisdiction for the juvenile court. And in Commonwealth v. Quigley Q., 99 Mass. App. Ct. 1112 (2021), Attorney Alpert convinced the Appeals Court that the widely-used juvenile probation condition “comply with DYS” violated separation of powers.
Those are just two of their repeated successes in protecting children from the established harms of involvement in the criminal justice system. Other cases include Noah N. v. Commonwealth, 489 Mass. 498 (2022) (requiring robust due process protections before a child can be committed past their 18th, 19th, or 20th birthdays), Commonwealth v. Manny M., 100 Mass. App. Ct. 1102 (2021) (preserving the dismissal of a serious case based upon the Commonwealth procedural negligence), Commonwealth v. Manolo M., 486 Mass. 678 (2021) (allowing children who commit several low level crimes as part of one episode to benefit from the first offense dismissal benefit afforded to juveniles), Matter of a Minor, 484 Mass. 295 (2020) (increasing due process requirements before civil commitment of juveniles for substance-use disorder, including consideration of typical juvenile behavior), Commonwealth v. Leopold L., 96 Mass. App. Ct. 796 (2020) (judge could not commit juvenile to DYS for probation violation that occurred after his DYS commitment ended), Commonwealth v. Ashe A., 483 Mass. 1005 (2019) (adjudication for disturbing a school assembly must be vacated because Legislature decriminalized offense while the case was pending), Commonwealth v. Oswaldo O., 94 Mass. App. Ct. 550 (2018) (allowing juveniles to appeal adjudications where the sentence imposed was a continuance without a finding and the case was dismissed), Commonwealth v. Samuel S., 476 Mass. 497 (2017) (permitting juvenile court judges to relieve juveniles from sex offense board registration).