On April 11, 2022 Attorney Caroline Alpert convinced the Supreme Judicial Court to ban the prosecutorial practice of manipulating continuances past a juvenile’s eighteenth birthday for the sole purpose of obtaining more punishment. If a juvenile is sentenced while seventeen or younger, Massachusetts statutes prohibit punishing (“rehabilitating”) them beyond their eighteenth birthday. If sentenced after their eighteenth birthday, they can be committed to DYS until nineteen. Some Massachusetts prosecutors were moving to continue sentencing past the juvenile’s eighteenth birthday in order obtain longer commitments. The SJC prohibited this kind of manipulation, requiring prosecutors to prove by clear and convincing evidence at an evidentiary hearing that continued commitment is “necessary for the rehabilitation of the juvenile.” Read the opinion here.
Juveniles Should Be Entitled to Credit for Time Spent in Pre-Trial Detention
On September 9, 2020, Attorney Jellison appeared in the first day of SJC Zoom arguments asking the Court to affirm a juvenile court's order granting her client credit for the time he spent in pretrial detention against the confined portion of his DYS commitment. Attorney Jellison's client spent 6 months in pretrial detention. Adults receive credit for the time they spend in correctional facilities pretrial against custodial sentences. For juveniles, however, this time is dead time. DYS does not use all of its rehabilitative tools in pretrial detention, and the time is not deducted from post-adjudication confinement. Confinement in a jail-like setting is profoundly damaging to youths' well-being. And pretrial detention burdens the exercise of important pre-trial and trial rights. Further, the youth most likely to be held pretrial and suffer these harms are the Commonwealth's most vulnerable: Black, Hispanic and/or Latino, and multi-system youth. Hopefully the SJC will see the policy against pretrial detention credit as unfair and take steps to provide credit to youth.
Disturbing a School Abolished Retroactively
On October 29, 2019, Attorney Jellison convinced the Supreme Judicial Court to give retroactive effect to the legislature’s abolition of the offense of “disturbing a school,” including cases that were filed and pending at the time the legislature repealed the offense. Building on Attorney Jellison’s successful advocacy in Lazlo L. v. Commonwealth, the Court held in Commonwealth v. Ashe A. that allowing those cases to still be prosecuted would be “repugnant” to the legislature’s purpose of juvenile justice reform. This offense was a major driver of the school to prison pipeline. Society needs to stop criminalizing children for behaving like children.
Melissa Ramos and Caroline Alpert Join Wood & Nathanson
We are excited to announce that Attorney Melissa Ramos and Attorney Caroline Alpert have joined Wood & Nathanson, LLP. They bring a diverse set of skills to the firm, allowing us to advocate for and protect our clients in multiple areas. Attorney Ramos practices in criminal courts, handling both trial matters and appeals, as well as university discipline (Title IX) proceedings. Attorney Alpert is an experienced advocate for juveniles and youthful offenders in trial and appellate courts as well as school disciplinary proceedings. We cannot wait to see what we can accomplish together!
Attorney Jellison Made Partner
Wood & Nathanson is proud to announce that Eva Jellison has been made a partner in the firm. Attorney Jellison’s work on the cutting edge of juvenile and appellate defense includes advocacy for the adoption of a “reasonable juvenile” standard for evaluation of juveniles’ mental states, retroactive application of juvenile justice reforms, and access to post-conviction DNA testing.
A Win Against the Jailing of Children
On May 16, 2018, the Supreme Judicial Court adopted the arguments of Attorney Jellison in Commonwealth v. Lazlo L., ruling that continued prosecution of eleven year old children is repugnant to the purposes of the legislature in enacting criminal justice reforms limiting such prosecutions. The prosecution of children is not just cruel, it is empirically bad policy. The prosecution of children has been demonstrated to increase the likelihood of later criminal justice involvement. Further, children this young are precisely those people who are most likely to mature and change. Children should be treated as children.