Commonwealth v. Ballard
| Decision Date | 02 February 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. 17–P–411,17–P–411 |
| Citation | 92 Mass.App.Ct. 701,93 N.E.3d 1180 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. Ronald A. BALLARD. |
| Court | Appeals Court of Massachusetts |
Ellyn H. Lazar–Moore, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.
John S. Day, Boston, for the defendant.
Present: Sacks, Ditkoff, & Singh, JJ.
The Commonwealth appeals from a judgment dismissing its petition to commit the defendant as a sexually dangerous person (SDP) pursuant to G. L. c. 123A, § 12. On the date the petition was filed, the defendant was serving a criminal sentence; some two and one-half years later, the defendant was allowed to withdraw the guilty pleas to the offenses for which he had been sentenced. This led a Superior Court judge to rule, based on his interpretation of Coffin v. Superintendent, Mass. Treatment Center, 458 Mass. 186, 936 N.E.2d 418 (2010), that the defendant was not a prisoner under G. L. c. 123A, § 12(b ), at the time the petition was filed, and thus was not subject to being committed as an SDP. Concluding that the judge applied Coffin too broadly, we reverse.
Background. In the 1980s, the defendant was convicted of a number of sexual offenses against women in both the Commonwealth and California. He received State prison sentences in both jurisdictions, completing his sentence in the Commonwealth in 2003, at which time the Commonwealth successfully petitioned to commit him to the Massachusetts Treatment Center (treatment center) as an SDP. Following a trial in which the defendant was found no longer sexually dangerous, he was discharged in 2007.
In 2013, based on an incident in which the defendant approached a seventeen year old female working at a farm stand, criminal complaints issued from the District Court charging him with accosting or annoying a person of the opposite sex in violation of G. L. c. 272, § 53,1 threatening to commit a crime in violation of G. L. c. 275, § 2, and intimidation of a witness in violation of G. L. c. 268, § 13B. In January, 2014, the defendant pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to concurrent sentences amounting to nine months in the house of correction, with credit for time served.2
In February, 2014, while the defendant was serving his sentences, the Commonwealth petitioned in Superior Court to have him civilly committed as an SDP. In April, 2014, a different judge found probable cause to believe the defendant was an SDP and committed him to the treatment center for examination and diagnosis by two qualified examiners. Based on their reports, the Commonwealth moved for a jury trial; after that motion was allowed, the defendant obtained funds to retain his own experts for the purposes of trial.
In January, 2015, while trial preparations were ongoing and the defendant remained at the treatment center, he filed a motion in the District Court to withdraw his guilty pleas and for a new trial, asserting that the plea colloquy was defective by reason of the prosecutor's failure to state sufficient facts to establish the elements of each offense.3 That motion was denied. The defendant appealed and in August, 2016, in a memorandum and order issued pursuant to our rule 1:28, a panel of this court reversed, holding that the prosecutor's statement was inadequate to establish that a sufficient factual basis existed for any of the charges, thus resulting in constitutional error. Commonwealth v. Ballard, 90 Mass. App. Ct. 1102, 56 N.E.3d 894 (2016). The panel directed the entry of an order allowing the motion to withdraw the guilty pleas and for a new trial.
In September, 2016, the defendant moved in Superior Court to dismiss the Commonwealth's petition to commit him as an SDP. He argued that the result of the 2016 order allowing him to withdraw his guilty pleas was that, at the time the petition was filed in 2014, he had been serving a "constitutionally unlawful sentence." He asserted that therefore he was not a prisoner under G. L. c. 123A, § 12(b ), as interpreted in Coffin, 458 Mass. at 187, 936 N.E.2d 418, and so could not be subject to civil commitment as an SDP. The Superior Court judge agreed, dismissed the petition, and ordered the defendant discharged from the treatment center. The Commonwealth appealed.4
Discussion. Under § 12(b ), the Commonwealth may Coffin, 458 Mass. at 188–189, 936 N.E.2d 418, quoting from Commonwealth v. Gillis, 448 Mass. 354, 364, 861 N.E.2d 422 (2007).5 "[T]he fact of custody alone is not determinative." Coffin, supra at 189, 936 N.E.2d 418, citing Commonwealth v. Allen, 73 Mass. App. Ct. 862, 864, 903 N.E.2d 231 (2009). Thus, where the Commonwealth petitioned to commit a person at a time when he was being held in prison beyond the end of his sentence, due solely to a clerical error in sentence calculation, the person was not "serving a sentence," was not a "prisoner," and thus was not subject to commitment under the statute.6 Allen, supra.
In Coffin, the Supreme Judicial Court confronted the question "whether, for purposes of § 12(b ), a person placed in custody pursuant to an unconstitutional statute is nevertheless a ‘prisoner.’ " 458 Mass. at 186, 936 N.E.2d 418. The Coffin case arose in the wake of the decision in Commonwealth v. Pagan, 445 Mass. 161, 170–174, 834 N.E.2d 240 (2005), declaring the lifetime community parole statute, G. L. c. 275, § 18, "facially unconstitutional" as applied to first-time offenders.7 Coffin, supra at 187, 936 N.E.2d 418. Shortly after Pagan was decided, Coffin was found in violation of his lifetime community parole conditions and ordered to serve one year for the violation. Ibid. While in custody for that violation, Coffin moved under Pagan to vacate his lifetime community parole sentence as unconstitutional; the Commonwealth conceded that his sentence was unconstitutional and assented to the motion. Id. at 188, 936 N.E.2d 418. Nevertheless, before the motion was heard and allowed, and while Coffin was still in custody, the Commonwealth petitioned under § 12(b) to adjudicate him an SDP, whereupon he was committed pending trial on the petition. Coffin, supra.
On Coffin's request for relief under G. L. c. 211, § 3, the Supreme Judicial Court held that the Legislature could not have intended "the term ‘prisoner’ in § 12(b) ... to encompass a person who is held in custody solely pursuant to a statute that itself is facially unconstitutional." 458 Mass. at 189, 936 N.E.2d 418. The court continued, "We reject the proposition that the Legislature meant § 12(b ), which is itself a forceful assertion of State authority, to be triggered by a custodial arrangement that should not have been imposed in the first place, and cannot be imposed on anyone in the future." Coffin, supra. Accordingly, the court "construe[d] § 12(b ) to mean that an individual is a ‘prisoner’ for purposes of the statute only if he is serving a sentence imposed under a statute that is constitutionally sound." Coffin, supra. Coffin was not such an individual, and thus he was not subject to commitment as an SDP. Ibid. Indeed, "it was undisputed that [Coffin's] sentence was not valid at the time of the Commonwealth's filing.... [He] was being held in custody only until he could appear before a judge to have his unconstitutional sentence vacated in light of Commonwealth v. Pagan." Coffin, supra at 190, 936 N.E.2d 418.
The case now before us is quite different from Coffin. First and most important, none of the statutes under which the defendant here was charged and sentenced has been declared unconstitutional, either facially or as applied to him. The petition for the defendant's commitment thus satisfies Coffin's requirement that a person is a "prisoner" for § 12(b ) purposes "only if he is serving a sentence imposed under a statute that is constitutionally sound." 458 Mass. at 189, 936 N.E.2d 418.
Second, at the time the Commonwealth petitioned to commit this defendant as an SDP, he was serving sentences pursuant to guilty pleas that were presumptively valid at the time of the petition and remained undisturbed for two and one-half years thereafter. The pleas were accepted and the defendant was sentenced in January, 2014; the petition to commit him was filed in February, 2014; only later, in August, 2016, were the guilty pleas ruled invalid. Compare Coffin, 458 Mass. at 188, 936 N.E.2d 418 (); Allen, 73 Mass. App. Ct. at 863, 903 N.E.2d 231 ().
Third, where the fundamental question is one of legislative intent, and in light of the principle that G. L. c. 123A, as a statute in derogation of liberty, must be narrowly construed, see Coffin, 458 Mass. at 189, 936 N.E.2d 418, it is reasonable to assume that the Legislature never envisioned G. L. c. 123A being used in conjunction with another, facially unconstitutional statute to impose civil commitments. "There is every presumption that the legislative department of government always intends to act strictly within the bounds of the Constitution." Commonwealth v. Welosky, 276 Mass. 398, 406, 177 N.E. 656 (1931).
At the same time, however, the Legislature must also be presumed to be aware that convictions are occasionally invalidated, sometimes many years after the fact, based on a wide variety of constitutional or nonconstitutional errors in individual trials, or where it otherwise "appears that justice may not have been done." Mass.R.Crim.P. 30(b), as appearing in 435 Mass. 1501 (2001). While such nonsystemic errors and possible injustices are regrettable, and it is our duty to correct them, there is no...
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Brace v. Commonwealth
...His claim can adequately be resolved by the Appeals Court (see note 2, supra ) in the ordinary course. See Commonwealth v. Ballard, 92 Mass. App. Ct. 701, 707, 93 N.E.3d 1180 (2018) (notwithstanding subsequent withdrawal of guilty plea, defendant was prisoner for purposes of G. L. c. 123A, ......