Metcalf v. Com.

• Citation: 338 Mass. 648,156 N.E.2d 649
• Parties: Reginald F. METCALF v. COMMONWEALTH.
• Decision Date: 09 March 1959
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

Page 649

156 N.E.2d 649

338 Mass. 648

Reginald F. METCALF v. COMMONWEALTH.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Argued Oct. 7, 1958.

Decided March 9, 1959.

Monroe L. Inker, Boston, Joseph G. Crane, Boston, for petitioner.

Hugh A. Cregg, Dist. Atty., Lawrence, Martin C. Goldman, Asst. Dist. Atty., Swampscott, for the Commonwealth.

Before WILKINS, C, J., and RONAN, SPALDING, WILLIAMS, COUNIHAN, WHITTEMORE and CUTTER, JJ.

SPALDING, Justice.

On January 12, 1956, Reginald F. Metcalf, then aged thirteen years and about nine and one half months, shot and killed Philip Kantrowitz in Newburyport. On May 16, 1956, Reginald, who was then fourteen years of age, was indicted for murder by the grand jury for Essex County. Since the indictment was in the statutory form prescribed by G.L. c. 277, § 79, and contained no allegation of murder in the second degree, it charged murder in the first degree. Commonwealth v. Scicchitani, 240 Mass. 402, 404, 134 N.E. 257. On June 7, 1956, Reginald, who was represented by counsel, pleaded guilty in the Superior Court to murder in the second degree, and he was thereupon sentenced to the Correctional Institution at Walpole for life, and he is now serving that sentence.

In the present proceedings (petition for a writ of error) Reginald challenges the legality of the sentence imposed. The case was heard by a single justice of this court on the petition, the assignment of error, the return of the Superior Court, and a plea of in nullo est erratum filed by the Commonwealth. The single justice, without decision, reported the case to this court.

Reginald, hereinafter called the petitioner, contends that since the crime of which he was convicted was not punishable by death, and since he was under the age of fourteen when he committed the offence, the provisions of the statutes relating to the treatment of delinquent children (G.L. c. 119, §§ 52-83) were applicable and he should be dealt with only as there prescribed.

The petitioner concedes, as he must, that under the indictment which charged a crime punishable by death, the Superior Court at the outset had jurisdiction to hear the case. Indeed, that jurisdiction was exclusive. This is made clear by G.L. c. 119, §§ 52 and 74. Section 52, as amended by St.1948, c. 310, § 3, defines the term '[d]elinquent child' as 'a child between seven and seventeen who violates any city ordiance or town by-law or commits an offence not punishable by death'. (Emphasis supplied.) Section 74, as appearing in St.1948, c. 310, § 12, provides that 'Criminal proceedings shall not be begun against any child between fourteen and seventeen years of age, except for offences punishable by death, unless proceedings against him as a delinquent child have been begun and dismissed as required by section sixty-one'. ¹ (Emphasis supplied.)

But the petitioner urges that the jurisdiction of the Superior Court terminates if a juvenile defendant is found guilty of a lesser offence or if a plea to such offence is accepted. At that point, we are told, resort must be had to the appropriate court having jurisdiction over delinquent children for further proceedings in conformity with G.L. c. 119, § 52 et seq.

The questions raised by the petitioner are both important and difficult. They have never been passed on by this court; nor are there any decisions interpreting the statutes under consideration that are of any assistance. The chief difficulty arises from an attempt to reconcile the various provisions governing delinquent children, and, more especially, §§ 52, 61, and 74. Most of these difficulties stem from the failure of the statutes to deal with the procedure to be followed in a case of this sort.

In ascertaining the legislative purpose we are mindful of the mandate that §§ 52-63 be construed liberally in order that children, as far as practicable, shall be treated, 'not as criminals, but as children in need of aid, encouragement and guidance.' G.L. c. 119, § 53. We might add that our approach to these sections would be in that spirit quite apart from the statutory command. We are also mindful of the further provision in § 53 that proceedings against children under these sections 'shall not be deemed criminal proceedings.'

The statute has as its principal aims the correction and redemption to society of delinquent children. To accomplish these objectives certain basic changes in the traditional method of dealing with criminal offenders have been made in the case of juveniles. Partly to avoid infringement of the constitutional rights of juveniles and partly to avoid attaching to them the stigma of a criminal, special procedures for the hearing of juvenile offences have been established and the determination to be made is not that of criminal guilt but of delinquency. G.L. c. 119, § 53. See opinion of Jacobs, J., in State v. Monahan, 15 N.J. 34, 104 A.2d 21, 48 A.L.R.2d 641; Shioutakon v. District of Columbia, 98 U.S. App.D.C. 371, 236 F.2d 666, 60 A.L.R.2d 686; Rappeport, Determination of Delinquency in the Juvenile Court: A Suggested Approach, Washington Univ.L.Q. 123 (1958); S. and E. Glueck, One Thousand Juvenile Delinquents, cc. 2, 3, 13; Perkins, Criminal Law, pp. 733-738. Important consequences flow from the recognition of delinquency as something legally and constitutionally different from crime. It means that the statute relating to delinquent children does more than merely set up a procedural alternative to trial in the criminal courts; there are also substantive differences. These substantive differences between delinquency and crime have important consequences, as will presently appear.

The marked tendency in juvenile offender legislation in this Commonwealth has been to widen the application of the special procedures established to deal with delinquent children. See Report of the Special Commission Established to Make a Further Investigation and Study Relative to the Prevention of Child Delinquency, 1948 Senate Doc. No. 470. Specific evidence of the legislative intent to extend the application of the statute relating to delinquent children to all offences of juveniles, other than first degree murder, is available. In 1948, the Legislature narrowed the exception to the jurisdiction of the courts dealing with delinquent children from offences punishable by death or imprisonment for life to offences punishable by death. St.1948, c. 310, § 3. And the comment of the special commission to the proposed § 61 declares in the strongest terms an intent to give the specialized procedure for juvenile offenders the broadest application possible. That comment was as follows: 'This amendment and that in section * * * below require that every child under fourteen, no matter what his offence, unless it calls for capital punishment shall be dealt with as a delinquent and not as a criminal'. (Emphasis supplied.) Report of the Special Commission, p. 32.

Although a clear legislative intent to give a broad application to the specialized juvenile offender procedure is apparent, complex questions of jurisdiction and procedure arise in effectuating that intent. In general it may be said that jurisdiction of a criminal court depends upon the state of affairs existing at the time it is invoked, and if a court has jurisdiction over an offence or cause of action at the commencement of proceedings that jurisdiction will not be defeated by subsequent events, though they are of such a character as would have prevented jurisdiction from attaching in the first instance. Collins v. Robbins, 147 Me. 163, 167, 84 A.2d 536, and cases cited therein. People v. Wilson, 78 Cal.App.2d 108, 120-121, 177 P.2d 567; State ex rel. Hinkle v. Skeen, 138 W.Va. 116, 75 S.E.2d 223, certiorari denied sub nom. Hinkle v. Skeen, 345 U.S. 967, 73 S.Ct. 954, 97 L.Ed. 1385; Hinkle v. Skeen, D.C.N.D.W.Va., 117 F.Supp. 846.

However, this traditional jurisdictional concept is of doubtful value in the peculiar circumstances of this case. This is so because in the situations in which this concept was developed the character of the case is the same in both alternative procedures. Thus in a criminal court having jurisdiction over a felony, but not of a misdemeanor, a conviction for the lessor offence does not change the nature of the case; it still remains a criminal case. Here the change is not from criminal court to criminal court, but from a court having cognizance of criminal offences to a court with jurisdiction over acts of juvenile delinquency. ²

Section 52 of the statutes (c. 119) relating to delinquent children excepts from its operation one who commits an offence punishable by death. Only the acceptance of a plea of guilty or the return of a verdict of guilty can establish whether such an offence has been committed. The acceptance of the petitioner's plea of guilty to murder in the second degree defined his offence as a noncapital one. See Commonwealth v. Coggins, 324 Mass. 552, 555-556, 87 N.E.2d 200. At that point in the proceedings it was established that the petitioner was guilty of conduct which, in view of his age, constituted delinquency and not a crime. This being so, the Superior Court could not impose sentence upon the petitioner. Thereupon further proceedings in the appropriate District Court, as hereinafter indicated, would be in order.

In opposition to the foregoing conclusion the Commonwealth urges that § 83 enables the Superior Court to deal with a case of this sort in a manner that would accomplish the statutory purpose. That section confers discretion upon the judge to commit a boy between fourteen and eighteen convicted in the Superior Court of an offence punishable by imprisonment to the custody of the youth service board until he becomes twenty-three years of age, in lieu of immediately committing him to a penal institution. But we tnink the answer to this assertion is that the statutory scheme shows that $83 applies only to such cases as reach the Superior Court...