- Commonwealth Harding, SJC-12875
The Supreme Judicial Court sought the following amicus solicitations:
“Whether the defendant, a sex offender subject to registration with the Sex Offender Registry Boar, was obligated to register his customer’s home address as a place of employment, where the defendant performed services there as a home-improvement contractor but maintained a workshop at his home in another town.”
“Whether the defendant violated the probation condition that he not “work, volunteer, [or] reside with children under 16 years old” by working on-site at his customers’ residence while the owners’ infant child was present, where the defendant had no contact with the child.”
The amicus brief will attack the statute as to vagueness as applied to those in this situation and the burden that complying with the statute puts on individuals who are trying to obtain certain types of employment.
- Adoption of Jermani H., SJC-12880
The Supreme Judicial Court sought the following amicus solicitation:
“Whether, in a proceeding concerning the care and protection of a child, the mother’s domestic violence counselor was wrongly allowed to testify to the mother’s confidential communications, where such communications are privileged under G.L. c.233, §20K; whether the mother waived the privilege by signing releases allowing her domestic violence counselor to communicate with two named DCF social workers involved with her case.”
The issue in this case is whether or not signing a limited release for social workers to speak to domestic violence counselor on a case pierces the privilege allowing the Department of Children and Family attorney to call the therapist as a witness. The brief will explain to the SJC that a ruling in support of the privilege will benefit all parents and children in child welfare cases. It will allow parents to work with domestic violence counselors without fear that their private communications will be admitted against them in termination proceedings. It will also allow DCF workers to confer with counselors (if a release is signed) in order to better assess the parents’ needs and help them access additional services.
- Commonwealth D.R., DAR-27318
Approval was sought and approved to file an amicus letter in support of the juvenile’s application for direct appellate review and if granted to file an amicus brief. The letter will point out that Massachusetts is one of three states that criminalizes all sexual intercourse between individuals under sixteen and would urge the court to address the constitutional challenges left open in Commonwealth v. Wilbur W., 479 Mass. 397 (2018).
If the DAR is allowed the substantive brief would 1) urge the court to find that the statutory rape statute is unconstitutional as applied to youths under 16 engaging in consensual sex, where both are members of the party that the statute is meant to protect and 2) would argue the current strict liability enforcement leaves it up to police and prosecutors to decide who is the victim and who is the rapist in the case.
- In the Mater of J.P., SJC-12872
The SJC took the case sua sponte and immediate issued the following amicus solicitation:
“In an involuntary civil commitment case, whether for the purposes of the second prong of the definition of “likelihood of serious harm” G.L., c. 123, section 1, the requirement that “others are placed in reasonable fear of violent behavior and serious physical harm to them” is objective or subjective in nature, and whether, for the purposes of the third prong definition of “likelihood of serious harm” homelessness is a factor which may support a “very substantial risk of harm.””
The issues the brief will focus on are: 1) when used as evidence justifying civil commitment, is the standard for determining whether others are placed in “reasonable fear” of violence an objective or a subjective one and 2) whether homelessness in and of itself presents a very substantial risk of physical harm as to justify civil commitment.