Family Court judge upheld and chastized in high court ruling

4-30-2010 Rhode Island:

PROVIDENCE — Family Court judges have the right to place juveniles who are convicted of adult crimes in residential treatment facilities instead of the more secure Training School until they reach age 19, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

But Supreme Court Justice Maureen McKenna Goldberg, one of the four justices who sided with the teenage offender in the case, excoriated Jeremiah S. Jeremiah Jr., the chief judge of the Family Court, for the way he dealt with the case.

“The manner in which this case was handled is of concern; neither justice nor any party was served by the autocratic rulings of the trial justice,” she said in her stinging, concurring opinion. “The Family Court long has enjoyed a reputation for cutting-edge rehabilitative programs for youthful offenders, and its justices are among the most respected jurists in this state,” Goldberg wrote. “However, that tradition was not reflected in this case. Hopefully, what occurred in this case will not be repeated.”

The court’s unanimous ruling came in the case of Paul Harrison, 18, formerly of Warwick, who in December 2007, sexually assaulted a young woman whom he described as a friend. He was 16 at the time he was charged by Warwick police. [The court identified him in its decision because he was prosecuted for an adult crime.] The attorney general’s office moved to waive Harrison into the Superior Court to have him tried as an adult because of the serious nature of the offense.

But as part of a plea deal, Harrison agreed to admit his guilt and plead no contest to an adult charge of first-degree sexual assault in a “certification” proceeding in the Family Court. This would allow him to serve whatever prison time a Family Court judge imposed in the Training School, up to his 19th birthday, and then be transferred for the remainder of his term to the Adult Correctional Institutions — unless the judge at some time later time suspended the last part of his sentence.

Harrison pleaded no contest on June 16, 2008, then came back before Jeremiah on Jan. 12, 2009 for a periodic review. At that hearing, the state’s prosecutor and the public defender agreed that Harrison was doing well at the Training School, where he’d been held for more than nine months.

He’d received a GED, had made progress in a sex-offender treatment program and “was free of serious disciplinary citations,” the high court said. Harrison’s lawyer told Jeremiah that when the case next came up for review, he might consider moving Harrison to a “step-down program” such as a group-home placement. The public defender mentioned several possibilities, noting that Ocean Tides, a residential treatment program, had earlier accepted Harrison into its program.

“Without further inquiry,” wrote Supreme Court Justice Francis X. Flaherty, “Jeremiah ordered Harrison’s immediate transfer to Ocean Tides as a temporary community placement.” He told Harrison he was giving him “a break” because he was doing so well in the Training School.

The prosecutor objected, noting that the Training School was recommending that the teen be remanded there. But Jeremiah shot back: “I don’t care what the Training School recommends. I’m the boss here. If Ocean Tides will take him, he is to go.”

The state filed a motion asking Jeremiah to reconsider his ruling and later, when Jeremiah rebuffed the prosecutor, Alison DeCosta, she went to the Supreme Court to try to block the transfer. The Supreme Court stayed Jeremiah’s order, noting that he “neither considered any testimony or other evidence nor offered any legal rationale in rendering his decision.”

It ordered Jeremiah to conduct an evidentiary hearing on the matter of Harrison’s placement. The hearing was held and Jeremiah, after hearing testimony from an Ocean Tides director, again ordered Harrison moved to the unlocked facility. The high court temporarily blocked the transfer again, but on March 12, 2009, ordered that Harrison be relocated to Ocean Tides but be deemed ineligible for weekend passes while it took up the state’s appeal.

In rebuking Jeremiah — the Family Court’s chief judge for the last 23 years who is no longer hearing cases and has set a retirement date of June 30 — Goldberg said the record shows that he “appears to have had no understanding of the nature of the charge” that Harrison was accused of “or the legal significance of statutory certification,” a means of adjudicating serious juvenile offenders in a more harsh way than through the normally anonymous juvenile justice system but less harshly than through Superior Court prosecution.

The General Assembly enacted certification laws in 1990 as a means to allow minors charged with heinous crimes to be tried as an adult in Family Court, where the judge has broader options in sentencing. This allows for rehabilitation as well as confinement.

About 10 juveniles are prosecuted this way each year, Michael J. Healey, spokesman for the attorney general’s office, said Thursday. ..Source.. Tracy Breton