Lynn teen curfew facing high court test

LYNN – City lawyers have joined counterparts from Lowell and other communities in challenging a court bid to overturn youth curfews.The state Supreme Judicial Court hears the challenge today. At issue is a 20-year-old Lowell man?s claim that Lowell police violated his constitutional rights four years ago when they arrested him and jailed him overnight for walking on city streets after midnight.The man and another individual arrested in 2004 are asking the state?s highest court to strike down Lowell?s 15-year-old curfew, saying it illegally restricts their right to free movement.Lynn city attorneys last week signed onto to the legal document filed by Lowell attorneys in support of the curfew.?We support the city of Lowell. The curfew is an effective tool to keep crime down,” said Assistant City Solicitor Richard Vitali.Like Lowell, Lynn introduced a curfew in 1994 in response to shootings and stabbings that occurred across the Greater Boston region in the summer of that year.The local curfew bars anyone under 18 from local streets between midnight and 6 a.m. There are exceptions to the curfew, including circumstances in which teens are accompanied by a parent; traveling to or from religious activities or standing on a sidewalk next to their home or a next-door neighbor?s home.Attorneys for the men bringing the case, whose names were not made public because they were juveniles at the time, say there is no proof the curfew has accomplished what its supporters said it would do: curb crime and protect juveniles.”It?s just kind of a shot in the dark but when you are restricting someone?s constitutional rights, that?s not good enough,” said Boston attorney James Sultan.Lowell is one of more than 200 cities and towns across the country that passed curfews in the 1990s in response to concerns about gang violence and juvenile crime.Legal challenges to the curfews have had mixed results. Curfews in Dallas, Washington, D.C. and Charlottesville, Va. have been upheld by courts, but curfews in Vernon, Conn., Rochester, N.Y., and San Diego have been ruled unconstitutional.Teen curfew violators in Lynn are brought to the police station and their parents are called down to the Washington Street station.?This is a chance to put parents on notice about their kid?s behavior. It?s an effective tool; it?s not an arrest. It takes people who are essentially children out of harm?s way,” Lynn Police Chief John Suslak said.According to police statistics, 103 juveniles were in violation of the curfew last year compared to 117 in 2007 and 95 in 2006.?We see it all the time: 13-, 14-, 15-year-olds out at one or two in the morning. It?s troublesome,” Suslak said.The challenge to Lowell?s ordinance is the first time the Massachusetts high court has been asked to rule on the constitutionality of a curfew.Sultan said the boy who was held in jail overnight was not causing a disturbance when he was approached by a police officer who was on routine patrol. The boy, who was visiting from Somerville, told police he was on his way to see a friend.Lowell police say they usually don?t arrest teens they find out during the curfew hours, but instead drive them home or to the police station, where their parents are called and asked to come pick them up.From 2005 to 2007, 28 juveniles were arrested for curfew violations in Lowell. Last year, only two were arrested.Supporters say curfews give police a useful tool.”We had some serious gang issues. It was almost constant, calls about five, six, seven or eight teenagers walking down one of the main streets at 11:30 at night,” said Lowell Mayor Edward Caulfield, a supporter of the curfew.Opponents also say it has a disproportionate impact on minorities, particularly Cambodian youth, who may not understand why they are being stopped by police. Lowell has the second-largest Cambodian immigrant community in the country.”Many of them have parents and grandparents who are refugees of the Khmer Rouge, and that experience results in f