Blodgett expresses concern following ruling against no parole for juveniles

SALEM – Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett expressed concern for victims’ families and vowed to fight for their interests after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled this week that life sentences without parole for juvenile offenders are unconstitutional.”I’m concerned for some of these victims’ families who believe they have had some finality in cases and are trying to move on and repair their lives, and now with these decision – on Christmas Eve day – their lives have been turned upside down,” Blodgett said in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon. “We will start contacting families immediately to see if we can put together our best efforts to see if we can fight these parole hearings, to keep people who’ve committed the most atrocious and extreme murders incarcerated.”The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s decision came after a 2012 US Supreme Court decision that ruled sentencing those under 18 to life without parole violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishments.”The Supreme Judicial Court ruled in two cases in which 17 year olds were convicted of murder, including one that dates to 1981, according to the Associated Press.The SJC echoed the Supreme Court in that case, saying life without parole for “juvenile homicide offenders … is an unconstitutionally disproportionate punishment when viewed in the context of the unique characteristics of juvenile offenders.”The ruling came in the case of Gregory Diatchenko, who was convicted in 1981 of first-degree murder (which carries an automatic life-without-parole sentence) for fatally stabbing a man in Kenmore Square in Boston.Because a juvenile’s brain is not fully developed, a judge cannot accurately determine whether a juvenile is “irretrievably depraved,” the court said in the Diatchenko decision.The SJC sent the case back to a lower court and said Diatchenko was eligible for parole.The other case involved Marquise Brown, who was convicted last year of first-degree murder for fatally shooting another teen at a Framingham state park in 2009. Brown has not yet been sentenced.Life without parole for a juvenile is “uniquely akin to the death penalty in that both punishments condemn the defendant to die in prison,” the high court wrote in the Brown decision.Blodgett said the SJC rulings represented a “sea change” in the law.”You could have a person who is 14 who committed a horrible crime, and not a crime of passion, but a crime with premeditation and atrocities and he could be eligible for parole before the age of 30,” Blodgett said, citing the 1991 first-degree-murder conviction of Beverly teenager Jamie Fuller.”In a case like that, we will fight that eligibility to the end, given the circumstances,” Blodgett said.(Blodgett said he could not comment on the implications of the ruling on the case against the most recent juvenile charged with first-degree murder, Philip Chism, who is charged with the crime in connection with the death of Danvers High School teacher Colleen Ritzer. Blodgett said Chism’s case is ongoing.)Blodgett also cited a couple of concerns with the implications of the ruling.”(The rulings) talk about how they give a lot of credence to the scientific research that the adolescent brain isn’t fully developed,” Blodgett said. He said that didn’t necessarily mean the research was wrong, but said “I’m a little concerned by the fact that it’s new research.”Mainly, however, Blodgett expressed concern for victims’ families.He said that the state took the Supreme Court ruling further by ruling that the unconstitutionality of the life-without-parole sentence should be deemed retroactive. This means not only that juveniles cannot be convicted of life without parole going forward, but those previously convicted with that sentence when juveniles will be now eligible for parole.A person convicted of second-degree murder (the penultimate punishment in terms of highest level of seriousness in Massachusetts) is eligible for parole