Session Laws

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

SECTION 1. The second paragraph of section 58 of chapter 119 of the General Laws, as appearing in the 1990 Official Edition, is hereby amended by striking out the first sentence and inserting in place thereof the following sentence:- If a child is adjudicated a delinquent child, the court may place the case on file or may place the child in the care of a probation officer for such time and on such conditions as it deems appropriate or may commit him to the custody of the department of youth services, but the probationary or commitment period shall not be for a period longer than until such child attains the age of eighteen, or age nineteen in the case of a child whose case is disposed of after he has attained his eighteenth birthday; provided, however, that a child adjudicated a delinquent child by reason of having violated section one of chapter two hundred and sixty-five shall be committed in accordance with the provisions of section seventy-two.

SECTION 2. Section 60 of said chapter 119, as amended by section 1 of chapter 488 of the acts of 1991, is hereby amended by striking out, in lines 7 and 8, the words "in determining bail and in imposing sentence in any criminal proceeding".

SECTION 3. The fifth paragraph of section 61 of said chapter 119, as appearing in section 188 of chapter 286 of the acts of 1992, is hereby amended by striking out the first sentence and inserting in place thereof the following sentence:- If the offense alleged is murder in the first or second degree, the commonwealth may proceed by filing a complaint in juvenile court or in a juvenile session of a district court, as the case may be, or by indictment as provided by chapter two hundred and seventy-seven.

SECTION 4. The third paragraph of section 72 of said chapter 119, as appearing in section 7 of chapter 488 of the acts of 1991, is hereby amended by inserting after the word "child", in line 1, the following words:- who has passed his fourteenth birthday.

SECTION 5. Said section 72 of said chapter 119, as so appearing, is hereby further amended by adding the following paragraph:-

The court shall not suspend the commitment of a child adjudicated to be a delinquent child by reason of having violated section one of chapter two hundred and sixty-five; nor shall the provisions of section one hundred and twenty-nine, one hundred and twenty-nine C or one hundred and twenty-nine D of chapter one hundred and twenty-seven apply to such commitment.

SECTION 6. Said chapter 119 is hereby further amended by striking out section 83, as appearing in the 1990 Official Edition, and inserting in place thereof the following section:-

Section 83. The indictment of any person bound over under section sixty-one shall be tried before the superior court in the same manner as any criminal proceeding and, upon conviction, such person may be sentenced to such punishment as is provided by law for the offense, or placed on probation, with or without a suspended sentence for such period of time and under such conditions as the court may order. If such person has not attained his eighteenth birthday prior to a finding or plea of guilty for an offense, other than a violation of section one of chapter two hundred and sixty-five, the superior court may, in its discretion and in lieu of a judgment of conviction and sentence, adjudicate such person as a delinquent child and make such disposition as may be made by a district court or a juvenile court under section fifty-eight.

SECTION 7. The last paragraph of section 4 of chapter 263 of the General Laws, added by section 10 of chapter 488 of the acts of 1991, is hereby amended by adding the following sentence:- The clerk of the superior court in which an indictment of such juvenile is returned shall promptly remit the indictment to the clerk of the juvenile court or the juvenile session of the district court, as the case may be, in which such indictment is to be tried.