When a Massachusetts child between 12 and 18 is charged, the case usually goes to the juvenile court department as a delinquency complaint, not an adult criminal case. A judge hears the evidence and may find the child delinquent only on proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Some serious charges against children 14 and older can be brought by indictment, and the result may then include an adult sentence.
Most parents facing this have had a phone call from a police station or a summons arrive in the mail, and are now trying to work out whether their child will come home tonight, what the court date means, and whether this will follow their son or daughter into school and adulthood. Those are the right questions, and Massachusetts law answers several of them more precisely than people expect.
This page walks through a Massachusetts juvenile case in the order it usually moves: who the juvenile court covers, arrest and release, detention, the hearing that decides the case, the outcomes the law allows, youthful offender cases and the limited path to adult court, and record sealing.
How Massachusetts Juvenile Court Works
Massachusetts law defines a "delinquent child" as a child between 12 and 18 years of age who commits any offense against a law of the commonwealth, with exclusions: a civil infraction, a violation of a city ordinance or town by-law, and a first offense of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine, up to six months in a jail or house of correction, or both. "Delinquency" is the juvenile-court term for that conduct; the case is heard in "court," which the statute defines as a division of the juvenile court department.
A Massachusetts case usually begins with a complaint, the written charging document. When a complaint is made that a child between 12 and 18 is delinquent, the court examines the complainant and any witnesses on oath, puts the complaint in writing and has the complainant sign it. Other states call the same document a petition.
Massachusetts law also says that, except as its juvenile sections provide, no criminal proceeding shall be begun against a person for an offense committed before the eighteenth birthday. Its exception reaches certain motor-vehicle ordinance and by-law violations by children between 16 and 18 that cannot be heard as civil motor vehicle infractions.
A few more terms recur below:
- Adjudication: the court's decision on whether the allegations are proved.
- Disposition: what the court orders afterward.
- Probation: court-ordered supervision in the community by a probation officer.
- Diversion: a resolution outside the usual path to adjudication.
- Sealing: limits who can see a record.
- Youthful offender: explained further down, a child 14 or older facing certain serious charges who may receive an adult sentence.
California calls a child under juvenile-court jurisdiction a ward; Massachusetts law speaks instead of a delinquent child.
Arrest, Questioning, and the Right to an Attorney
Police questioning is often the first moment a family learns there is a case at all, and it is frequently over before a parent arrives. What Massachusetts requires before police may question a minor in custody, and whether a particular statement can later be challenged, depends on the facts of the questioning and on Massachusetts rules this page does not set out. California, by contrast, has a statute requiring a minor of a certain age to consult a lawyer before custodial questioning; the California juvenile defense page explains that rule. This page states no rule for a child's conduct during questioning.
After an arrest, Massachusetts law sets out a notice duty. Whenever a child between 12 and 18 is arrested and the court is not in session, the officer in charge must immediately notify at least one of the child's parents, or, if there is no parent, the guardian or custodian the child lives with, or the Department of Children and Families if the child is in its care. Pending that notice, the child is held under the statute's detention provisions.
The first court appearance on a complaint is commonly called an arraignment, where the child is told of the charge. When it is scheduled and what is said there depend on the court.
Parents often ask whether anything should be kept from a child's own attorney. As a general legal principle, communications between a client and that client's own lawyer are protected by the attorney-client privilege. That principle concerns a lawyer actually representing the child; nothing sent through this site is promised to be confidential or privileged.
Detention Hearings and Release in Massachusetts
Release is the first question most parents ask, and the statute addresses it directly. Under Massachusetts law, when the officer in charge of a police station or town lockup accepts a parent's, guardian's, custodian's or Department of Children and Families representative's written promise to be responsible for the child's presence in court, the child shall be released to the person giving that promise.
The same section sets out when a child between 14 and 18 is instead held pending a court appearance: where the arresting officer requests detention in writing, and where a court issuing an arrest warrant directs in it that the child be held in safekeeping. A child so held is detained in a police station, a town lockup, a Department of Youth Services detention home or another home that department approves. Police stations, lockups and places of detention must provide a separate and distinct place for children, and nothing in the section permits a child between 14 and 18 to be held in a jail or house of correction.
Once the case is in court, a child between 12 and 18 who is held for examination, trial or continuance and cannot furnish bail is committed by the court to the care of the Department of Youth Services or to a probation officer, a parent, a guardian or another responsible person who provides for the child's safekeeping. Release to a parent is therefore an option the statute names, not one any person can promise.
For a child 14 or older committed to the department, the court may recommend secure detention only if it determines that the child is a fugitive from another jurisdiction on a delinquency petition, or is charged with an offense the Commonwealth may indict as a youthful offender case, and in either case that the child is already detained or on conditional release in another delinquency proceeding, has a recent record of willful failure to appear in juvenile court, or has a recent record of violent conduct resulting in physical injury to others. A child committed to the department to await examination or trial must be returned to court within fifteen days after the commitment order, and final disposition is then made by adjudication or otherwise, unless the court finds the interest of the child and the public require otherwise. A hearing on detention is commonly called a detention hearing; any other timing or factors depend on the court.
The Adjudication Hearing: How a Juvenile Case Is Decided
At the hearing of a complaint, the court shall hear the testimony of any witnesses who appear and take the evidence produced. The standard is the same one an adult criminal trial uses: only if the allegations are proved beyond a reasonable doubt may the child be adjudged a delinquent child. Whether a particular case is heard by a judge alone or with a jury depends on the court and the case.
Massachusetts law gives the court a second option even when the allegations are proved. Instead of adjudging the child delinquent, the court may continue the case without a finding and place the child on probation, but only with the consent of the child and at least one parent or guardian. That probation may run until the child reaches 18, or 19 if the case is disposed of after the eighteenth birthday, or 20 if disposed of after the nineteenth.
The words matter. The statute calls the result an adjudication as a delinquent child, and for a delinquency complaint it speaks of commitment and probation rather than a sentence. A youthful offender case on an indictment is different, and the statute does use the word sentence there.
The juvenile court's authority also does not simply stop at 18. Massachusetts continues juvenile court jurisdiction over children who turn 18 while their cases are pending, including remands and retrials after appeals, continuances, probation and cases placed on file. A child who commits an offense before 18 and is not apprehended until between the eighteenth and nineteenth birthdays is dealt with as if still under 18.
Disposition: What the Court Can Order
After a child is adjudicated delinquent on a complaint, Massachusetts law lists three things the court may do: place the case on file, place the child in the care of a probation officer for such time and on such conditions as it deems appropriate, or commit the child to the custody of the Department of Youth Services. In list form, the options are:
- File: the case is placed on file.
- Probation: the child is placed in the care of a probation officer, for a time and on conditions the court sets.
- Commitment: the child is committed to the custody of the Department of Youth Services.
The Department of Youth Services is the Massachusetts agency into whose custody the juvenile court commits a child; commitment means the court places the child in that department's custody.
The probation or commitment period is capped by the same age limits described above for a continuance without a finding, which depend on how old the child is when the case is disposed of. A separate provision says nothing in it authorizes commitment to the Department of Youth Services after the twentieth birthday, except in indicted cases.
Probation conditions are set by the court for the individual case; what they include depends on the court and the facts. Restitution, community service, curfews and school or counseling requirements may be raised in a case, but this page states none of them as a Massachusetts rule.
Diversion, meaning a resolution that steps outside the usual path to adjudication, is offered in different forms in different states. Whether any form of diversion is available in a Massachusetts case depends on the charge, the child's history and the court. It is distinct from the statutory continuance without a finding described above, which still follows proof at a hearing and requires the child's and a parent's consent. Other states' versions differ; the Pennsylvania juvenile defense and New Jersey juvenile defense pages describe theirs.
Waiting to learn what a disposition will be is often the hardest stretch for a family, because school, work and home life are on hold. The statute's list at least shows what the court may and may not order.
Transfer to Adult Court in Massachusetts
States differ widely in how a minor's case can reach adult court, and Massachusetts uses two routes rather than a general transfer hearing.
The first is the youthful offender track.
Youthful offender, in plain words: a person who, while between 14 and 18, committed an offense that would mean state prison for an adult, and who also meets one of three further conditions. The case can end in an adult sentence.
Massachusetts defines a youthful offender as a person subject to an adult or juvenile sentence for an offense committed between ages 14 and 18 that would be punishable by imprisonment in the state prison if committed by an adult, where the person:
- (a) has previously been committed to the Department of Youth Services, or
- (b) committed an offense involving the infliction or threat of serious bodily harm, or
- (c) committed one of certain other violations the definition lists by section.
For those cases, the Commonwealth may proceed by complaint in juvenile court or in a juvenile session of a district court, or by indictment, and the court proceeds on the complaint or the indictment in accordance with sections 55 to 72 of chapter 119.
If a child is adjudicated a youthful offender on an indictment, the court may impose the punishment provided by law for the offense, which the statute defines as any sentence an adult could receive from a district or superior court judge. Before doing so, the court must hold a sentencing recommendation hearing and make a written finding, with reasons, about what would best protect present and long-term public safety. The options the statute lists include a sentence provided by law and a commitment to the Department of Youth Services until age 21. No youthful offender may be committed to the department after the twenty-first birthday.
The second route is narrower. The juvenile court has no jurisdiction over a person 14 to 18 at the time of the offense who is charged with murder in the first or second degree; those charges, and other offenses properly joined with them, proceed in the usual course of criminal proceedings. Maryland and Illinois handle these questions differently; the Maryland juvenile defense page describes waiver there.
Sealing a Massachusetts Juvenile Record
A Massachusetts juvenile record is not sealed automatically at 18, and it does not disappear. Sealing starts with a request: a person with a delinquency record on file with the commissioner of probation may ask the commissioner to seal it on a form the commissioner furnishes, signed under the penalties of perjury.
The commissioner must comply if three conditions are met:
- Any court appearance or disposition to be sealed, including court supervision, probation, commitment or parole, ended at least three years before the request.
- In the three preceding years the person has not been adjudicated delinquent or found guilty of any criminal offense in Massachusetts, other than motor vehicle offenses with a penalty of no more than a fifty-dollar fine, and has not been imprisoned under sentence or committed as a delinquent in Massachusetts.
- The form states that the person has not, outside Massachusetts, been adjudicated delinquent or found guilty of a criminal offense (with the same motor vehicle exception) and has not been imprisoned or committed as a delinquent in any state or county within the preceding three years.
Sealing changes what others are told. The commissioner reports a sealed record to inquiring police and court agencies only as a "sealed delinquency record over three years old," and to other authorized persons as "no record." The information remains available to a judge or probation officer who affirms that the person has since been adjudicated delinquent, or has pleaded guilty or been found guilty and is awaiting sentence for a later crime, and then only for use in imposing sentence. Whether a youthful offender sentence or another serious outcome affects sealing depends on rules beyond this provision.
School, college admissions, employment and financial aid consequences can follow a juvenile case and depend on the facts and on rules this page does not cover. Immigration consequences are governed by immigration law this page does not cover.
What Juvenile Justice Defense Group Covers — and What It Does Not
This site covers juvenile cases: questioning and arrest of minors, detention, adjudication, disposition, probation, transfer to adult court and record sealing, in Massachusetts and in other states. This page does not cover immigration proceedings, school discipline with no criminal charge, civil commitment, an adult's criminal case, or a dependency case in which a parent is accused of abuse or neglect.
Discussing a Massachusetts Juvenile Case
A Massachusetts juvenile case turns on details that are easy to miss in a frightening week: whether the case came in by complaint or by indictment, whether the child is at home on a parent's promise or committed to the Department of Youth Services, how old the child was on the date of the alleged offense, and when the next court date falls. A consultation can cover the charge, the hearing dates, whether the child is detained and the stage the case has reached. This page explains Massachusetts law in general and does not state another state's rules.
Families who want to discuss a case like this with an attorney can request a consultation about a child's juvenile case through Juvenile Justice Defense Group.