The Appeals Court reversed a Section 35 commitment order from the Norfolk County Division of the Juvenile Court.
According to court documents, a juvenile (identified as M.S.) was committed to Motivating Youth Recovery in Worcester after his mother petitioned the court pursuant to G.L. c. 123, Sec. 35.
On the day of the commitment hearing, the mother told the juvenile court judge that her son had a long history of marijuana used.
Additionally, a court clinician reviewed M.S.’s hospital records which allegedly corroborated the mother’s statements.
The judge committed M.S. and he appealed the decision.
The Appeals Court reversed the commitment order for two reasons.
First, the judge partly relied on hearsay evidence without making a finding on the hearsay’s reliability.
Although the judge relied on hearsay to conclude that M.S. had a substance use disorder, the judge did not make any findings on the reliability of this information. Instead, the judge stated, “I credit the testimony of Dr. Persing. I credit the testimony of his mother. The hearsay testimony that I did hear has been corroborated by other sources.” While the “requirement that a judge make explicit” findings about the reliability of any hearsay relied on “need not impose a significant burden on the hearing judge,” it does require more than what the judge did here.
Second, the evidence presented at the hearing was not sufficient to order commitment.
Moreover, even if the hearsay statements were appropriately considered by the judge as sufficiently reliable, the evidence failed to establish that M.S. had a substance use disorder. A substance use disorder is “marked by ‘chronic or habitual consumption’ to the extent that using the substance either ‘substantially injures’ the individual’s health or ‘substantially interferes with the person’s social or economic functioning,’ or results in the individual having ‘lost the power of self-control over the use’ of the substance.” Matter of a Minor, 484 Mass. at 302, quoting G. L. c. 123, Ā§ 35. The fact that M.S. used marijuana daily, received an unsubstantiated cannabis use disorder diagnosis, and tested positive for cannabis on various occasions does not establish that he had a substance use disorder.
The full text of the slip opinion is attached below.