Thursday, 4:30 PM
SJC rules that 9/11 terrorism law applies to Marshfield teens
By John R. Ellement, Globe Staff
In a key victory for Plymouth prosecutors, the state's high court outlined today how a new law aimed at terrorist conspiracies should apply to two teenagers charged with plotting a Columbine-style attack on Marshfield High School in 2004.
In a unanimous opinion, the Supreme Judicial Court said the law was crafted to punish people who discuss violent attacks on public places or against individuals. The SJC said for someone to be convicted, prosecutors do not have to prove that the intended target somehow learns about the attack. The court said prosecutors cannot use evidence from co-conspirators to prove their case, but can draw on witnesses who learned about the threats. Today's ruling is believed to be the first time the SJC provided guidance to judges on how to interpret the five-year-old statute.
The decision stems from the prosecution of Tobin Kerns, who is being tried in juvenile court, and Joseph Nee, who has been charged as an adult. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Justice John M. Greaney noted in the decision he wrote on behalf of the court that the law was passed one year after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"Reading the plain language of (the law) in the context of the statute as a whole, and noting the fact that the date of the statute's emergency enactment was 2002 ... we conclude that the Legislature intended to punish the communication of any threat that a deadly, dangerous, or destructive device, substance, or item is or will be present or used at a specified place or location,'' Greaney wrote. "The offense does not encompass a requirement that the person to whom the threat is communicated be a potential target of the threatened crime.''
He also wrote, "Read straightforwardly, the statute protects any ‘place or location’ from threats that deadly, dangerous, or destructive weapons will be present or used, regardless of an actual ability or intention to carry out the threat.''
Today's ruling stems from the Kern prosecution, but is likely to also have an impact on Nee's case. Kern's bench trial before Juvenile Court Judge Louis Coffin ended last fall. Coffin threw out one key charge, that of promoting anarchy, but has not yet issued a verdict on two remaining charges of conspiracy to commit mass murder and threatening to use deadly weapons. Coffin indicated in court hearings that he believed prosecutors had to show that a threat was communicated to a victim in order to convict, an idea endorsed by Kern's attorney.
But prosecutors disagreed and appealed to the SJC, which today ordered Coffin to use their view of the law when he decides Kern's guilt or innocence.
"Put simply," Greaney wrote, the two laws protect “particular people and their possessions (and) protects places or locations and, ultimately, the public."
