Indeterminate sentences vacated on appeal

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A divided Supreme Judicial Court has vacated the sentences imposed on two defendants who pleaded guilty to violating G.L.c. 269, §10(m), which prohibits the unlawful possession of a large-capacity firearm or feeding device.

“In Commonwealth v. Rodriguez, 482 Mass. 366, 373-374 (2019), the court examined the minimum end of an indeterminate sentence and held that an individual convicted of a §10(m) violation ‘lawfully may be sentenced to State prison for not less than one year nor more than two and one-half years.’ The issue here is the maximum end of a §10(m) indeterminate sentence and, specifically, whether a judge may sentence a defendant convicted of violating §10(m) to a maximum term of one year and one day. In the two cases before us, the defendants, Stefanos Psikarakis and Maurice Smith, after pleading guilty to violating §10(m), were each sentenced to from one year to one year and one day in State prison,” Justice Frank M. Gaziano wrote for the majority.

“We hold that the sentencing range for a violation of §10(m) requires a maximum term of incarceration of at least two and one-half years. Accordingly, as the maximum term of each defendant’s indeterminate sentence is less than two and one-half years, the defendants’ sentences are both unlawful,” Gaziano wrote.

Justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt dissented.

“Because neither stare decisis nor our canons of construction require the court’s novel construction of the phrase ‘for not less than two and one-half years’ in G.L.c. 269, §10(m) (§10[m]), as the minimum of the maximum sentence that a sentencing judge may impose, I dissent,” Wendlandt wrote.

The 30-page decision is Commonwealth v. Psikarakis; Commonwealth v. Smith, Lawyers Weekly No. 10-028-26.

Click here to read the full text of the opinion.