The Constitution and Philip Chism

Attorneys Ed Ryan and Randy Chapman weigh in on the teen's defense, which argues he has a constitutional right to be tried as a juvenile

Last October, the community of Danvers, Massachusetts, was horrified by a brutal crime after high school teacher Colleen Ritzer, 24, was raped and murdered.

The defendant in the case, Philip Chism, was one of her students. He was 14 at the time of the murder, and now faces trial as an adult at the age of 15. Wednesday, his attorney filed a surprising claim arguing he has a constitutional right to be tried as a juvenile.

NECN legal analyst Randy Chapman says children over the age of 14 will be tried as an adult after the horrific Eddie O'Brien case in the mid 1990s.

"That was a situation where there was an old transfer hearing process. The SJC struck it down, it kept evolving and there were constitutional challenges. Eventually, they passed a law and said that all juveniles that are charged with first and second degree murder will be tried as an adult," he said.

Ed Ryan, former president of the Massachusetts Bar Association, says while the O'Brien case sparked the legislation, the law was based on "a national hysteria about growing juvenile homicides, which turned out to be completely false."

Ryan says he supports Chism's argument, saying that the mandatory goes against several Supreme Judicial Court rulings saying that juvenile offenders are not the same as adult offenders.

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