In re Hilary

The issue of first impression that we decide in these consolidated cases from the Worcester County and Essex County Divisions of the Juvenile Court Department, which are here on a reservation and report, without decision, from a single justice of this court, is whether, after a child is adjudicated a child in need of services (CHINS), a parent is entitled to counsel at the dispositional phase of the proceeding, if custody of the child is at issue. G. L. c. 119, § 39G. Two Juvenile Court judges denied, among other things, the indigent mothers’ requests for such court-appointed counsel. Because…