Coffin v. Superintendent, Massachusetts Treatment Center

(dissenting, with whom Ireland and Gants, JJ., join). When the Commonwealth filed its petition to commit Coffin as a sexually dangerous person on March 1, 2006, he was in custody under criminal sentence imposed by a court with jurisdiction to do so. Neither our decision in Commonwealth v. Pagan, 445 Mass. 161 (2005), to which Coffin was not a party, nor the filing of his motion to “correct” his sentence voided or terminated his then lawful confinement.1 See Lynch, petitioner, 379 Mass. 757, 760 (1980) (where defendant serving sentence resulting from unconstitutional revocation of parole,…